Bau, about 45 minutes from Kuching, was a 19th-century gold-mining boomtown, and the limestone hills that drew miners here also hold Fairy Cave — reached by a short climb up a stone stairway into a huge, high-ceilinged chamber where sunlight filters down through gaps in the rock, lighting moss and stalactites in a genuinely otherworldly green.
A small altar sits inside, tended by local visitors, and the surrounding cliffs are known among rock climbers for some of the best limestone sport routes in Sarawak.