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Published: February 26th 2006
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Adventurer
Staking out some new territory like an old school adventurer......umm just humor him. (Kev)
As I was doing the research of the places I would like to visit in Borneo, Gunung Mulu National Park was one of the places that enamored me the most. The Park is as large as Singapore and holds one of the world’s most extraordinary cave systems. There are four caves open to the general public, and much more if you pay for adventure caving. The caves are massive, Deer Cave is the largest cave passage known to man…we tried to capture some of it, but its sheer size made a fair representation of it difficult.
Gunung Mulu has no roads leading to it, so the only way to get there is by a 20 some hour boat ride, or plane. We flew to save time and money, although if we had more time going by river would probably have been a worthwhile experience. The flight out took only 20 minutes, but we saw some incredible scenery along the way. We paid about 25 U.S. for it… however we were able to find a cheaper flight on the way back…(it’s the plane you see Dustin climbing into).
Gunung Mulu is known for its caves, but
it has so much more than that. The jungle comes alive with noise, and bombards the senses; vivid colors, huge plants, and an incredible surround sound. It is amazing to here the powerful crash of thunder interrupt the chirp of the numerous birds. Mulu also has a resort that is about a 30-minute walk from the park. Dustin and I walked out there, and almost stayed…the promotional price was very good, and they were showing the Olympics in the lobby…but we are budget travelers, and we had all ready spent on the flight out. I wouldn’t have minded getting a free massage in the afternoon, but it gave me more money for things I like…like food! I do plan on staying at some resort eventually though, maybe when we get a little more burned out, or want satellite T.V, to watch the Canucks in the playoffs.
The caves we saw were a fantastic site, the formations were unbelievable, and the sheer sizes of the passages were absolutely breathtaking. I especially like the view of Deer Cave’s back entrance. This part was called, Adam and Eve Forest (it’s the picture entitled Adventurer). The lighting here was surreal and it was
The Darkness
For all you Dave Chappelle fans. unlike anything I had ever really seen. Mulu was definitely a worthwhile experience, if I go back I will try to do the adventure caving, Clear water cave seems like it would be incredible. Dustin and I were unable to do it because you have to be certified as advanced, which means you have to do an intermediate cave first. All off the adventure caving costs money, so because of that and our time limitations we opted not to.
Well we need to catch a ferry soon so gotta run
Catch ya later
'Love Kev
(Dust)
Man, we just love having to get up early for buses that take us to flights, well not really but we do stuff like that quite often. We usually try to make the best of our time on travel days and get out to areas early so we can decide what we'd like to do. The caves were pretty awesome out at Mulu, like kev said we really had a hard time getting the pictures to turn out. We would just stop and the other people and guide would keep going and we would just keep trying and trying and I'm
It's him...
Too bad we weren't allowed to crawl through there. sure they probably weren't happy with us just chilling on our own in their caves but hey, the things we don't do for a good picture for you guys.
We spent an afternoon and a morning out there and packed as much stuff in for as cheap as we could before trying to get a flight back that Friday so we could head out to Brunei early Friday morning and not have to travel on Saturday. We also hiked out to the Clearwater and wind cave to save a couple bucks and the little Moonmilk cave you walk through on the way out there turned out to be pretty neat as well. We finally tried to get lots of pics of kev because he's the one always behind the camera and deserving of attention.
Well we met some cool guys on one of the tours and talked with them later in the hostel when we weren't chasing and being chased by a spider. Actually these same nice guys that had us cram in their car back to the Brooke Inn where Swena was staying. It was actually pretty neat out there though because the rock formations were amazing
I saved $200 on my insurance this month
Hmmm well not a Gecko but close enough... and there were tons of lizards and pygmy squirrels and things that just kept your attention. The life and sounds out there are amazing but it would be worth it to go on some of the adventure caving if we had more time and more money. Anyway I'm strapped for time, and I hope you enjoy the blog.
Cheers
Dustin
(Matthew) First off, i didn't go to Mulu. Mulu was the fourth national park that we were planning on visiting and i was a little burnt out. plus i hadn't got a good nights sleep for about a week so i opted to stay in Miri instead.
i went ahead and rented a room for two nights and set off exploring the city. talk about a different experience. no matter where we've gone, there's been three of us so it has never felt too foreign. this was a totally different experience. but i had a good time. i bought a good book, visited the local library, did some grocery shopping, watched the olympics at my hotel and was generally pretty lazy. but i did catch up on my sleep and it ended up being just what i needed.
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Ryan
non-member comment
Who is it?
I think the guy in the picture looks like Abraham Lincoln.