To The Bat Cave!

MULU National Park
Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia
Sunday, October 3 2010

An early wake up is something we are more than accustomed to and I have to admit I was pretty pumped for this one. Today we were flying from MIri to Gunung Mulu (Mulu National Park) and spending the next 3 days surrounded by jungles and exploring some of the caves that were featured in the Planet Earth series—for those of you who didn’t know, Planet Earth was generally played on continuous loop in my sr. year college apartment and I may or may not have memorized some of the segments that Sigourney so wisely leads us through!

Anyway, we hopped on our tiny plane and made the 30 minute flight, complete with chocolate milk beverage service, over the jungle. It was an incredible view as we dipped in and out of the clouds and soared back and forth as though aping the paths of the muddy rivers below. A rickety shuttle van picked us up from the 1 roomed airport and, after the driver had to open the door from the inside (let’s just say it wasn’t new), we trekked a short distance to the park entrance. Despite the heat and humidity and the spotting of our first wild snake, I was completely overtaken by the sheer natural beauty of our surroundings. Picture Jurassic Park and that’s where we were staying: the dense trees, the canopy, the noises of creatures unseen. Yes, I was happy.

We immediately went to the headquarters and planned out our activities for the next few days: caves, caves, caves, jungle walks, canopy walks, swims, longboat rides and more caves! The 3 of us lugged our bags along the boardwalks which wove through the park and made our way to our beds; we opted for the cheaper dorm room which was a massive room lined with beds and lockers and came with our very own collection of critters that we were just going to have to learn to live with during our stay. The café at the park served a fairly simple menu at decent prices (considering there weren’t many options near us) and we chowed down on some salted fish, eggplant, morning glory and loads of rice before our first excursion.

Up first was a walk through the rain forest which brought us to Lang’s Cave and Deer Cave, the latter is a main feature of Planet Earth: Caves (told you I loved it.) Along the walk we got up close and personal with the incredible plant and insect life of the park including the world’s tallest flower species, plants with leaves the size of small countries, stick bugs, snakes and endless types of gorgeous butter- and dragonflies. Lang’s is a small, but long and narrow cave which is known for its impressive rock formations. Like a lot of the caves in the park, it was formed by a river back in the day that carved its way through. From here we headed to Deer Cave which, until you’ve seen it in real life, you cannot begin to fathom how immense it is.

As the world’s largest cave opening, Deer Cave literally swallows you up. Looking into its belly, you have to strain to make out the ant-like people trekking along walkways inside as beautiful cascades of water drip into pools and streams below. The beauty is almost overshadowed by the unappetizing stench of guano that wafts up from the depths. Peering straight up, what you initially thought was just a giant black rock formation on the ceiling is actually a colony of over 3 million wrinkle-lipped bats. Along with 12 additional bat species, these winged beasts provide an eerie soundtrack of whirs and shrieks as you hike through their literally endless mountains of droppings. Stepping off the path you find your foot submerged in a squishy sludge (gross I know), but that’s not the worst part: cave roaches and crabs call the guano home and skitter and scatter through the heaps feeding on the leftover nutrients. Yea, imagine being stuck in that!
After witnessing such formations as Adam and Eve’s showers and a spot called the Garden of Eden (a literal emerald paradise visible from the back cave opening) we climbed down to wait for the evening highlight of Deer Cave: the bat exodus. We sat with a view of the cave opening and just kind of waited…and waited…and waited. We’d heard that the bats don’t necessarily leave the cave every night to search for food and were about ready to call it quits when the first stream came into view. Twisting around like a freshly curled ribbon, the bats emerged one after one, million after million. It was actually breathtaking seeing a seemingly endless thread of bats all taking the same path and sticking in the same pattern; sometimes more than one strand would zoom out and together, the two groups would merge and interweave forming a DNA strand across the sky. There were so many bats that you could actually hear their wings flapping overhead as onlookers oohed and ahhed.

I was beyond happy that I’d gotten to witness such a natural feat and I think I smiled all the way back to dinner (well besides the time we got a little uneasy as we realized that there weren’t really lights along the forest walk when it gets dark!) We headed over the rope suspension bridge to a little restaurant outside the park and indulged in some noodles before heading back. Feeling a bit warm we headed into the information center for some air-conditioned and some learning about the park and it’s formation, etc. We decided to make ourselves comfortable in front of the tv and watched about every informational video about Mulu, bats, nature, etc. that you could imagine before the discs started skipping and we had to head to the room to get ready for bed… I gotta say it’s a bit frightening getting dive bombed by mammoth moths on the way to the bathroom and avoiding the sinister stare of a giant mantis while at the urinal. The dorms were a bit warm as they weren’t air conditioned, but once you were settled in bed and the fans picked up it was pretty easy to doze off to the live version of National Geographic’s Sounds of the Rainforest compilation cd.