To Mulu With Love
Trip Start
Jan 14, 2007
1
41
Trip End
Jan 16, 2007
Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
My aim in going to Mulu is to see four caves. Now, I am slightly claustrophobic, but I remember reading somewhere that the Mulu Caves are not those kind of caves, so Anna and I have decided to sign up for this adventure!
We fly from Kuala Lumpur in an Airbus A320 and land at Miri airport. A couple of hours later, we board a Fokker Friendship with a dozen other travellers for the connecting flight to Mulu. Strange, I think to myself, travelling in a propeller-driven plane after having flown in a jet.
We land at the small airport at Mulu and a jeep brings some of us to the Royal Mulu Resort. The rest of the travellers head for the government-run accommodation a few kilometres away, which is much cheaper. There but for the Air Asia package go I, I think to myself, before checking in at the Resort. The buildings are made of hard Malaysian wood and each unit stands on stilts a few metres above the ground.
Anna and I decide to hire a guide called Andrew, a local young man who speaks a little English. We will visit two caves today – Lang’s Cave followed by Deer Cave. Then tomorrow morning we will take a boat ride to Wind cave, have lunch, and then end with a trip to Clearwater Cave. So Anna and I set off with our guide and we are surprised to find ourselves on a wooden walkway a metre wide. We thought we would have to walk through thick jungle with leeches attaching themselves to our bodies and mosquitoes buzzing all around us. Instead, we find ourselves taking a pleasant afternoon stroll, stopping now and then to listen to Andrew as he points out to us the different species of insects and plants we encounter on the way.
Soon we enter Lang’s Cave (named after the local guy who discovered it) and any lingering fears of claustrophobia vanish forever as we enter a huge and spacious but well-lit cave with beautiful stalagmites, stalactites, earth pillars and other awesome limestone formations.
From there we go on to Deer Cave, so named because deer have been discovered to frequent this place. If Lang’s cave is big, this is gigantic! It seems the cave chamber can easily accommodate over 20 Boeing 747 jumbo jets! And this cave is home to millions of bats. The floor is covered with bat guano and there is a slight smell but not over-powering.
After exploring the cave, we go out with the other tourists to an observation area to watch the bats fly out. It is now about 6 in the evening. Sometimes when the weather is wet you won’t get to see that but we are lucky. Soon we can see the bats flying out of the cave like millions of little black dots. It takes a long time before the last ones are out and our awed silence is broken by excited chatter. A climatic ending to an interesting day.
