I couldn’t sleep last night. Too hot, too cold, need to pee, and worst of all, my stomach is still feeling a bit funny, except that now my sleepy brain started to spin all sorts of stories about it – what if the ice in the bubble tea was made with tap water which to my puny Western stomach is just too much? What if tap water is contaminated? What if I already have Hep A, Hep C, and diphtheria?! I checked everything on-line just in case at 3am. Is this what it’s like to be Eva?
Still, in the morning I was quite rested, and my belly felt much better after breakfast. I’ll make sure to eat simple bland things for a couple days, and at the right times, hope it will get better. The horrible neck pain I woke up with is another story – turns out they don’t do ibuprofen here, only paracetamol, so I ended up getting some menthol muscle relaxant – how this thing smells!
I got dropped off to the airport, boarded a tiny plane, leaving for the half-hour long flight to Mulu. The plane never got very high, so I had an excellent view of the jungle we were flying over. A massive carpet of green, only occasionally broken by human activity. No wonder there are no buses to Mulu!
Remember how I said Uluru airport was the tiniest I’ve seen? Scrap that. Mulu airport doesn’t even have a luggage belt, they just hand you your bags directly. Maximum of three flights per day, all of them small planes. Loving it already.
A ride to the Mulu National Park found me and soon I was crossing the rope bridge that leads to the land of beauty and calm. So much green! The park hostel is small and beautifully spread out, with houses hidden between trees and joined with platform walkways. I’d be happy if I was to just stay here for a week!
I checked in and sorted out my cave and hiking trips. The park office is so nice and the guy who was helping me was just great. Pretty perfect start! I sorted my bed in the dorm room – most other beds are empty, should be peaceful. We’re sharing the place with a couple friendly geckos roaming the walls.
I had a cave trip booked at 1pm, and until then I just loitered around, walking about the place, enjoying the suffocating heat that makes you sweat it even if you just sit in the shade. What joy! And my shadow is so short!
I bought rubber jungle shoes, but they’re a bit small – they don’t make my size. For lunch I got Mie Goreng which I remember so fondly from Sumatra. I think it was better there, but I might be romanticising. Then again, Pandi was a good cook… Anyway, the kitchen, as so many things here, reminds me of my childhood in Poland. It’s like the kitchen where my grandma helped out when we were in holidays at the Polish seaside. But other things as well, the way space is used, offices arranged, the way the Miri airport and hotel worked, the kind of people in various places… It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly, but the general feel is there. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there is less customer service mentality and more of the familiar mixture of ‘what do you want’ and ‘sure I’ll sort this out for you’ attitude.
At 1pm I was ready for my first cave. Six other people were joining in the Lagang trip, a group of four Italians and a French-English couple on a longer trip around Asia. Our guide started from handing us helmets, saying it will get a bit tight at points. We took a longboat to save ourselves a two kilometre hike. Really fun going down the river in the narrow boat, with all the trees hanging over us, village houses on the riverbank and kids playing in the water.
Once we got off the boat, a short hike took us to the Lagang cave entrance. To be honest, it didn’t look like much, a fairly small crack in the rock. It opened to a cave that wasn’t too big either, and seemed awfully civilised, with a raised wooden pathway and all. Soon after getting in we saw a swiftlet – a cave bird which can use echolocation to find us way around and hunt flies here, making funny clicking sounds. It builds nests attaching them to cave walls, a bit later we even saw a few young ones in a nest. The few glowing points in the dark were, as our guide casually explained, the eyes of rather big spiders.
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| A white blind cave crab (eating guano) |
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| Blind cave cricket |
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| Bats! |
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| A poisonous toad |
We moved along the path and soon it became obvious that this ‘not so big’ cave is just the vestibule of a massive underground world. The path led us through bigger and bigger chambers, stalagmites and various other formations more impressive with every turn. On the way we saw a blind cave cricket, a completely white tiny blind cave crab, a few different kinds of bats, a venomous toad, sticky worms hanging from the ceiling (they don’t glow, but otherwise are like glowworms), met the shiny eyed spider at close distance, and were surrounded by a surprising amount of small flies on which most other creatures in here feed.
About half an hour in the chambers were getting more and more impressive with no end in sight – you could easily fit a football pitch in some. And then our guide told us to get off the path and follow him on the muddy, clay cave floor. Yes! This is what I’ve been hoping for! Now it started getting a bit more tight – the ceiling of the massive hall got lower and lower, and soon we had to bend a fair bit to move on. And then we had to get on all four. And then we had to crawl. Flat on the ground, in the mud, with about 20cm of spare space above us, crawling like geckos, pushing our stuff before us (I only had a water bottle, but others had backpacks). Yeah! The best!
We rested a bit on the other end of the tight passage, all covered in mud and giddy with what we just experienced. We heard some more stories about the cave – or guide is very knowledgeable, and the French girl (a cog sci PhD) and I were asking a lot of questions on the way. These caves were unexplored until quite recently, turns out – only in the 60s did systematic exploration begin and parts of them are still waiting their turn. The Malay tribes who lived here for centuries never got very deep in, probably too busy fighting other tribes, killing them with poison darts, cutting their heads of, and occasionally eating them. On Borneo, by the way, people speak over forty different languages, a remnant of the old divided times. Or guide speaks four of them, and Malaya, and English.
As we moved on, we continued to squeeze through tight passages, though not having to crawl again. Then massive halls returned, the sort that make you think of cathedrals, full of stalagmites in place of columns. The muddy floor gave way to rocks and boulders, with deep cracks between them over which we had to jump. Just getting better and better! At some point someone suggested we all switch out helmet lights off and just listen to the cave. Compete darkness, the sound of water dripping all around, occasional clicking sound of the birds… What a sublime experience!
Eventually, we rejoined the path, but soon were off it again to see a beautiful stalagmite formation. More squeezing, more cathedrals, more cave dwelling animals… We reached the end, finally, but this was after more than two hours spent inside. This place is massive! And what an experience! I don’t have words, and no photos can really capture the sheer awesomeness of this underground world.
Once outside, the light and the colours and all the life of the jungle hit me with double force. It’s amazing that two such different worlds coexist here!
Back in the hostel, I had delicious grilled bananas and pineapple with ice cream, and went on a quest to the shop (I need to get supplies for my multi day trip in a couple days, you see). It’s some 40 mins walk, close to a fancy Marriott hotel at the end of the village. It looked like it was going to rain, but I figured that I’m so sweaty and muddy anyway that this will hardly make a difference. On the way I managed to catch a motorbike ride from some kind lady, and soon I was equipped with canned food for a couple days and a new, slightly bigger pair of jungle shoes (the other ones really were too small and bruised me a bit). Fortunately they’re super cheap, like most things here.
While I was in the shop, the rain started. I walked back hoping I’ll manage to hitch a ride again, but no such luck – by the time I was back it was really on and I was completely soaked. Warm rain is awesome though!
Straight to the shower, I washed off the mud from myself and my clothes. I was planning to go to the cafe to eat, but now the rain was just coming down in sheets. I ended up chatting with a couple Spanish girls who were sitting on the verandah, met a guy from Sri Lanka, and after we finally braved the rain and ran for the cafe, we ended up sitting there and chatting until 9pm. Back in the dorm now, I’m writing this and looking forward to more adventures tomorrow.
I bought rubber jungle shoes, but they’re a bit small – they don’t make my size. For lunch I got Mie Goreng which I remember so fondly from Sumatra. I think it was better there, but I might be romanticising. Then again, Pandi was a good cook… Anyway, the kitchen, as so many things here, reminds me of my childhood in Poland. It’s like the kitchen where my grandma helped out when we were in holidays at the Polish seaside. But other things as well, the way space is used, offices arranged, the way the Miri airport and hotel worked, the kind of people in various places… It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly, but the general feel is there. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there is less customer service mentality and more of the familiar mixture of ‘what do you want’ and ‘sure I’ll sort this out for you’ attitude.
At 1pm I was ready for my first cave. Six other people were joining in the Lagang trip, a group of four Italians and a French-English couple on a longer trip around Asia. Our guide started from handing us helmets, saying it will get a bit tight at points. We took a longboat to save ourselves a two kilometre hike. Really fun going down the river in the narrow boat, with all the trees hanging over us, village houses on the riverbank and kids playing in the water.
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