Qualla: Madai Cave https://qualla.com/madai-cave en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:37 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/u/4/madai-cave-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Madai Cave https://qualla.com/madai-cave Madai Cave: Introduction https://qualla.com/madai-cave/ Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Twice a year, men climb into darkness. They scale rattan ladders lashed to bamboo poles, rising toward the ceiling of a limestone cavern in Sabah's Kunak District, reaching for something most of the world has never seen attached to rock: the nests of black-nest swiftlets, built from hardened saliva and worth their weight in silver. The Ida'an people have held harvesting rights to Madai Cave for over twenty generations. They do not eat the nests themselves. The harvest travels outward, through middlemen, to kitchens in Hong Kong and Singapore where bird's nest soup commands extraordinary prices.

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/u/4/madai-cave-wp/w8u4-madai-cave-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Madai Cave: Thirty Millennia Underground https://qualla.com/madai-cave/ Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Long before anyone climbed for nests, people sheltered here. Archaeological excavations along the Darvel Bay area at the Madai-Baturong cave complex, near the Tingkayu River, have uncovered stone tools and food remains dating back 20,000 to 30,000 years, marking the earliest know...

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/u/4/madai-cave-wp/w8u4-madai-cave-thirty-millennia-underground.mp3 0:06 2 full Madai Cave: The Vertical Harvest https://qualla.com/madai-cave/ Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. The harvesting season comes in two windows: February through April, and July through September. During these months, licensed collectors from the Ida'an community make their ascent using equipment that has changed little across centuries. Rattan ladders, ropes, and bamboo poles a...

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/u/4/madai-cave-wp/w8u4-madai-cave-the-vertical-harvest.mp3 0:06 3 full Madai Cave: More Than Nests https://qualla.com/madai-cave/ Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. The swiftlets share Madai Cave with large colonies of bats, and their combined droppings have created thick phosphate deposits on the cave floor. These too are harvested, collected for use as fertilizer. The cave is, in effect, a multi-layered resource: archaeological site, nest ...

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/u/4/madai-cave-wp/w8u4-madai-cave-more-than-nests.mp3 0:06 4 full Madai Cave: Into the Spotlight https://qualla.com/madai-cave/ Photo credit CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0. Madai Cave gained international attention in 2000, when it was featured on the American adventure race program Eco-Challenge. Competitors had to climb the cave's rattan ladders, a task that left seasoned athletes clinging and gasping where Ida'an harvesters move with practiced ea...

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Image: CEphoto, Uwe Aranas | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/8/u/4/madai-cave-wp/w8u4-madai-cave-into-the-spotlight.mp3 0:06 5 full