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October 6 2008, Arrival at Mulu National Park
After 2 hours of sleep and a 4 AM check out plus 2 flights later, I finally arrived at the Royal Mulu Resort in the Gunung Mulu National Park. My initial plan was to relax a little as I was so tired, but I knew this is not going to happen when Steve, my tour uide, handed over my schedule, my very own "torture schedule" with all activities and times...well, I had a 10 km walk the first day and was not very happy with it at first, but he took us right away to the highlights and my favorite, the Deer Cave which looks more like a filmset for a new Alien movie and you hear the weirdest sounds inside. The park is great, you only walk on wooden pathways, so NO LEECHES :) On the way to this cave you will pass the bat observation center - if it is not raining you can see the bats exiting the cave from here, inside the center they explain you all about bats and there is a wicked bat cam installed in the cave, a night vision camera and you can watch the bats getting ready for their hunt. Unfortunately it stated to rain so hard when I was there, so no chance for bats that day and a quite wet walk back to the base camp.
October 7 2008
After a very early night yesterday I had an early morning, too, as it said 8 AM departure time in my schedule...had breakfast with the funniest Chinese couple ever, they must be in theor 60ies and I met them later on in one of the caves as the guy always sings;)
Well, we left by longboat up the river, visited some locals on the way and I bought a nose flute, so be prepared to hear some lovely music when I am back :) Windcave and Moon Milk cave was on the agenda, the trek was harder as it was in the mountains and it felt like a hardcore workout on the stairmaster, 250 steps up to Moon Cave and the same in the cave plus down again, and all that in a nice but tropical environment in 35 degrees and about 80% humidity..As you can see, I spend most of the time so far in caves and must say, they look all different and it is actually quite interesting.
October 8 2008
My schedule says 10 AM for departure time, at least some improvement :) Canopy Skywalk is the first activity for today and by now I know the park guides that walk with us - and I know if they say 20 min walk, it is at least a 40 min walk, also today. The skywalk was great, it is a walk on hanging bridges from one tree to another in 30-50 m hight - not to recommend if you are afraid of hights as the bridges are swinging and the board you walk on is only about 25 cm in widths. I walked back to the base camp to meet Maggie and Kate, 2 very lovely Scottish ladies ( I must say most of the people here are older, I am probably the youngest one in the entire park) for lunch.
There was nothing on my schedule for the afternoon, so I decided to get one of the mountain bikes and cycle back to the bat cave as I missed them the first day due to the rain. Cycling through the park is quite cool and fun, but again, when I arrived at the bat center it started to rain - and didn't stop for 3 hours - again no bats :(
In the evening I met Greg and Rita again, they joined the skywalk in the morning too. Greg is from Australia and Rita a local and they will get married next year, a large ceremony with about 3000 guests, very interesting. They invited me to join an evening with Ritas family which lives just across the river. It was so cool! Well, of course families here are rather big, when I entered the longhouse I saw about 50 people sitting on the floor and we started with the prayer for the food. I had the best food so far, chicken, chicken curry, lamb, all very spicy ( finally!) After dinner we went outside for drinks and I had to explain them all what the Oktoberfest is as one of the guys has read about it. I had some home made rice wine and had to drink a lot as Ritas grandma kind of blessed me all the time, holding me and mumbling things the others repeated and then she made me drink a whole glas. This was the coolest thing on my trip so far, as it was so spontaneous and I even didnt bring my camera. Their grandfathers were still head hunters, it is amazing - but today, no danger, they are all park guides and that's the reason why I met a lot of familiar faces. Got pretty "tipsy" to say at least and was really scared to fall out of the longboat on the way back - but made it home safe!
October 9 2008
As you can see, I have finally some time to update my blog a little as it is my departure day - will depart this afternoon at 3.40 PM to Miri, then a flight to Kota Kinabalu and another one to Sandakan - I am going to spent the days till Sunday in Sepilok to watch the Orang Utans and might meet up with a couple from NL, Rik and Julie, which I met earlier this week. I hope I ll have a better internet connection in Sepilok so I can upload some pics. Speak soon!
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