As we left the outskirts of one paradise we emerged ourselves deep into Borneo’s heart beat the Gunung Mulu jungle. A condensed tropical rainforest with millions of interesting species, including our favorite, the BATS. People come from all over the world to this World Heritage cave galore, including us, the two Hot Toddies. We are officially cooler or hotter, after visiting the MEGA world’s passage cave, the Deer cave filled with guano, or as I would call it the Magic Bat Shit.
But before I get down to the juicy part of this deep cave dive, let me give you some cool facts about this place, life and us. Lets ask the why, when and who… WHY are we here?? Hmm we are here.. no no.. you mean why is the tropical rainforest here?? Well… Tropical rainforest only grows within 22.5 degree of the equator (which brings the Hot Toddies once again closer to the equator) where daily sunlight is consistent throughout the year and the temperature is consistently warm. It has a lot to do with the axil tilt of the Earth in relation to the sun and the local rainfall patterns. Mulu for example is just 4 degrees north of the equator and the hours of daylight vs. darkness each day is roughly 50/50 all year round. This is the equator’s belt and Earth’s heart and lungs which also drive global weather patterns. The WHEN? Tropical forest are ancient survivors, giving us a glimpse of our planet’s evolution. The WHO? At least two thirds of all known plants and animals species are found in the tropical rainforest. And finally DID YOU KNOW? – that 1 hectare of normal forest has only 10 trees species, while 1 hectare of rainforest may have more then 280! WOW huh?? Did I bring you back to school?? As we all have learned this back back then, it somehow sounds way cooler now. The older I get the wiser you get.
As we give you the scoop on the rainforest let me get down to the other deep dark reason why we are here. The heart beat of Mulu contains the world’s biggest cave passage, the Deer cave. Raise your hand if you are a BBC’s Planet Earth documentary fan!!!! Oh, oh, oh, me, me, me and Iza, Iza, Iza!!! The both of us love this hallucinogenic admiration. If you don’t or have no idea what I am talking about, get your ass to a DVD store or order online, the “PLANET EARTH” by BBC. It’s a series of HD documentaries, with unique and one of a kind footage of the Earth. A master piece, a beauty, astonishing, phenomenal, eye catcher, song singer, book writer, shit stopper… you catch the drift.
One of my favorite episodes from the series is the “Caves”. Where they shot the biggest, smallest, narrowest, and the darkest caves. All in all the Cave Life. Most of the documentary was shot in the Gunung Mulu National Park. The same park that the Hot Toddies accidentally went to visit.
DUDEs… you have no idea how exciting this was/is for me! The Deer cave, I repeat is the biggest cave passage in the world, surrounded by the sound of millions of bats hanging, sleeping, and shitting creating the magic guano where thousands of swiftlets swoop in the darkness. Roaches, ants, funky species and who knows what else lives and eats the magic bat shit. In a zoomed in view it’s breath taking. You have to watch the documentary to really feel what I am talking about, at the end of the footage they always show the crew and how they filmed it. In this case they showed the team submerged in the bat shit with insects crawling all over. These guys had balls and passion. And, guess what!? Our guide who accompanied us to the cave was one of the guides that helped BBC with their equipment. I was so excited, I requested his signature.
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
I know, I am excited and crazy about this shit. Different things tickle different people! I love the way the shit smell, the limestone formation and the fact that millions of years ago it was under water. Maybe this is my neuron connection! Cave limestone was formed underwater and the reefs once again come to play.
Did I say Reefs?? Well let me put down another fact card on the table, and you might connect the dots.
What is limestone? All the famous reefs around the world are produced by millions of very small sea animals living in colonies. They use calcium to build large communal houses called “coral” rather then having individual shells. These colonies can live for many thousands of years, building enormous coral reefs reaching for many meters up from the floor of the sea. When they get near the surface the action of the wave breaks the coral into very small pieces which settle to the sea floor where it is slowly compressed to make limestone. Earthquakes and volcanoes are forever changing the face of the Earth and what was once the floor of the sea is now a limestone mountain high above it.1
Ok, ok, I promise, no more facts, just fun stuff. When we visited this mega cave, among other smaller caves like the Lang Cave, Clear Water Cave, and the Wind Cave, I felt physically hot, sweaty, buzzed but excited. I couldn’t believe that we were there. It kind of reminded me of this bar I once went to in New York City, the Cave Bar, where I got extremely buzzed and I was surrounded by fake limestone formations, and the bats were buzzing over head.
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
The BATS!!!! They are cool little creatures, no they are not birds, they are mammals just like us. If you look at their arms, they look like anorexic human arms with wings. They are the only mammals that can fly naturally. Unlike humans, we need to take some strong shit to fly up high.
On the evenings, after checking out the Deer cave, we sat around waiting for the “Bat Exodus” where 3 million bats stream from the cave. For up to 30 minutes they spiral across the sky towards the setting sun, forming long ribbon-like shapes, swirling donuts and corkscrew trails as they try to elude Bat Hawks looking for a meal. Cool stuff, just like in the documentary, just real time.
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
Allow me to walk you through the longest tree based canopy walk in the world. The Mulu Canopy Skywalk swaying over tranquil river 20 meters below. What was so cool about it? Listening to the loud crickets, vivid butterflies, flying huge insects, hidden monkeys and not so high flying squirrels. A fun day in the park, where we imagined the canopy breaking, we always like to visualize danger. Similar to looking over a 20 stories balcony, with the first though “What would happen if I jump out right now, would it hurt?”
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
Before I let you go back to working, sleeping, or whatever you about to do after reading this, let me introduce you to the locals, the Berwan, the Penan and the Tering, three different groups, three different lingoes, living simultaneously in Mulu. The electrical-less and generator motivated village.
After arriving to Mulu by plain. (only two ways to get here, fly or take a long boat) We were informed that there are only two home-stays in Mulu. We stayed at Mulu Home-stay which is about 150 meters from the park’s entrance. In the Lonely Plant there is no word about any additional accommodations besides the park and fancy Royal Resort, but my friends there is plenty of sleeping beds around. Instead of paying 40 MYR to the park we will help out a local family who has an unregistered home-stay, and only pay 15 MYR. We are open minded so we don’t mind the paper walls, one bathroom with a buckets for a shower, constant cigarette smoke and only 3 hours of electricity.
Sleeping there the first night we decided to stay there the rest of the 6 nights, cheaper for us and more money for locals. It was a good choice, we observed how locals live and met some of the family.
One night while sitting around the common area we were attacked by the single man in the family, with beer in one hand and Tuak, home made rice wine for us. The single man proposed to take us on a boat trip to a long house the following day with BBQ to follow. Sounded good to us after few Tauks.
A BBQ near crystal clear river surrounded by the wild jungle plus Iza, I and 4 cousins. A freaking porno movie setting. But no, it was a nice BBQ, local jungle wood, set on pebbles near the river. With real chicken wings. However I was just wondering when they where going to chase us with the machetes, chop us up and smoke us slowly.
Everybody knows everybody in Mulu they are all one big family, everybody is a cousin. Christianity rules here, so no funky business of marring their cousins. We think this was a setup, “Marry the white skin ladies, bring in some new fresh blood into this family.” On the boat trip, it was all laughs, fun and talks. They promised us the world, tried to buy us with what they have. Mainly cousin and friend connections “The pilot back to Miri is my friend, I can ask him to fly over the Pinnacles” said Elvis, a 35 year old nephew.
Ahh, the Pinnacles, a limestone forest formation that rises high above. Another reason why tons of tourists come to Mulu, they climb to the top. An adventure trek Iza and I skipped, we have recently sent all of our gear back home and simply don’t have the shoes for climbing. But, as we heard Elvis say, he will ask his pilot cousin to fly the jumbo jet over the Pinnacles for us!
It was great to hang with the locals, always get to see and learn so much more. A one of a kind situation where we were treated like queens. Just nothing in return, a nice bunch of guys that want to share their Mulu world.
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
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| From Malaysia |
A side from the park and it’s natures kick, Mulu is a raw natural, untouched place, where the world wide web is working slowly and the locals are still making fish nets with bare hands. A place where a morning coffee is accompanied by other’s good news and the time ticks slowly.
Reference: 1. All the facts were taking from the Snails, Lizards, Cicada and the Frogs in the park.
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| From Malaysia |