Writing everything that I have to say about this trip would both take too much space and too much time for a single post, so I’m going to split this into two parts. My wife and I went on a four day / three night trip to Mulu in Sarawak state over the extended Hari Raya holidays and, quite unexpectedly to us, had one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime experiences. We’d originally planned to have a small and simple trip to take advantage of the holidays, and since we’re currently based in Kota Kinabalu, thought that it would be a good idea to visit Sarawak, which neither of us had ever been to. The caves at Mulu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and we’ve all read about them in our geography textbooks, so it was the natural candidate.

Visiting only the caves however is normally just a two day / one night excursion, so my wife looked for something else we could do in the area. She eventually picked the Pinnacles to tack on to our trip. It was advertised as a hiking and mountain climbing trip. We expected it to be somewhat strenuous and thought it would make for a good warming up exercise for our Mount Kinabalu climb planned for early next year. I did not expect that it would turn out to be the most physically exhausting thing I have ever done in my life. But more on that in the second part.

The flight that would take us to Mulu was late. In fact, we expected it to be a direct flight. Instead, there was a stopover at Miri for immigration processing and after which everyone headed to Mulu boarded the same plane again. Our travel agent never properly explained this to us, one of the many things that we’re unhappy with her about. Due to this delay, we had to leave for the Gunung Mulu National Park HQ to register and start our 3 km hike to view the Lang and Deer Caves immediately after disembarkation. We had to move at a pretty quick pace too so as to arrive before evening. Both of us are fairly used to long distance walking so the exercise was okay to us but it was a harbinger of tougher trials to come.

Along the way our guide stopped to point out interesting stuff to see, like poisonous caterpillars, plants that rustle back at you when you jostle them due to the ants living inside etc. They’re fun bits of trivia but nothing you couldn’t learn in more detail from an encyclopedia if you’re interested in this sort of stuff. Along the way, we passed across swampy areas, streams and cliffsides so it was far from a boring walk, but since we had to hurry, there wasn’t much time to enjoy the sights.

It was getting dark by the time we neared the caves, but as promised, we could still watch the bats flying out of the caves. They weren’t the a huge billowing cloud of my imagination, but rather flocks that flew out of the caves at somewhat regular intervals. As one flock left, you could see a new one forming just above the cave. I kept wondering how the bats manage to decide when their flock was big enough to start off and how they picked a direction to fly off in. I have no pictures to show you because we only have a crappy camera and wouldn’t want to lug around a heavy one good enough to capture the sight on film properly, but I can assure you that it’s a fascinating thing to watch.

The Deer and Lang Caves were interesting to visit as well, especially since we were the last group in and the park had turned off the lights. This meant that we only had torchlights to see by. This is another thing we’re unhappy with our tour agent about as she never told us what to bring, even after we specifically asked her that question. It was also somewhat slippery in the caves so we had to watch our step. I’d never been in a cave this big before so it was novel experience, but all of the geological stuff sort of flew by me. The main cavern of the Deer Cave is an impressive sight I must admit. It made me imagine stuff like the Underdark from Dungeons & Dragons.

It was fully night when we made the trek back out and everyone was hungry by the time we arrived at the place we were staying, Benarat Inn. It’s very basic accommodation and frankly the service was pretty bad but I guess that’s what you get in budget lodgings. We did more cave sightseeing the next morning, travelling by boat to the Wind Cave, Clearwater Cave and the Lady Cave. Each of these caves is notable for specific reasons and are well worth visiting once, but there’s little point in going a second time. Clearwater Cave for example contains a fast flowing underground river that stretches for over 100 km, though of course the publicly accessible portion is far less than that.

After the caves, our group split up. Those who had only signed on for the one night trip said their goodbyes while the rest of us, a group of five including the two of us, a British couple and a young Japanese man, had to set off for Camp 5. That’s where the real adventure begins.