However, when it came to cooking, I was definitely prepared. After all, I had four years of practice in preparing one of humanity's greatness inventions (after fire, and just beating out the wheel)... Top Ramen noodles.
Yup, instant noodles in all their variety would turn out to be a good friend of mine, as after chilling out in colonial Melaka, it was finally time to check out Malaysia's “other half”; leaving the peninsula for the jungle haunts of Borneo. With unspoilt jungle, oranguatans, and a bunch more besides, it was time to get my hiking boots good and dirty.
Coming from Kuala Lumpur, I had one night in Miri – a town built around supporting the workers on the offshore oil platforms. I was far from overwhelmed. Heck, I don't think I was even whelmed (sidenote: does anyone know if that's even a word?)... as that meant a large number of bars (hurrah!), but lots of dodgy lodgings and even dodgier brothels (no, no – no hurrahs there). Lonely Planet came through like a champ here though – directing me to Dillenia's, one of the nicest hostels I've stayed at, ever.
Not only was it so clean that you could probably stage an operation on its floors, but the kind owner, Ms. Lee, directed me to a fantastic seafood place. All Chinese, with no English menus everywhere, it was packed. A patient waitress took me under her wing, walking me around to the various tanks of live fish, crabs, and who knows what else? Basically, I just picked, gestured a rough guestimation on size, and she used pidgin English to ask how I wanted it cooked.
Now, I tried to be good, asking for enough for only one person, but somehow that translated into a dozen mussels in lemongrass, a dozen tiny crabs in satay sauce, and a big fish grilled in garlic. Oh, and of course rice and a few beers. Lovely.
Waddling back to my hotel, I had the best of intentions of catching up on my blogging but my left eye raced my right in seeing who could shut the fastest. Zzz.
The next day was my first glimpse of Mulu National Park. Flying in on a little propeller-driven airliner, we passed over miles and miles of unbroken jungle. Our landing strip stuck out as an oasis of civilization, bracketed on both sides by limestone karsts that popped out of the foliage.
Stunning.
Well, stunning, but wicked hot too. I dropped my stuff in the dorm at camp HQ and headed out for a quick hike up a trail towards some of the legendary caves that Mulu is known for. About two miles, that translates into an hour each way, with plenty of time to get back for my organized caving trip.
Wrong. First, there was the heat... where you started dripping with sweat 20 yards (uh, or meters for you Brits) after leaving whatever cool place you could find. Second? Mulu is seriously distracting – sending dozens of the biggest butterflies fluttering around you whenever you walked.
Third? Well, I was a bit out of shape – and after gamely heading up three steep vertical staircases like this:
… I called it a day. An afternoon rather.
Mulu threw one more surprise as well. Probably politely figuring that I wasn't cool enough from all that sweat, it threw a truly massive monsoon-like downpour just as I was about 500 meters from the shelter of HQ. Lovely.
After a non-too-dignified sprint for cover, I met up with the guide for our caving trip, who told us that in the caves, we'd be able to get out of the rain a bit. Actually, caves are a bit of a misnomer – for a variety of technical reasons that I had no intention of remembering, Mulu's limestone is pretty much near-perfect for caves to develop. And caves? Actually, think “huge, gi-normous caverns”... populated with millions of bats to boot.
We ended up checking out two caves – the Wind Cave, which featured amazing stalagmites and -tites formed over millions of years like this:
… before heading to Deer Cave, one of the world's largest. It wasn't great for photos, but as an experience... wow. When you walked in, you were greeted by two things – the overwhelming smell of bat guano (fancy word for bat poop) as well as the near-constant chittering from all of the bats as they were getting ready to head out for the night's hunts.
We couldn't actually see them directly, but you could see large dark stains on the cave roof, hundreds of feet above. Each one made up a portion of the estimated 2-3 million bats that live in that cave alone. Unreal.
Among the bits of trivia I picked up... bats actually don't have to 'hold on' to the roof. Their ligaments have evolved such that they actually have to exert effort to let go – handy. I figure the IRS took their inspiration with my tax refunds from these guys...
Some beers and tasty nasi gorang (spicy meat, rice, flatbread) helped dull the noise from the Japanese tour group sharing our dorm room, so it was a relatively early night.
The next three days were the reason I came to Mulu. I joined a group heading out to the Pinnacles rock formation, at the summit of a mountain peak in the jungle. (Not my pic...)
With two Aussies and a Canadian, we checked out a few caves in the morning, got in a much-needed swim in the river, and then were dropped off at the trailhead further upstream.
A fun 9km hike upriver went well, with Mulu doing an exceptional job in minimizing impact of all the thousands of tourists. Wooden walkways, suspension bridges and more....
...it was a pretty easy hike in to our temporary home for the next few days – Camp 5.
Surprisingly good conditions – with electricity and showers, we were pretty impressed. No cold beers though, but what the hey, we were truly 'roughing it'... a quick afternoon swim, warm-ish beer (that utterly failed to get colder after I stuck in the river for a few hours), and some silly card games finished our first night. Oh, and the first of our many ramen noodle meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner... but at least they got past the boring "chicken". Malaysians do noodles right - including soy sauce and sesame oil packets, and heaps of funky flavor combinations.
Now, the plan was to head out at first light, and make the climb up in the morning. At 2.5 kilometers long, with 1.2 km altitude gain, that worked out to a near-constant 45 degree climb. Ouch.
The weather threw a wrench in the works here – as we got absolutely blasted by a HUGE monsoon all night. And, coming on the tin roofs of the dorms, it was impressive indeed.
Optimistically, we still got up early as planned, only to be told that for safety reasons, no one could hike that day.
Crap.
We did salvage a bit of the day with a short hike into the jungle across the river:
… but basically, the 2nd day turned into lounging, reading, and playing yet more games (Celebrity, anyone?). Not bad, but oh so disappointing after the build up and anticipation of Pinnacles.
And watching sunset, legs dangling over the bridge, was a nice consolation prize:
Oh well... the third day, it was back to the HQ. We were well motivated by thoughts of cold drinks and a hot shower, so ended at the trailhead in record time. Then, it was an even faster boat ride back downstream, boosted by the seriously swollen river.
10am at Camp HQ? What's it time for?
It's never too early. :)
We got in a bit of frisbee throwing on the grass, drawing some bemused looks from the staff and sometimes enthusiastic, if unskilled, participation. Then it was time for me to clean up, eat up, and finally meet up with my flight over to Kuching...
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