Mulu 1 - Scenery

During the mid semester berak break, I was in Mulu National Park a couple of days to 'assist my colleague in his research and scout for potential project sites', which in short, could also mean holiday. Crap aside, Mulu National Park was a wonder to behold even without a visit to its peak. The biodiversity (species richness, different types of living things) is obviously overwhelming and the types of habitats and forests are also very numerous. I'll be posting many, many pictures from now on, breaking the pictures down to categories such as 'scenery', 'animals', 'bugs' etc. I traveled with two other mammals: Cheryl (female) and Tse Yuen (hermaphrodite male) . Let the visuals begin =)

MAS Wings plane, AK 7xx... I forgot. But I was rather entertained by the lil screens displaying the safety procedures etc. Bumpy lil plane.

"fock fock fock fock fock" it goes

That dark column on the right is actually pouring rain. Not bad, watching rain from above.

And this is Mulu National Park's Headquarters. Or the HQ's exterior at least. Yup, it rained when we arrived.

*sigh*

Holiday!

"It's rainin men, Hallelujah it's rainin men"
Now after braving the rain with all our luggage (whee -_-), we entered the research centre (above). That's Tse Yuen and the store room.
As you enter the research centre, you will see this.
.. and out of curiosity, you turn left, and see this..
..before turning right and seeing this. meh. haha

Research going on about wasps in Mulu, that are apparently parasitic if my memory fails me not.
The kitchen in the research centre.
Beside the kitchen.
A cute sign in the research centre. These can be found out in the field. It's funny how they first misspelled the word "pengkaji" ("researcher" in Malay) as "pengkeji" (Malay: keji = disgraceful, infamous, contempt)
Remember the age-old Iban headhunting practice that hangs beheaded heads outside their long houses, Malaysians? (Of course they do it no more.. right?) This is the insect version of it, found in the research centre.

OUR ROOM

Knowing very well that food in Mulu is flown in and hence, extremely expensive, we (I) stocked up truckloads of food in Miri.. Well, very tiny trucks that is.

Yes, all that food was mine, and mine only. What, 5d4n you know!

Another thing that affected us was this..

Maxis no more. But at certain hotspots, you can get Maxis line. Like the left side of the veranda outside the research centre, the top left corner of my pillow if you leave it long enough etc.

And yeah, my phone it coming to the end of its service. Note the chipped off bits between 3, 6 and 9. And the half-gone silver bits surrounding the donut key (which by now, of course is completely gone). Not to mention, the chipped off paint all over the silver sides of the phone. Oh dear Z610i, you have served me well.

(Z610i: Still serving!)

Our self made clothesline. Ignore the items on display and don't go guessing whose are whose.

Yes, we put Cheryl in the middle bed to avoid violent chemical reactions (see how TY's already eyeing me). Nice part about our room's it only had a fan but it's so cool at night, you'll actually need the blankets or your legs'll freeze by morning. haha. Occasionally we get a moth/bug flying into our room when we leave our door open by accident and we'll have to work on getting it out. Being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mulu National Park is maintained to pretty high standards and this is especially true when considering cleanliness. Compared to other Nature parks I've been in, these toilets are the cleanest and always had toilet paper and functioning taps etc, despite the abundance of bugs always present in and out of the toilet and rooms. Cicadas in the toilet are a norm. But it doesn't bother me.

Longboat Rides

One of the main modes of transport in Mulu National Park is the longboat, which connects you to Penan longhouses and other attractions that are deemed far to walk, such as the Clearwater caves. While Cheryl and I walked to the caves once, we first took the longboat there with TY, which took about 20-30 minutes. Walking there on the other hand........ still haunts me. hahah. More on that next time

Here we are at a lil shed outside the park HQ, where Cheryl's posing as we wait our guide who was to take us for a boat ride to Clearwater Cave. I'll leave the Cave pictures for another separate Cave post.
Cheryl: Uh huh, check me out.
TY fussing about grumpily as usual.

A very happy Cheryl.
Businessman in Jungle, TY. Really, he's just whispering sweet lil sentences into his girlfriend's waxy lil ears. Urh. haha
HQ

Ever been in your own country and felt like a foreigner? Well, Mulu's the place. While we're there, we're practically the only 3 Malaysians who weren't staff or local in the area. This makes sense after all, since Malaysians are quite generally non-adventurous couch potatoes (general Malaysian population) more concerned with making money (mostly Chinese; stereotyping, tsk tsk). Even with that, most Malaysians would find a trip here taxing on the wallet considering the price of food and everything else. Then again, if you aren't keen on outdoor-sey things, you'd probably think the bucks would be better spent elsewhere - like a new laptop or ipod.

Conversely, guai lows (Caucassians, whites etc) are usually quite outdoor-sey people and find Mulu such a wonder to behold that they would save and fly here just to experience bag packing in the biodiversity rich tropics. It's good to know there are at least some people in this world who appreciates the majesty of nature in its finest. But yeah, like I said, it's awkward being 'the foreigner in his own country'.

Miss Coolio

Checkin out that ass..(hole).. hahaha (Lab 5 inside joke)

The jetty we take longboats from. Love them longboat rides. Cool breeze, luscious green all over, blue blue bloooooo skies (really nice) and sometimes when the water's calm at some areas, really nice reflections of the sky etc. Also, scorching sun that goes unnoticed despite the perpetually squinted eyes, since the breeze makes you forget the heat.

Our guide that day who brought us to the jetty. She wasn't the cave-guide. She's of Berawan descent, a common tribe in the area other than the Penans, who were nomads in the past.

On the boat we go~

Kreepy Treeeee
TY's lil thing sticking out from the side as he handles it with both hands. Not so lil.
At the top right end, you see what looks like the shores but really, it's just fast flowing waters flowing in a different direction. Looks kinda cool, and we see it every time we go for longboat rides.
There ya go, sediment aplenty. It's the rainy season by the way, so the stream's bound to be murkier with sediment and sand.

Flufffffy

Lil green Pikachu amongst the forest.
Looks more alien here.

The first Penan village long house we stopped by. Can you see the end of the house? Enlarge it and try. haha. They sell handicraft and stuff under the long house, as below (pun unintended).
Angelic Taliban-ic cherubim strutting by on the right.
BIG BIG SMILE
And our longboat journey resumes. What did I tell you bout the BLOOOOOOO skies?

Hello, fellow longboaters.
"Who is that tree I see, staring straight, back at me. When will my reflection show, who I am insideeee"

'Karst' or limestone formations we see on the way to the caves. The caves are actually much, much, much larger karst formations on their own.

Just purr-fehto

-end-

And back to the park.

Boarded walks connect the entire park.
This is a helipad. Why do they build this over the helipad? I don't know.

Our 'life-sized comparison' model for the trip's photos, Cheryl, as she stood by the Deer Cave entrance. The entrance is actually quite far from where we stand, at the black hole you see in the middle of the picture, above the bushes. Here, we just finished our tour of the cave and are awaiting the bats' mass exit from the cave that usually lasts more than an hour. They get out in the evening and hunt at night. And yes, we did see it happen and left halfway to avoid being drenched in the rain. Video next time.

There ya go

Me. Picture taken to assess cheek-redness, since Cheryl said my face was sunburnt, whaddaya think?

Stole this shot. The girl apparently just returned from a grueling hike up to Gunung Mulu's peak, hence the disproportionately large bag of supplies. You go supergirl. Funny though. haha.

And another boat ride to the Caves

Blooooooooo skies *hearts*

lalala~
Another Penan long house, this time I get a better view of its full length. Complete with football goal posts too.
Our guide that day for the longboat rides, Maman (if I'm not mistaken).

Outside of the Clearwater Caves, the stream flowing out from the cave. Strong currents.

Deceivingly calm.

Outside of Clearwater Cave still.
TY: Check me out.

Back in the Park again
Really nice sunset colours, that unfortunately, my camera cannot capture accurately. Oh well. Those lil balls of light are just lights by the boardwalk.

Walking to Clearwater Caves with Cheryl

My camera batteries died on me halfway, no thanks to TY telling me my batteries were fully charged that afternoon when it wasn't. Anyway, loads of pictures from this part are with Cheryl and I'll get it from her when I can and add some in.
Part of the cruel ascent to the entrance of Clearwater caves. According to the park guide, it's about 4km of horizontal distance. Of course that doesn't say much considering that it didn't put in consideration the vertical ascent we went through. Stairs. Oh gosh. haha. Especially the walk back from the cave after you've had an ICE COLD swim in the stream outside the cave, when all your muscles are telling you good morning. Whew~

Near the Clearwater Caves

Shpookyy

These are heading upward and are not easy to walk on. Mild inclinations for long periods can be annoyingly hard to walk. Also, note that the planks aren't flat, they have raised pieces to help your feet gain some leverage so you won't slip and roll down. And if you wrong footedly stubbed your foot in one of those - ouch. But anyway, annoying lil things I'll never forget. It's a good boardwalk nonetheless, must've been really hard to build considering how high up it was. So solidly built too. Makes me wonder how they even managed.

By the boardwalk in the park.
The night before we left Mulu. Everyone wants a picture with the sign. hehe. Of course, this picture was before she was ready and posed, ngiahahaha~

I think I prefer her not posing.
"wat wat wat"

That's how one species of the frogs there sound like. It's really cute. We call them the "wat wat frog".. But Dorin who also heard them the last time she's there calls them the "hot hot frogs" on a hot day. Well it does sound right. haha

Where we get our transport to the airport. A short walk from the park HQ. We had dinner there one of the nights.
A bottle of tuak, shared between TY and myself. Cheryl had a sip. And we were both giggly after that. haha
The picture I took before we left the park for good *sob*
It was a fun few days.

It rained as we came, it rained as we went.

The closest thing to a hornbill we caught on film. I suspect I actually saw one flying during my walk to Clearwater caves with Cheryl, but it was too fast for me to make sure it was a hornbill. Orange beak, black body with a white stripe near its wings. Ah well.

View from the airport, tata~

Till Mulu 2 then. Mulu 2 shall focus on... Plants and Fungi. I'll move up to bugs and then animals later on. Ta~