On a quiet Sunday we drove off to see Silabur Cave. Situated in Kg. Lubang Batu about half an hour from Serian. Sunday is a family day and here in rural Sarawak is a visit to local church. As we reached the kampong folks were leaving the church and from the crowd maybe it is the whole kampong there. So this is how a multi cultural , multi religions society look like. I was a bit taken aback, speechless and confused of how a society in my own country follow a path different from mine. I left that issue at the back of my mind unresolved and barely understood.
We were greeted by a man about my age( later we found out he is 64 years old). Older then me but fit like a younger man. His name is Banok, a Bidayuh and non muslim. He treated me like a distant friend that came back to see him.Come ! follow me I show you our beautiful cave, he said as we struggled to get ready.
Beyond the kampong we saw their kebun and then the palm tree estate. We entered the forest and started to ascend. The trail was not bad at all as I carefully manoevred the stony path. One step at a time to avoid slippery
The trail was full of intertwined roots.The roots rose from beneath the forest floor like the mountain’s own veins—dark, slick, and impossibly old. I placed my foot on one, expecting a skid, but instead felt it bow slightly, as if offering me a moment of grace. I moved like a pilgrim now, not a climber. Each exposed root was a stair carved by rain and time, not by human hands. I ran my fingers along their wet curves, feeling the grooves worn smooth by a thousand forgotten boots. The mountain wasn’t trying to trip me—it was asking me to slow down and pay attention.
I stopped trying to predict the trail and simply listened to it. The mud beneath the leaf litter was soft and giving, not hostile. The stones that rolled were not betrayals—they were reminders that nothing here was fixed, nothing permanent. I placed each foot with the care of a person stepping into cold water, letting the ground tell me what it wanted. And in that slowness, I found it—the quiet awe of being small, of being temporary, of being allowed to walk this ancient, slick, beautiful path at all.
I held the climbing rope as if it was my lifeline. the rope went round and round up the hill. It’s still a long way and my legs and my knees started to give up. · My body moved slowly, deliberately, like a dancer learning a new rhythm—each step a quiet negotiation, not a fight. My ankles wobbled, but I wobbled with them, swaying like the trees above, part of the mountain’s slow, wet dance.I stopped rushing. I let the trail teach me its pace—patient, unhurried, enduring.
Banok found a stop and we rested to catch up with our breathing. Maybe this trail should be called a stair with a thousand steps. Whatever. The humidity of the forest has turned me wet. Surprisingly, I felt okay despite the pain at some part of my body. My head was light, my breathing was smooth and adrenalin rush started to fill me up. The place was dark and scary but all of the sudden I wanted to face this challenge. The cave mouth yawned—a wet, black throat in the ancient stone.My heart said run; my feet said stay; my soul said step forward.It was the door to the underworld, and I was trembling on its threshold.
Darkness so thick I could taste it—and I wanted more.
Behind me, the jungle hummed with life—birdsong, insect drone, the rustle of leaves. Before me, absolute stillness. The cave offered no sound but its own slow drip, no movement but the faint curl of its breath. I stood at the seam between two worlds: one green and noisy, one black and silent. And I was terrified—terrified—that I wanted the silent one more.
The entrance was not like I’d imagined—the cave of Alibaba and 40 thieves-a slit in the colossal stone wall like a narrowed eye sizing me up. I turned on the torchlight on my phone, peering in. The darkness wasn’t empty; it was thick, textured, almost liquid. A faint draft brushed my face, carrying a whisper that might have been water or might have been wind or might have been the mountain sighing. My legs trembled. My pulse raced. And I realized with a jolt that I couldn’t tell if it was fear or excitement. Maybe they were the same thing, here at the edge of the unknown. I took a breath.
I stepped inside, and the world changed. The light behind me shrank to a pale coin, then a pinprick, then nothing at all. I clicked on my flashlight, and the beam punched into the dark—only to be swallowed by a chamber so vast it might have held a cathedral. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like a forest of stone spears, their tips glistening with slow, patient drips. The walls rippled with flowstone—great frozen waterfalls of calcite that looked like poured cream, like melted wax, like the skin of some buried beast. I took a step, and the sound multiplied—tap, tap, tap—as if a dozen people were following me. From above came a soft rustle. I looked up. The ceiling was alive with bats, hundreds of them, their tiny bodies clustered together like dark fruit. One stirred, stretched a leathery wing, and I felt my heart stutter. But I didn’t run. I couldn’t. The cave held me in its cold, wet, ancient grip, and I was terrified, and I was thrilled, and I wanted to see what lay deeper.
The passage narrowed, forcing me to turn sideways. The walls pressed close, damp and cold against my shoulders, and I had to suck in my breath to squeeze through. Then, without warning, the rock fell away, and I stumbled into a second chamber. This one was smaller, rounder, its walls covered in crystal clusters that glittered like a billion frozen stars. The air was warmer here, almost humid, and the drip-drip-drip of water was louder, more insistent. I stood in the center, turning slowly, and felt like I had stepped into the mountain’s own heart.
I tilted my head back. The ceiling was a shifting, breathing carpet of leather and fur—hundreds of bats, maybe thousands, clinging upside-down in overlapping layers. Their bodies were small, dark, indistinguishable in the gloom, but their eyes caught my light in tiny pinpricks of reflection. A few stirred, shifting their wings with soft rustle-crease sounds that echoed like whispered secrets. One dropped from its perch, fluttered in a tight, erratic circle, and disappeared into a side tunnel. I held my breath, waiting. Nothing else moved. But I felt their collective awareness, a thousand tiny hearts beating in the dark, and I knew—this was their cathedral, not mine.
The sunshine became weaker and we have to leave asap. Going down hill is much more difficult than going up. My knees were cracking up to support the body. I was tired and exhausted.The out of this world experience, however, pays off. Banok found a jackfruit tree. with abundant fruits. He picked and sliced one for us. The sweetness of it made the walk back so interesting. We dragged along the muddy path until the edge of the village. Our adventure was coming to an end. After freshening up we say goodbye to Banok and left. Echoes from the cave still ringing in my ears reiterating the many tales that altered the fears of yesterdays.
