While we were in Miri, we visited the Mulu National Park.
Miri is Sarawak’s 2nd largest city and the gateway to the state’s northern region. A rapidly expanding business and commercial centre and the home of Sarawak’s oil industry, Miri is located in Northeast Sarawak close to the Brunei border. Miri has become a major tourism gateway and the jumping-off point for some of Sarawak’s world-famous National Parks. It is here that we launched ourselves off to the Mulu National Park.
There are many ways you can get from Miri to the Park – by bus, by boat and by plane. We chose to fly. It was a 30-minute flight to Mulu.
There are different types of accommodations at the Park – homestays, tents or the up scale Royal Mulu Resort. Well, we gave ourselves a treat and stayed at the Resort. The resort sits on the bank of the Melinau River and is built in wooden longhouse style.
The Mulu National Park is Sarawak’s largest national park and also Malaysia’s first World Heritage Area. It is most famous for its limestone cave systems. The park’s main attractions are the four show caves – Lang Cave, Deer Cave, Cave of the Wind and Clearwater Cave. There are other sights and activities but we only did the caves and the Canopy Skywalk.
The Lang Cave is small and intimate with elegant rock shawls and cave curtains, dramatic stalagmites and stalactites and unusual rim stone pools on the cave floor.
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| Profile of Abraham Lincoln |
The Deer Cave is the world’s largest discovered cave passage but we were told that in recent days, a larger cave has been discovered in Vietnam. The Deer Cave is home to the largest known bat colony. The huge cave passage was formed by an ancient river that carved the spectacular scalloped walls and left a number of fascinating rock formations. At one point it is possible to see a remarkably lifelike profile of Abraham Lincoln (an ex-president of the USA) outlined at the cave entrance.
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| Bat flying out of the cave |
From the cave exit we walked to the Bat Observatory to view the mass exodus of millions of bats emerging from the entrance of the cave to forage in the rainforest. It was quite a “performance”. Millions of bats stream from the cave and for up to 30 minutes, they spiral across the sky towards the setting sun, forming long ribbon-like shapes, swirling donuts and corkscrew trails as they try to elude the bat hawks looking for a meal. It is estimated that the bats eat about 15 tons worth of mosquitoes every night. We believe this is true because we didn’t get a single bite while up there. But we do wonder how far they have to forage to get the mosquitoes they need to eat. |
| Bats in formation |
The Wind Cave got its name from the cool breezes that blow along the narrow passages inside the cave.
The Clearwater Cave was formed by an underground river, which emerges near the cave mouth. It is Southeast Asia’s longest cave passage at over 170km. We had to climb up the 200 steps to the cave mouth, which has some superb dripping stalactites and 2 species of bizarre one-leave plants. Inside the cave entrance are strange spike-like formations formed by bacterial action, all facing towards the cave entrance. At the end of our visit we went swimming in the clear, cool water just outside the cave entrance.
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| Mark on the Canopy Skywalk |
We went on the 480-meter Canopy Skywalk, which is the longest tree-based walkway in the world. We were supposed to be able to view a variety of birds, insects and plants that cannot be seen from the ground. Unfortunately, we did not see any birds or insects (only butterflies).
We walked a lot during the visit to the Park, which was good. As a treat, we decided we had enough and stayed in our room to relax a whole day before we flew back to Miri.A visit to the Mulu National Park and the caves is highly recommended for anyone visiting Sarawak. It is an experience not to be missed. We had a great time.
Here are more photos taken at the Park.
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| Fungi |
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| They call this the Lady |
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| A Lantern Bug |
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| Stalactite resembling a hand |
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