Mulu caves

Another month, another holiday, this time to the Gunung Mulu National park to visit the famous caves in Sarawak, Malaysia.

Mulu National Park is a UNESCO world heritage site since the year 2000. It possesses some of the largest caves in the world. It is also home to million bats, and possibly one of the best know attractions of the park is the bat exodus where all the bats gather together to exit the Deer cave in masses and swirl for their evening hunt. Not only the tourists have their keen eye on them, but the circling bat hawks glide through the evening dusk to hunt for some dinner of their own.

The national park offers a variety of excursions and there are established paths to wonder along the rainforest floor. We wanted to share the experience with friends of ours, and thus were fixed on the month - November possibly isn't the best time for visiting as the flora isn't at its most magnificent and the fauna is hiding from the rains but, like our friends said, at least we saw rain in the rainforest...!

We travelled to Mulu by MasWings from Miri as unfortunately the direct flights from Bandar have ceased. Mulu is a bit like an airport, only welcoming few internal flights a week. So some poor sod has to carry the bags to the terminal from the plane in the excruciating heat - or heavy rain! Although MasWings was excellent, they even managed a free service in the 20 mins flights - and all the luggage was included in the flight price. Finnair could take note of this service!

There is a new Marriott now open in Mulu but at the time of visiting this wasn't the case, and so we chose to stay in the park itself. Unfortunately the chalets were already booked, so Pete & Fiona got to sample the traditional way of living in the Headquarter's Long houses - thankfully with air conditioning. Although it wouldn't be a true experience if they hadn't recently changed the air con units into different ones, leaving a massive hole in the wall rendering the air con fairly useless. Of course the net is going to keep the nice, cool air in, and the humid air out?! Whilst the park accommodation is fairly dated, it was perfect for the 2 nights, with ample breakfast included. Whilst a refreshing pool would have been ideal, it was great to be at the park, all ready for the walks, rather than organising lifts from outside the park to get to the walks on time.

Our friends got the whole local experience when booking the walks at the Headquarters. Not many places operate via booking sites in these parts of the world, and nor does the National Park. They hadn't been overly helpful with excursions so I left the booking to the arrival, especially when the only walk I did try to book online got cancelled as they didn't want toddlers on the night walk. So, the helpful, yet clueless park ranger helped us to choose the best excursion times to suit our flight times. It took us a good 30 minutes of towing and frowing to get it all sorted, and once I had written it all down for my reference, he was really pleased with himself. Until I suggested that maybe he should write it all down into his reservation books... Oh yes, what a great idea! *sigh* Let us do your job for you... A very familiar feeling!

Apart from walks in the rainforest, the National Park offers organised trips into the caves, as well as adventure caving and longer, 1-5 night trips through the Pinnacles. We only stayed for 2 nights and travelling with a toddler were limited with the choice of walks but we had a great time, and there was plenty to do. More of our walks in the next posts....