The Caves of Gunung Mulu

The National Park is home to five 'Show Caves', places accessible on small group tours, some by boat, others by a 45-minute walk through the park.  The caves are rife with activity--a daily bat migration entrances park visitors at Deer Cave, which is home to 3 million wrinkle lipped bats (i'm not making this stuff up, I promise). Weather dependant, visitors can attend the appropriately named 'bat exodus', a 5:30pm evening migration of the tiny flying mammals. 

Before any of this could happen, however, we first toured the cave. It boasts its status as the Largest Cave Passage in the World! (the sign used the exclamation mark, not me). Inside, a unique guano-y smell fills your nostrils and darkness abounds. When our tour guide shone a light on the surroundings were were terrified to find snakes, gigantic tarantula-esque spiders and layer upon layer of bat shite. 

My indoor pictures do the caves very little justice but hey ho.

Next door to Deer Cave is charming, or as charming as a cave can be, Lang Cave. Here a shock of stalactites and stalagmites dot the ground and ceiling of the caves. David Attenborough does this a lot more justice that my words or pictures possibly could. You can even watch a clip of his musings on youtube by clicking here. 

The view on the way out:

Our second tour took us via boat to twin cave complexes of Clearwater Cave and Cave of the Winds.

Though the sheer magnitude of these caves was a bit smaller, they were by no means less impressive. A series of well-cared for wooden pathways took us up, around and over the underground river that roared beneath the rocks and fed the river we'd just been travelling on. 

Had I chosen to, an overnight guided tour takes visitors to various other cave-beyond-the-cave destinations. It's difficult to give mediocre pictures the impression I got when I was here. Perhaps I can only say that, in a ten-week tour of stunning cities, countries and beaches, Gunung Mulu National Park was the standout place.

That's not a particularly descriptive or detailed thought but you'll have to trust me here. There's something special in the solitude, in the greenery, in the rainforest rain. 

Go. You won't be disappointed.