Gomantang Cave, Sandakan

The Gomantang cave is filled with birds nest, under the Sabah Parks forest reserve and the same cave which consists of massive populations of cockroaches and bats; Together on the FAM media trip sponsored by Firefly and Sabah Tourism Board, we’re going to explore this cave. 

The quite famous Gomantang Cave, one of the place to visit if your in Sandakan. As an iconic place to be we’re here to explore and take a tour in the cave.

The outside of the cave didn’t look too bad as what I saw in google the review from a blog Malaysia Asia. However the smell of bats shit can be embraced outside of the cave. Brace yourselves and we actually wore raincoats to protect ourselves as a few ladies wore soon the whole team followed….seriously you only need a bigger cap to protect yourself from shit falling from the above in the cave. That’s all, being said that don’t wear anything too expensive or fancy as you may not be able to wash the toxic bird shit off your shirt. 

Here’s the cave in side as we approach to the middle of the cave! The cave is divided into two which are known as the Simud Hitam (Black Cave) where we are now which is the most accessible part, and the larger Simud Putih (White Cave) which lies above. 

Here’s how the opposite of the cave looks like on the side, I didn’t took photographs of cockroaches and bats you can see lots of cockroaches on the side and at the wooden pathway so don’t place your hands on the handles especially as you should hold a torch light shine on your sides and the entire cave wall is covered with cockroaches from big, medium to small sizes. Gross enough I didn’t even have any mood to snap pictures and just walk past quickly. It’s stuffy and hard to breath too (probably is the bird shit smell) but most we can only spend 20mins in the cave if you have breathing conditions your not advised to go in, as many people are so interested in bird nest and bats including cockroaches they spend such a long time looking at all of it that made the entire queue moving super slow. 

I prefer looking at birds nest like these which had been collected in the outside of the cave on bright day light than squeezing my eyes and looking for these inside the cave. I actually accidentally deleted group photos while I was editing photos on the plane so don’t have those copies as I didn’t bring any camera in (they charge you for camera fees of RM 20 or RM 30 per camera) so my gang decided to just bring just one DSLR in to the cave.

PS: We lasted in the cave for maximum 30 minutes before everyone starts exiting (to breath) while some could last 40 minutes in it.