So you climb down (sounds more dramatic than walk down the stairs) into Clearwater Cave, well this entrance at least, and look back and get a view like this.
If I were there today I'd do things a little different. 1) I'd use a tripod and 2) I'd bracket my exposures, if not to do an HDR rendering then at least to better balance out the inside of the cave with the jungle outside.
What I also learned from this photo is that this guy who was in the party we assembled en route has (or at least had) a picture of me taking this photo!
As a hand-held image on 100 ISO film, it's a tad soft because of the length of the exposure which is most noticeable in the movement of the head of the guide on the left.
It was here in Clearwater Cave that I made a mistake I was to repeat several times over the next couple of days – I stepped off the path. The material on the floor in front of me is tens of thousands of years accumulation of bat and swiftlet droppings – a big steaming pile of bat shit! I didn't realize that till I stepped off the path and my foot started to sink into this soft, gooey material. As I said, I made that same mistake several times!
Clearwater Cave and the other caves at Mulu are home to hundreds of thousands of bats and swiftlets. They sleep in the cave by day and emerge at dusk to go hunting. I think I might have an image of the clouds of bats emerging at dusk and if I do I'll post it in the coming days. The caves are so big that we tourists walking the floor of the caves do not disturb them.
