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Huge caves
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Mulu is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and only accessible by plane. It consists of the airport, an expensive hotel and the national park headquarters where I visited to find my cheap dorm accommodation.
I registered and enquired about the adventure caves and some of the guided multi-day hikes but was told I would have to pay for the guide myself as there wasn't anyone else interested in going at the current time. I checked out my dorm which I was sharing with an americn couple and the guy's brother - all pretty quiet and I'd previously tried to make conversation on the plane from Kinabalu city and the bus from the airport but gave up quickly.
I signed up for a guided walk to Lang cave and Deer cave that afternoon - the largest in the world I was told and home to millions of bats which fly out in groups of individual colonies every night to search for food. Joining me on the walk were a couple of guys from Auckland, although they weren't originally from there. Dan has family in Sibu, Sarawak so spoke Malay and Mandarin as well as english and his friend Igor is from Serbia but his family fled due to the war problems there. Both friendly guys with interesting backgrounds. Dan introduced me to a nice local fruit, rambutan, which is red and prickly on the outside but contains a white fruit like a lychee and was quite tasty.
The walk into Lang cave was OK, the typical formations in caves but Deer cave was fairly impressive due to its sheer size. It was bucketing it down with rain so after waiting at least an hour for the bats which never emerged from the cave I gave up and headed back to the dorm to get some food at the cafe.
The following day I still had no-one to go adventure caving with so I walked to the posh resort and had some ice-cream and a nasty tasting kitkat (chocolate is so bad here even with the same brands as home!). That afternoon I booked to do the canopy walk, a susepended footbridge high up in the trees. We hadn't seen much and I was about to head back down when i heard a crashing in the trees and saw a group of monkeys. I climbed down from the canopy to get a better view and watched them for quite some time; at least half an hour after the guide and the rest of the group had left! It was great to watch them, hear the noises and I possibly heard some monkey hanky panky going on! Afterwards i walked back down to Deer cave and waited for the bats which finally decided to come out and feed. When each colony came out it was like a big flock of birds moving in a snakelike pattern and very mesmorising! On the walk back to the dorm we were also lucky enough to see a green pit viper snake just resting on a branch inches from the walkway!
Today there was still no-one keen to do the adventure caves which is starting to annoy me as that's the main reason I came, although it is a nice place. I set off early and walked on my own to explore Moonmilk cave - over 400 steps up to the entrance and I needed my headtorch and it was a bit scary walking through on my own! I'd been told I may see birds on the walk but I saw nothing unfortunately so it was a bit of a waste of time but oh well. I set off through the jungle to Paku Falls where i met Igor, Dan and an Australia girl Kate for a picnic and a swim. The walk there was so muddy and the waterfall was a bit of a let down after what I've seen in Australia plus the water was pretty chilly and after I got out Dan discovered a big tiger leech on his leg and more in his shorts! The guys made us lunch which consisted of warm baked beans, tined corn beef, chocolate biscuits and dried fish fillet (an acquired taste and not my thing as it reminded me of the fish flakes I used to feed my fish).
We had a nice dinner tonight at the cafe outside the park (chicken without bones for a change!) and I'm thinking that if I can't find a caving buddy soon then I may get a flight out tomorrow and try and head to the longhouses and Kalabit highlands trekking area in Bario - fingers crossed!
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