In the depths of Borneo’s Gomantong Caves, an entire ecosystem had developed.
I wasn’t even close to the entrance when I was struck by an infernal stench. I had soaked my scarf in scented oils and wrapped it around my face to make the experience more tolerable, but even so, the surrounding miasma was so heavy that it simply overwhelmed the sense of smell. The journey inside was supposed to take no more than twenty minutes, yet in that place it felt like an eternity.
Hundreds of thousands of bats dwelled under the tall, vaulted ceilings of the cave, as in some kind of dark and sinister Gothic cathedral. At nightfall, they all came out in search of food, and their sudden massive exodus turned them into a terrifying, fast-moving black cloud.
The cave floor was a quicksand of cockroaches, scorpions, and millipedes thriving in an ever-thickening layer of guano alongside snakes and rats. It made little difference that I was walking on a wooden platform raised above the ground—it was as full of droppings and small beasts as everything else around. Instead of air, I was inhaling an acrid, poisonous gas that might as well have asphyxiated me if it weren’t for the slight breeze coming through a few remote openings. I couldn’t even find the strength to stop for pictures. I only took two or three in a hurry, because every extra second in that place felt like pure torture.
As if this weren’t enough, the heat and humidity—already high by default in that equatorial realm—had an utterly liquefying effect. I was forced to boil in that inhuman atmosphere covered from head to toe, with long jeans, a waterproof hooded jacket, and a tight-fitting baseball cap. The clothes were my only protection against the bat guano constantly dripping from the ceiling and the bugs climbing on my feet. The cave was so densely populated that it was impossible to escape untouched.
The interior walls were lined with countless bird nests built one above the other like balconies. The swiftlets that populated the area made those nests out of their saliva. But even more than for their occupants, such peculiar structures were genuine treasures for their human collectors. Some people had settled in the vicinity of the Gomantong Caves especially for this purpose. Those nests were considered a delicacy in Chinese cuisine. Consumed mainly in the form of soup, they were said to have beneficial effects on immunity, lungs, and skin. For this reason, they were sold at exorbitant prices—thousands of dollars per pound.
As far as I was concerned, the thought of something edible growing in those pestilential caverns amplified my nausea exponentially. Despite the wide spaces inside the cave, the stinking air had put me in a state of claustrophobia, so I walked the last part of the trail on the brink of fainting.
I was never more grateful for a breath of oxygen than when I got out of there. Curiosity had pushed me to see the filthiest place in the natural world, as described to me by a local. I am sure there are many others at least as filthy, but that one proved to be by far the most disgusting place I have ever been to.