What a lovely way to spend the afternoon..

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lazing by a pool in hot sunshine and thinking back over the last few days.

We managed to get to Mulu National Park although we had to stay just outside the park in a local guesthouse. That was an experience in living like the local people - water had to be pumped up out of the river into a large bin in the bathroom - then it was shower yourself with a scoop. The only trouble was that there was no water on the first day, so we learnt the hard way!!

I need to go back a step first - to get to the park you either take a 10 hour boat ride or, in our case a short ride in a plane - powered by propellors. That was fine except the clouds came down and the piiot could not find the runway, so aftr circling for some time he gavve up and flew back to Miri. We la nded there, refuelled and set off again almost at once! This time all was clear and we were allowed down. Luck was with us again for the whole of this trip as we managed to do all the walks etc that we were hoping to manage.

The caves were amazing - huge, awesome and beautiful. And let me mention the bat fragrance - sometimes it was overpowering, other times just a little hint wafted down to us. And yes, we had our David Attenborough moment, the bats left the caves in an hour long display of twirling flight. They were amazing. Although we were watching fro some distance below them we coud hear their wings moving and some of the groups seemed to smell somewhat too! The guide said that they were leaving in groups of different types, it looked like a swarm of them pouring up out of the cave, up the rock fronts and then out over the valley in corkscrewinng sausage shaped groups. And there were millions of them apparently - no we didn't count! It was lucky they came out as it had rained that morning and sometimes they don't bother to eave the caves when that happens.

On our night walk we found a tarantula spider lurking in its burrow, snails (huge ones!) mating on a tree and lots of huge frogs. (They eat the bull frogs in this part of the world.. ugh!) The noise was incredible, at times quite painful and at others eeriiy silent. The noises the huge frogs make sounded like teenagers whooping and we had been joined by a young Brit who is looking for her prince (Sweet!) so we were on a mission that night!! But sadly the transformation did not occur so we went on more boat rides and walks without the gorgeous man for her!

The smaller caves had wonderful stalagmites and stalactytes that were incredibly beautiful with creatures that live there - seemingly albino as they need to be able to hide from the bats and snakes.

All of this seems a ifetime away from the pool in Brunei where we are spending a day or two before returning home.

Things we have learnt jusst today - tell your taxi driver not to use his mobie phone whilst driving at 85 miles an hour down the mani highway... and of course the Malaysians will put sugar on a cheese roll. They put sugar on everything!!

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Comments

[Tami]

This post was fascinating and chocked full of information! I enjoyed reading it from beginning to end :)

[John Bown]

Mental Pictures
You paint vivid mental pictures Lizzie-P to compliment the actual downloaded ones. So pleased that you have enjoyed it all so much and I have enjoyed reading your various posts. When the time comes, have a safe journey home. John