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Mulu Caves & Pinnacles 29 May - 2 June 1998
There were 7 of us all together. 5 great-looking guys and 2 cute girls.
Among them, 5 were bankers. We went through Seridan Mulu Tour & Travel
Services Sdn. Bhd. (Tel no. 085-414300), which was based in Miri. It was to be
a 5 days 4 nights trip.
29 May
We all met at the Labuan Airport at about 6:30am to catch the flight to
Miri at 7am. All of us were still half-asleep. I only did my packing at about
11pm the night before. The flight to Miri was on a Fokler and lasted about 30
minutes. Miri being part of Sarawak requires anyone not from Sarawak to have
a passport for entry. If you don’t have one, you would need your IC and fill in a
form. After that, we went to Miri town and had breakfast and look around coz
our next flight to Mulu was at 3pm. There is a shopping center there and we
went bowling and had lunch after at Burger King. There is neither of that in
Labuan, you see. We then took a taxi back to Miri Airport and boarded the
flight to Mulu. Our plane was one of those twin-rotor 19 seater planes. There
is no stewardess, no toilet, no drinks and you can’t even stand while you are
inside. Thank God it has wings and wheels. The flight took about 1/2 hour to
get to Mulu. Once we got there, we checked into the Royal Mulu Resort. This
resort is rated 3 «
. It
has a pool but no gym. The whole resort is on stilt and it is connected by
wooden plank walkway. Quite nice actually. The rooms are ordinary but there
is only one channel on the TV and it switches from CNN to TV3 every few
hours. We went to the pool and that was all the activity for the day.
30 May
We woke up at about 7am and had our breakfast. First on the agenda was to
visit the Wind Cave and the Clear Water Cave. We took a 4WD Pick-up to the
Gunung Mulu National Park HQ to register ourselves. There were seats at the
back and we all try our best to cramp in. Camera owners are required to pay a
MYR 5 fee for taking photographs. We then took a long boat to the caves. Due
to the dry spell that was cast upon us recently, there were times when the
water level of the river was too low for the boat to cross and we have to get
down and push the boat. We went to Wind Cave first. There are stalactites and
stalagmites in them, but the feature of the caves is when wind that goes
through, it makes a whistling sound. We next proceeded to Clear Water Cave.
There is a small river that runs inside it, thus the name. We came back to
the resort after that by the boat again and had our lunch. After that, we
check out of the resort and took the 4WD to the starting of the trail for
Camp5. The trail to Camp5 is about 7.8 km long. We had to cross 2 streams and
walk about 2hrs 10mins to get there. During the last 1/2 hr, it started to
rain and we were walking very fast and manage to get there at about 5:10pm.
We were all wet and hot from the walk and decided to jump in the river to
cool down. The river is nice and cool. The water is so clear that you can see
the fishes in them. The camp was much better than I had expected. It has a
few rooms but no doors. Inside the room, there are platforms, which acts like
a very long bed on each side of the room. The camp is powered by solar cells
installed above the roof but was not working when we were there. Although we
did not see any bee hive, we were constantly surrounded by hundreds of bees.
Surprisingly, none of us was stung by any of the bees. There were a few
leeches on the way to the camp. We had dinner and were brief for the next day
event of climbing to the viewpoint of the Pinnacles.
31 May
We woke up at about 6am because we were to start the climb at 7am. We were
told that the distance was about 2.4km and the height of the Pinnacles was at
about 1200m. The level of the camp was at about 100m. By using trigonometry,
Sinq = height/distance
= 1.1/2.4
= 0.45833333
q
= 27.28°
When we were climbing however, it seems like 45° or more. There was very little flat land and the terrain was
up all the way with few steps. Many times, hands were required to pull
ourselves up. Normally, it would take about 3 - 3.5hrs to get to the
viewpoint. But us being mostly unfit bankers, it took us 4hrs to get there.
During the last hour, we have to climb about 70°
-90° slopes. There are 15 ladders to
help you achieve that. There were also lots of ladder type steps to be climb.
We stayed up there for about 1 hr to take our photos and have some snacks. It
is quite misty up there and sometimes, we have to wait for the mist to clear
off the get a better look at the Pinnacles. That’s why it seems to be very
cold from the pictures that we took. Actually, the temperature would have
been about 30° C. Climbing down took
another 3.5hrs. Finally, we were back to camp at about 3:30pm. Again, we jump
in the river at the first opportunity we had. Spend another night at Camp5.
1 June
We woke up at about 7am and left Camp5 at about 8:10am as we proceed back
to the 4WD pick up point. This time, it took us 2hrs 30mins coz we were so
tired after the climb yesterday. We took the 4WD again back to the resort and
had a warm shower and the comfort of an air-condition room in the resort.
After lunch, we drag ourselves for the last time to visit the 2 other caves,
Lang Caves and Deer Caves. We took the 4WD again to the National Park HQ and
proceed from there. To get to the caves, we have to walk another 3km via
wooden platform walkways. The entire platforms were on stilts. The journey
took another 45mins. We went to Lang Cave first, this is the cave where the
stalactites and stalagmites look like aliens and jellyfish. This was the best
cave we have come across so far. After that, we walk across to Deer Cave,
which was only 5mins away. Deer Cave is huge! The space volume of the cave is
impressive. It’s very high up and very wide. This is the cave where the bats
live. There were bats’ droppings everywhere. Good thing, we were carrying
umbrellas with us. This was the best of all the 4 caves that we had visited.
We got to see an illuminating worm, bats and a snake. There were also good
scenery shots from the cave. Finally, we walk back to the HQ and took few
more photographs before we return to the resort. Exhausted, we rest in the
resort’s room and play cards till midnight.
2 June
Certificate for the 4 caves and Pinnacles was given to us in the morning.
We took flights from Mulu to Brunei, Brunei to Miri and finally, Miri to
Labuan. This is because Mulu to Miri flights were only available in the late
afternoon and we would have missed the flight from Miri to Labuan.
This is one of the trips that I truly enjoy and would recommend it to
anyone. Camp5 is an excellent place to camp out and relax. The water is nice,
cool and clean. There is also a barbecue area. Those who are not so fit may
want to give the Pinnacles a skip, although I would still recommend it to
those who go to Mulu National Park. There is also Mt. Mulu summit’s trail that
is a lot easier to climb than the Pinnacles but at a longer distance of 24km
(one way).
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