Day 74: Mulu day 3

We actually got to sleep in today, which was a bonus, though it turns out we slept right through our first appointment of the day! To make a medium story really short, the guy checking us in told us we were to do the canopy walk at 10am, though the schedule we had emailed to them said 8:30am. In our very non pushy way, we got what we wanted and chased down the 10am group walking out to the canopy walk.

Two months ago, Beth would have been up for, let's say a couple of hours (AKA several sleepless nights) thinking of the canopy walk - 500 meters of ropeway suspended up to 40 meters above the ground, spanning tree to tree through the upper canopy of the jungle. Now? She's bloody high fiving me when she finished! Abby called it Versluis Courage.... Maybe.

The canopy walk was great. Two by two we would make our way across the bridge sections to one of the 16 platforms. It was a great alternate perspective to see the canopy from this high.

There was a great graphic at one of the platforms detailing the story of the rainforest - showing how and why there are really different tree heights. The "emergent" trees (the ones that stick high out of the jungle canopy) don't seem to have anything in common - there's no real explanation for why they are freaks of nature, towering over their counterparts. Different species and even different ages of trees can be emergent, it's a matter of becoming the "one"... That simple explanation of the rainforest and which tree will be the "one" is actually more complicated and most definitely more interesting than the Divergent Book series, so you're welcome if you haven't wasted the time it takes to read them.

Check out the two-family shot in front of about one third of a trunk of this massive tree....

The kids were in their own world as usual on the way back, not noticing me taking this video documenting them breaking the "silence in the jungle" rule....

We got back in time to eat once again.... We are thoroughly enjoying the food here. It's perhaps the best food we've had in the last month or so. The kids are loving it too, though we can't know that for sure, as they refuse to sit with us! Ah the side effects of independence...

We signed up for our last trek in Mulu for the 2pm Fast Lane Trek (I really didn't remember any of the details of these treks as Alex and I had planned it so long ago, but so far we have given each other many pats on the back!). We took the same boats up river again, stopping at a jetty virtually hidden by the forest at the side of the river.

Our guide, another local girl who had a nomad father and Irish mother spoke with the cutest lilting Irish accent. It seemed a little out of place, but was a pleasant surprise.

Our final cave of the trip was a journey to the center of the earth. This one was way different than all of the other caves we'd been through. The Fast Lane is a 1km, dark cave that cuts right through the limestone mountains and joins up with another cave that runs a further 500 meters until we reached the end. We saw quite a bit of wildlife - small cave birds, lots of bats, spiders, white cave crabs and other small insects. The cave itself really gave you the impression of how it was formed by a swiftly flowing river all of those years ago. It really felt like we were descending slowly down into an asteroid unknowingly along the body of a giant space worm (as the kids would say, "what up Star Wars reference").

At one point we passed though a stalagmite and stalactite "forest" which was pretty cool.

We emerged from the cave unscathed! It felt like a pretty long walk and we couldn't really fathom that we'd just walked a kilometre and a half underground throughout a twenty million year old cave. Long cave bucket list item.... Check! :-)

The boat ride back was beautiful, as we've come to expect. The kids sequestered themselves in one of our rooms and had a "party" (thank god they're 11,12,12 and 13) while the adults made a beeline to the cantina in the hopes of completing another item on our bucket list...

......Building a Tiger tower.... Check!

When we got to the cantina after a quick shower, the kids were focused on a game of French fry poker - too funny. Apparently Matt was the big winner of the night!

Our time here at Mulu is not over, but Beth and I both agreed that this is one of our best experiences to date (you'll recall, this is an oft repeated phrase.... Kind of like the president of the IOC saying "this Olympic Games has been the best.... Ever", but it IS an indication of a positive experience for sure!). Hanging out with the Versly has been great, and getting to experience this really cool....

[hang on.... Quintana has a 1:30 gap on Froome with 1.4km to go in the penultimate stage.... Or so says my FRUSTRATINGLY slow $?!/@ing wifi connection feeding me small text updates from CyclingNews.com.... Ok, I'm ok now]

[hang on again.... There is a very raucous karaoke session going on across the river. I can't tell if it's tourists or locals, but it's really bad, which makes it quite funny... But a little distracting...]

This experience at Mulu National Park has been really amazing. Period. Froome takes the TdF and now I can head to bed. G'night!

Day 73: Mulu Day 2

We were woken up by our alarm at just past seven, but we had managed to get close to 10 hours sleep! I think my singing with headphones on last night did the trick to get everyone settled quickly - I think that will have to be a recurring feature of the family room style accommodations.

We got our breakfast and picked up our boxed lunch that we'd ordered the night before. For the morning program, we were on the Clearwater and Wind Cave program. We met our guide, Harvey, at the park office with the other five that were part of our group. Harvey was no Jasper, but he was serviceable.

First up was a cruise in a longboat up the river to a traditional village market. The river cruise was right up my alley - in a low, long boat, weaving back and forth on the river to avoid unseen obstacles.

 The sides of the river were covered in dense jungle, with the occasional high canopy tree sticking out of the forest top and rising another several hundred feet. This was the jungle!!!

The stop at the village market was pretty fun - the kids all got a chance at shooting blow darts at a target. Some found the technique intuitive.... Some did not.

The village was populated by a formerly nomadic people (now firmly rooted in modern long houses). I can't imagine moving from place to place in the jungle, never having a permanent home.... Though I guess we've been pretty nomadic these past couple of months!

We stopped at a jetty and got out. The plan was to visit two caves, have lunch and a swim then head back down the river. We went first to the Wind cave. These caves today were part of the Clearwater Cave System - a series of caves and chambers that stretches over an unbelievable 200 km long underground !! 

 There are actually a lot of "tour" options at Mulu that are very adventurous - a 5 day trek to climb up Mt Mulu, other multi day treks as well as advanced caving adventures where you have to squeeze through small shafts up to 15 meters in length - maybe that last one would not be good for our group.

The Wind cave was pretty cool - I'm not saying I'm getting "caved out" but for me the fun in these experiences is the group we're in, the boat ride up the river, and the walks. 

The Wind cave was called that because there are narrow spaces separating large chambers that forces the air through very quickly, though on our visit, there was little wind to cool us off. The temperature has been pretty good, and with all the shade from the canopy, the only real thing making people sweat I think is the high levels of humidity.

We walked along this cool boardwalk that hugged the cliff side on the way over to our next cave....

Clearwater cave was also very impressive.

We climbed about 200 steps up to the entrance, then dove down flights of stairs to get to the base of the entrance. I can't believe the level of sophistication of the walkways, rope ways, concrete paths, bridges and stairs in these caves. It must have taken months and months to build out each cave - and that's probably not taking into account getting materials, power, scaffolding and tools through the jungle and into these caves - all with minimal impact to the environment of the caves and surrounds.

Clearwater cave had a really cool diagram showing how the water eroded the caves millions of years ago to make the shapes they are now. We became experts at scalloping, stalagmites, stalactites and keyhole erosion.... Take that!!

We ascended a new walkway that they finished building last year in Clearwater - when we were near the top, we could see part of the opening in the distance where there were little ant-sized humans coming down the stairs. These caves were just humongous.

We ate our little packed lunches after climbing down to the jetty picnic area. Hmmm.... Nasi Goreng (fried rice). After, the 5 kids went swimming (Alex being the oldest of the five) - Kim, Beth and I could not picture putting on sweaty clothes again after swimming, and the water did not seem exactly, well, clear.

The kids did their Versly-Tyndall cheer, "1, 2, 3, let's Mulu!"

If you look carefully at Mulu, you can see all kinds of strange characters.... This little guy was on the railing by our table at lunch:

We got back just after 2pm, and though the girls had talked about doing a hike over to a waterfall, that almost predictably turned into the girls napping and Alex and I getting some beers and Roti Canai snacks and working on blog entries. The kids were up to no good - Alex and I weren't too sure WHERE they were up to no good, so that was a nice way to spend the afternoon. Turns out, they'd kicked Kim out of her room and put her in Beth's room.

It started raining again with quite a bit of lightening in the late afternoon, but we didn't have any plans until the anticipated "night walk". I will give Beth credit - she hadn't expressed too much anxiety over doing the night walk (essentially a guided "bug walk" in the jungle at night) - maybe she had turned a new leaf after braving the Gibbon Experience for all of two nights :-).

After dinner we met our guide Esther, a local from Mulu who believe it or not had been an auditor in the nearby city of Miri until she got this opportunity at Mulu. She loved the jungle and nature, and it showed. The sky was still flaring with the occasional lightning strike, but the rain and pretty much stopped, so we started walking cautiously over to the Botany Loop of the park.

The main areas of interest on the night walk are large insects, spiders, snakes, birds and frogs. We saw a lot of cool stuff.

The kids were pretty good, though they got pretty squeamish when we started seeing a lot of fairly big stuff - pretty big Huntsmen spiders (turns out those were the ones in Laos), white and black spotted geckos, a ton of weird, wacky and really big stick bugs (stick bugs I guess are a class of bugs that mainly hangs around and eats leafy plants), a vine snake, large millipedes, cool little sleeper birds, a gigantic (10" long) grasshopper and lots of other little oddities. We all quite enjoyed the night walk, though you tended to start feeling imaginary things landing on your legs and arms as the walk progressed.

We were all pretty bushed by the time we got back. We showered off the layer of sweat from the day, and I serenaded my three girls to sleep with a combination of Muse, Nirvana and Pink Floyd. I may even start entertaining requests.....

Day 72: Mulu National Park

We were up at the crack of dawn.... Well it felt like it. I was up late the night before from a Tour de France hangover, thanks in large part to Abby. I've felt more stress in trying to watch the Tour this week than at any point In the past year of work - is that bad? Thinking back, I figure I've seen every Tour stage either live or time shifted with a self imposed news/results blackout since about 2001. Yes, I'm addicted and there you have step 1 - I've admitted my problem.... I don't think there's a cure, fortunately.

So I spent yesterday afternoon with Alex and on my phone looking for places that carried Eurosport - the Europe based sports network that broadcasts the tour in English. Alex and I visited a dozen places, I visited a dozen more on the way to and back from dinner - no luck. Finally, on the way home, right before the hotel (I was in an unusual for me "give up" mode), Abby says "check that place out, they have a Guiness sign". "No, it's no use, they won't have it". "Come on daddy!", so I went in and asked the manager, a young Chinese guy, if they had Eurosport (they were playing 22 Jump Street on the dual TVs next to the stage). "Of course!". Yes!!!!! I quickly ditched the room key and my bag, gave Abby a huge hug (well, Beth and Robin didn't find Eurosport after all!!!... Remind me to modify my Will when I get back) and hustled them out the door and sat in for the first stage in the alps.... Sweet.

So the tour and posting a blog kept me up until around 1am, but it was worth it :-)

We caught two cabs to the airport, checked in for our MAS Wings domestic flight to Mulu and separated - the four kids went to the gate to hang out, Beth ran to the gate because she heard a ghost whisper that we were boarding 45 minutes early (we weren't - I think she was excited for our next adventure!), and Alex, Kim and I wandered around the terminal.

The flight to Mulu was short, I think.... I slept. The plane was chalk full of Gaijinzillas chatting away excitedly about the trip ahead. Mulu National Park is one of the higher rated experiences in Borneo, though relatively few make it here as you really have to fly. Mulu is set right near Brunei, on the eastern side of Sarawak and the whole park is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its cave system, it's biological diversification, and its plant and wildlife.

Alex and I had devised a schedule for our group of eight, but that was 8 months ago so we needed to refresh. There were several options of places to stay, but we ended up choosing to stay in the park itself - when we got there, we were happy with our choice. Some of the places to stay were quite a long walk (even a car ride) from the park and the accommodations we ended up getting were perfect for our 2 families.

It's great having Alex here. Anticipating few transport options, Alex and I did a mind meld and split up tasks. By the time some were still deplaning, Alex got chits for the ONE "taxi" and had arranged that our group would be the first two trips from the airport to Mulu. I shepherded the bags from the offload point, and sent the first three people with bags to join Alex. Kathleen, our driver, knew that we were next so by the time she got back to the airport, we were able to jump in, to the chagrin of the 20 or so people in line. It was only a five minute return trip, but having Alex there kept things moving - we are really simpatico when it comes to logistics.

When I got to the park, it was now the moment to see if our plans would work out. Everything had been arranged and confirmed, but it was by email, and it always feels a little un-real until you're staring face to face at a human being. No worries though, our whole itinerary was laid out for us, and we were able to pay, ditch our bags and join our first excursion not one hour after getting off the plane.

Our rooms were great - we are in a longhouse along an elevated jungle walkway that has a number of bungalows and long houses tucked into the jungle. The longhouse has two rooms on each side of the stairs up to the landing. We have two rooms on the right - each room having four single beds, fan and AC and a large bathroom with two showers (one cold, one hot, oddly) and a toilet. It was much nicer than I expected.... Because I hadn't expected anything :-). Beth and Kim were over the moon, so I'm guessing they had had very low expectations! The kids of course were in seventh heaven.

The whole park setup is really top notch - the main reception and welcome area, the grounds and the open ended cafeteria are all beautifully put together.

At 2:30, we gathered around and met our guide, Jasper. What's that you say? We were off on a trek already? That's right.... I told you Alex and I had arranged everything with careful thought - when to go, go, go and when to relax. If we'd left it up to our wives, we would have over committed and bailed later (they don't read this drivel....). Well, that's the plan, I have full editing control if this later does not pan out.

Jasper, an Iban native, was a great guide. The plan was to hike 3km to Deer and Lang caves, do some exploration there, then sit down at an observatory to hopefully watch the exodus of over 3 million bats from Deer Cave.

The walk was not what I had expected - it was all on elevated wooden walkways with railings or concrete paths. When you don't have to look down at what you're stepping on (like we had to in Bako National Park yesterday), you get to open your eyes to all the stuff around you. The jungle was beautiful - for all the times we'd said it felt like we were walking inside Jurassic Park before (northern Laos, Ha Long Bay, Phong Nha national park), drive your Kramer index finger into the table, "Now!!" we really felt it.

Jasper pointed out a lot of critters and plants - poisonous trees, millipedes, flowers, and he joked with the kids. His speaking style and smile were infectious - he'd often end sentences with "by the way" which added to his charm.

We made it to Deer Cave faster than I think Jasper had ever made it. It's not like we were rushing, but we all walked pretty fast (I understand from Jasper that apparently not all Gaijinzillas do actually walk this fast!!). Deer Cave, until recently, was the largest cave in the world (it was usurped by one in Phong Nha national park in Vietnam in 2012). The mouth of it was massive. I was totally impressed with the continuation of the walkway system throughout the cave. You needed to stay on the walkway, as the cave was full of Guano (the polite term for bat shit.... So you can now say things like, "jeez, Nana is gua-no crazy" (note: not our Nana, that's just an unrelated example). When you looked back at the mouth from the inside, you could see a massive profile that looked like President Lincoln...

The cave was full of squeaks from the bats sleeping (or just hanging, I don't think they actually sleep) above. It's really hard to get a scale view from a picture, but we did take a bunch of pictures where, if you look closely, you can see small ant people at the bottom in the far distance. This thing was massive - 125 meters tall at its highest point and 140 meters wide, by the way (damn Jasper, now I'm doing it!). We eventually came to a collapsed section of the cave called the garden of Eden which was a bright green bathed in sunlight that contrasted beautifully with the black hole of the cave.

Unlike Paradise Cave in Vietnam, this cave was dimly lit, mostly to give the bats respite from shining lights.

After about forty minutes, we hiked back out and went to explore Lang Cave. Lang Cave was smaller and had some interesting features - scalloping on the walls showed the progress of water passing through the cave millions of years ago. There was a "skylight" - a sinkhole way above the floor that let in beautiful light, and there were many more stalagmites and stalactites than in Deer Cave.

By the time we got out of Lang Cave, it had started to pour. We donned our trusty ponchos (well most did.... I did not bring mine! Over-weather-confidence at work!) and walked over to the observation deck in hopes that it would stop raining and we would see the bat exodus (they are not big on rain as they don't have feathers to keep them dry).

We did see the bats after all - it was very cool. The rain abated at about 4:45, and the bats started streaming out of the cave in a never ending twisting tornado of black mass. We were expecting a large cloud of bats to suddenly emerge, but the way they came out was very cool. They fly in a coil, as the bats are always trying to stay in the center of the "peloton" (ok, it's a cycling term for group, I can't help it) because they fear being attacked by bat Hawks. The first group of bats took about 15 minutes - a constant stream of millions of bats, out for the evening to eat all kinds of insects. Mosquitos and other flying insects are pretty rare around Mulu - the bats have to eat 18 grams of insects each every night, so they work hard to act as our personal bug repellents.

There was a pause and then another group came out,and Abby shouted over to me "Daddy, the first chase group!" With a huge grin on her face..... Another TdF reference - did I mention I need to change my Will? The bats, it turns out, take over an hour to leave the cave - all 3 million of them, by the way (:-)).

The walk back was one of those "evening energy walks" - we were all pumped full of life force. We were half way around the world, trekking through the deep jungle with our good friends from down the street.... So cool.

We had a great dinner. The food here is really amazing! And so are the Tiger Beers of course. The kids had a great night, capping it off with a viewing of their C-quality horror movie (hey Mudfords, this movie made Room 407 seem like an Oscar nominated flic!). A great first day in Mulu.... More adventures on tap for tomorrow!

Day 71: Bako National Park

On tap today, was a visit to Bako National Park. The park is know for Probiscus monkeys and other small animal wildlife, as well as its scenery and plant life. We had an early morning - I think we are all a little short on sleep... It will probably hit us lat......zzzzzzz.......later.

We had about a 40 minute cab ride to the main jetty, where Alex and I arranged the park entry tickets and boat tickets. Alex asked around for a local guide, and we eventfully got a young guy named Harry, but not spelled "Harry".

For some reason, they wanted us to split up into 2 smaller boats, so we (ok, I) sent the four kids in a boat ahead of us. The moms were a little stressed, but the kids seemed to like the idea, as you can see.

The boat ride in was great - it was nice to be on the water again after our day on and in the water yesterday. We got to the park in about 20 minutes and landed at the concrete dock and low and behold.... The kids had survived and were all smiles (I think Abby was smiling... She may have been scowling!).

As you can see, Bako National Park has a lot of trails of various lengths and terrain. We were told to stick to the coastal routes to see animals, and Harry agreed, so we set off on the Jalan Lintang.

It wasn't long before we were on a boardwalk splitting the jungle in two. Our guide seemed to easily spot things that we would not have been able to find, so we were glad to have him. The Macaques were near the entrance - based on Harry's reaction at seeing them I assumed they were more of a pest monkey than a "great find".

Harry jumped off the boardwalk and quickly located this Borneo Viper - a smal poisonous green snake that tends to hang in trees and eat small insects and kids....

Harry pointed out a stingless bee nest (vid below). They produce a non edible form of honey that the Iban people use as a special kind of incense. It smelled really good when he lit it up.... The honey, that is....

Near the end of the trail, we spotted the Probiscus Monkeys way up in the trees. I couldn't get a good shot of the monkeys (they were way up there), but I got a video of a big one jumping.

The Probiscus is the largest of the monkeys and the only monkey that can swim. They are pretty shy. New ran into a couple of different groups along the path - the sounds of skirmishes way overhead were pretty cool.

I'd seen huge monitor lizards on mainland Malaysia before, but Harry managed to sport this tiny one....

There were quite a few wild boars, snorting through the sandy areas with their hard, pointy noses looking for ants or other bugs.

The macaques were kind of cute, kind of annoying I guess. At lunch, they managed to steal two pieces of chicken from Alex. They were lightning fast and super agile. The guides were not happy with the macaques and tried to fend them off the lunch building, but the macaques were too quick and too smart - they got fed.

While en route to our second walk, we noticed another set of monkeys - I got a couple of videos here. Check out the small baby hanging off his mother in the boat in the first one.

We made our way over to a secluded beach framed with huge limestone karsts at each side. My were going to walk back the way we came, but the ingenuity of the four kids (Jeff.... Idea inspiration, Abby... Official observer, Matt.... Special effects, Robin.... Negotiation) got us a deal with a small boat driver that took us back to the beach near the main entrance. Good job kids!

Instead of packing in a third hike, we opted to take the boat back to the main jetty, cautiously keeping our hands out of the water at all times!

The kids were anxious to get back to the pool, Alex and I were keen to do some chores (post office, SIM card stuff) and the ladies were looking to work on their fans by the pool. We had a fun day. The kids ended up working on a home movie for three hours (poor Jeffrey, his character ended up dying in a bed, and he fell asleep for real for 2 hours.... Waking him up for dinner was a challenge!).

We say goodbye to Kuching, the cat statues, our awesome apartment and apparently wifi as we head to Mulu National Park for three nights before going to the west side of Malaysian Borneo, to the state of Sabah.