Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Dark Caves, Malaysia- An Adventure Tour

Caving also known as spelunking is all about exploring caves and its environment. The challenges involves in the activity depend on the cave being visited, but often include the climbing, crawling, squeezing through small holes, pitching and sliding.

Dark Caves which is located in Batu Caves is located about 15Kms from Kuala Lumpur city, Malaysia. Among the majestic four million years old limestone ranges in Batu Caves, lies this nature’s most astonishing wonders. Rises 300 feet from ground, the Dark Caves seem both magnificent and enthralling. Made up of a 2 km leading passage and five chambers, the Dark Cave forms one of nature’s most fragile and distinctive eco-systems in Malaysia.  Stalactites extending from the cave’s ceiling and stalagmites raising out from the floor forms a unique and intricate formations such as cave curtains, flow stones, cave pearls and scallops which have taken thousands of years to gradually form and also not stop thinking about the breathtaking gaur pool formations as well.



It was a 3 hour educational and adventure journey for a group of 11 of us to explore this extraordinary cave’s atmosphere and learn more on phenomenal efforts by nature itself. Currently dark caves is being managed by Cave Management Group Sdn Bhd. Prior booking is required and only guided tour is available for the adventure tour. MrDon (mobile number: +6012-2873797/ email: donhaider@cave-management.com). A tour charge depends on count of persons for the trip and differs for locals and foreigners. Age 13 and above should fit this adventure well.

Our tour started at 10am with a short briefing by the guide. The torch light/head light is a necessity in this cave, and we switched them on and proceeded further eagerly into the cave. The first half of the tour was more educational on the formation of the caves. Explanations were given on how the stalactites, stalagmites, the flowstones, straws and gaur pool was formed as we walked pass these amazing wonders, and also we took interest to know on the fauna of the tropical caves which forms the cave’s food chain and also some of them were only found in Dark Caves and not anywhere else in the world.




Past about one quarter hour of sheer good cave ecology, we went on to do some crawling, squeezing, some rope climbing and sliding, which is part and puzzle of cavers/spelunkers. We managed it soundly and as well enjoyed it thoroughly.



After the best hours of cave adventure, we were out wet and weary. It was wonderful to do this in a medium sized group but I think we had not enough of it, we are planning to another wonderful limestone caves soon!