Faisal, Miri, Mulu, Meor and Nan... (part 1)

Note the people on the bottom left hand side of the pix??? So tiny... And yet the whole chamber could not be captured by the lens. This is inside the Deer cave, and NOT the biggest chamber than I mention in this blog!

It's almost a week now since I flew to Miri en route to Mulu (took the morning flight last Friday morning). Time really flies when we are so busy catching up with chores. Sigh...

The trip to Mulu National Park was short and sweet. We were there by 2pm Friday, and left Mulu on Sunday on a 12.30 noon flight to Miri.

As usual, I don't think I have the time to elaborate, so you may want to read about the trip here.

I didn't think much about the flight from KL to Miri. Just the night before I was struggling to get the exam papers ready, and mailed to UNISEL. I had late nights for several nights already, so during the KL-Miri flight I tried to do some catching up on my sleep. Just minutes before the plane was ready to descend, I made my way to the loo. Since it was occupied, I had to stand in alley. That was when the Air Asia engineer (who was sitting in the last row) greeted me: "puan Cikgu ke?" (Are you a teacher?). I responded: " Dulu lah.." (used to be). Soon I found out that the chap was Ahmad Faizal, my former student from Sek men Teknik Ipoh! We managed to catch up with some news. Soon after the plane landed, we were the last to leave the plane, as I was still engrossed in the chat with him. (and the surprise did not end there)..

I'd leave the description of our stay in Mulu National Park to DH..

In short, the 3.5km walk that we made that Friday afternoon to go to the Bat Spotting site, just outside the Deer Cave was really worthwhile!! Hundreds of thousands of them flew out of the cave that they look like black smoke coming out!

On Saturday, we took a boat ride to the other 2 Mulu caves i.e. Clear Water Cave and Cave of the Wind. On the way we stopped over at a Penan Village - we visited their market, where you can get all sorts of the local handicrafts. Aina was happy to be able to purchase some rattan bangles!!

The tour of the caves was fantastic!!!

We came bakc to the park about noon. soon at 2.30pm, we assembled in front of the park's main office, to join the guided tour to Deer Cave and its neighbouring Lang's Cave. Yes, we walked the 3.5km again, to the bat spotting corner. The penetrable Deer Cave is 800 m long and Lang's Cave is 200m. Simple arithmetic will tell you that to go into the caves and out alone took us 2 km!

No picture can actually do justice to what can be discovered and seen in all the 4 caves in Mulu. However DH tried his best to capture some really nice spots and angles.

On the way out of the cave, we were caught in heavy rain!! Rain in the middle of the rain forest? yeah..sure...
When the rain subsided, we decided to walk back to the park's HQ (where our room was). Half way through the rain decided to fall again!! So, with no where to stop, we just walked on and soon we were soaking wet. But, alas, it was fresh rain (non-acidic, not like in Klang Valley!)...

The following morning we decided to take it easy (after having done over 20 km of walking in less than 48 hours earlier). WE visited the park's info centre which is very attractive as well as informative. Do you know that Mulu Caves are home to the longest cave passage and also the biggest cave chamber in the world???? No wonder it's been chosen by UNESCO to be a World Heritage Site!!