Stunning karst above and underground - Gunung Mulu National Park 1013; Songket 01505
What and Why
The Gunung Mulu National Park (Malay: Taman Negara Mulu) is a national park famous for two things: the extensive and massive underground cave networks and the amazing sharp-bladed limestone karst formation on the slope of a mountain rainforest. One of the most famous of these caves is actually the world's largest cave, the 12 million m3 Sarawak Chamber (Ruang Sarawak), with all sorts of karst formation inside these caves; while the most remarkable karst features sit on top of the Mount Api (Gunung Api), the sharp spikey limestone blades of the Pinnacles.
The park is in my opinion, one of the most underrated national parks in the world and has really plenty to offer, both in terms of natural landscapes and activities.
Toponymy
While the word ‘mulu’ can refer to 'always' in Malay, this is not attributed to the meaning of the area. In fact no trace of the name can be found.
See
The park map is above shows where most of the activities are, except for the highlight of the Pinnacles.
Pinnacles
The Pinnacles is widely considered the most challenging and difficult hike of Malaysia, especially when there is a reference to Mount Kinabalu (Gunung Kinabalu). My wife and I just went without any major training, and fortunately we did manage to return in one piece (more to that later).
The trip started with a leisurely boat-ride along the river from the headquarter. At various occasions one has to get down and push the boat across the shallow waters.
We then started a 10-km leisurely flat hike up to the base-camp, traversing some rivers and crossing a few swinging bridges along the way. Gave everyone a false-sense of simplicity for the following day.
The base camp, called Camp 5, is fairly basic, but provides all the necessities, with a nearby pool for a relaxing swim. Our comfort zone ended here.
The below shows the route map to the summit. The time listed on the map is REALLY the time you need to get to that checkpoint or else the guides will send you back home to Camp 5. The rule is that you have to reach each of these checkpoints within the specified time, otherwise Camp 5 one returns.
The group that we joined together included a few naturalists (who clearly runs around mountains all the time), someone who claimed to have conquered the Himalayas (Nepalese: हिमालय, Himālaya), and many fit boys. I claimed myself to be athletic, at least I used to be, to be able to compete with them.
We started at around 6:30 am, and the first stop was the so-called Small Pinnacles, which was just a mere 900 m away from the camp, and was reasonably easy to handle, and we managed to reach there in 30 minutes. There one will be able to see some karst features within the tree clusters.
From there it would be all pain. The next stage was some 45° slope with no paved or trodden paths. One simply snake around razor-sharp rocks, tree trails and there were occasional ropes and steel ladders to haul yourself up around the mossy rainforest. The unfortunate part of this climb was that you had to be so conscious of time that one could hardly pause take any pictures, especially the pitcher plants along the way, otherwise we would be sent home!
One will probably notice the skull sign as this last 0.5 km is where one climbs 17 overhung steel ladders and metal bridges (actually drain covers to be exact). Scaling this was really no easy task and one could feel the burning lactose-filled muscles all around. Honestly it was really not for the faint-hearted as a slip or mis-step, one would fall into the ridges and have to say bye-bye. Again this was made more anxious due to the time limit for each checkpoint.
We were one of the last to reach the summit with all the other fitter members resting there for 30 minutes already, but at least we made it. After a quick rest of 30 minutes, we started our descent immediately, in order to make it back to the camp before late afternoon. The ridiculous part of the return journey was that going down would take twice as long and was even more challenging, strange but really true! Trekking and climbing back could not be harder and was further aggravated by the souring legs!
There have been a few unfortunate cases of casualties at the Mulu Pinnacles, when after scaling down to the easy zone, the guide recited his own story of carrying the elderly British who injured himself during the journey back in 2018 CE. The site is so treacherous that helicopters could not airlift him out from the accident site, so the ranger was one of the ten who had to carry him down to Camp 5 on a stretcher. He was fully conscious on site but died at the hospital after prolonged bleeding...
Deer Cave (Gua Rusa)
The Deer Cave (Gua Rusa) is one the largest and most popular caves in Mulu. It is simply a massive chamber with a big hole with a ceiling of more than 100 m. The cave is mainly flat and is the easier cave to explore. The cave is named because many deers go there to lick salt-bearing rocks and bat guano.
One of the many interesting sites inside the caves is Abraham Lincoln's face, as above. The other end of the cave leads to the Garden of Eden, which is simply a lush rainforest under the big sinkhole. The surrounding caves represent one of the largest cave passage systems in the world, with lots of caves on offer for caving exploration.
The most important feature of this cave is to the sight of the bat exodus, which takes place everyday near dusk time, when all the bats leave the cave in extreme orderly fashion, in the form of a big ribbon-queue.
A very nice observation area has been built just outside below the cave entrance, so that visitors can view the exodus as they exit the cave and stream away like a black swinging rubber band.
The video of the bat exodus.
Sarawak Chamber (Ruang Sarawak)
Sarawak Chamber is the largest known cave chamber in the world by ground area: with approximately 600 m in length and 450 m in width, plus a maximum height of 115 m. The massive cave is very dark and without professional camera one can hardly take any picture inside. Hence I can only use a downloaded image.
To reach the cave, one has to take a boat to the entrance of the cave and wade through a 60-m river with some parts requiring some minor swimming.
Other caves (Gua)
There are so many caves to explore in Mulu that one will not get bored. All these caves sit underneath Mount Api and provide more than 300 km of exploration activities. Two of the most famous and challenging ones will be the Clearwater Cave (Gua Air Jernih), and the Racer Cave. Without professional cameras, these caves are literally pitch-black.
Some of the caves are well-paved and managed with paved ledges and bridges.
In one of the caves, we saw glow-worms.
Canopy Skywalk (Kanopi)
The Mulu canopy walk is a 420-metre walkway, suspended 25 metres above the forest floor and is one of the longest tree based canopy walks in the world. Beautiful lushy walk.
Night walk (Berjalan malam)
Led by an expert guide, and I really mean it, you would be led around the park on paved trails as Mulu is a rich habitat for thousands of nocturnal species. The guide would just arbitrarily point his torchlight to a direction and locate a small animal, be it a bird, insect, snake, bat or a civet cat. How he was able to do that was really beyond us, but truly an unmissable night activity inside the park.
Buy and Do
Caving (Memanjat gua)
Caving, what else? Honestly some of the caves like Racer Cave require climbing, crawling, wading, rope climbing and abseiling, and hence can be quite physically challenging. Most of these caves that allow visitors, even those labelled advanced, to me are reasonably manageable. Bring an extra pair of clothing though, as the photograph below shows.
Songket
Talking about clothing, there is a traditional fabric that is adorned everywhere in the state of Sarawak, where Mulu is located in. Songket is handwoven fabric, usually embroidered with gold threads. The threads seem to float over a colourful woven background to create an ornamental effect. This brocade fabric is traditionally associated with the empire of Srivijaya (Sanskrit: श्रीविजय, Śrīvijaya), and is still woven using a traditional loom called the kek. The word 'songket' comes from the Malay word 'sungkit' meaning 'hook', indicating the weaving technique.
According to anecdotal narratives, the origin of songket came from the Chinese traders who brought silk threads, while the Indian or Middle Eastern traders brought gold threads. Subsequently, the woven combination has become the exquisitely shimmering golden embroidered fabric and this type of clothing started to appear documented history as early as the 8th century CE.
Songket-made clothing, due to its ornamental style is usually worn during important ceremonies, special occasions, religious festivals, and traditional social functions. As a result the songket was, until it became popularised, a symbol of status. Moreover songket is also passed from generation to generation as an heirloom. Clearly now it has become more affordable when it is manufactured using modern materials and is recently seen as a fashion statement. Clearly songket are worn everywhere in Indonesia and Malaysia, but the particular Sarawakian songket stands out as they are seen in the many local cultural performances. This fabric is recently inscribed as an ICH.
Eat and Drink
There is a park cafe inside the park serving basic Malaysian fare. Although the quality is not too bad, it can be a bit pricey, after all it is almost a monopoly. A few minute-walk outside the park, one can find various home-based food stalls or if you can afford you can walk to the Mulu Marriott for a very posh and over-priced meal.
Stay
We highly recommend staying inside the park, to access everything, especially to participate in the night walk. There are the reasonably priced individual chalets for family or couples or long houses for a communal living under a shoe-string budget. I have stayed in both and I have to admit the quality is very high and is absolutely value-for-money and provides the convenience to access all activities.
Getting There and Around
To get to Mulu, one needs to arrive at Miri the night before and then take the early flight from there. This will be one of the most interesting flight one may take as the flight time hardly lasts slightly more than half-an-hour, just flying over the mountain range. In fact during this particular trip, there were only ten passengers in the flight and all of us were punctual, the small propeller-aeroplane took off much earlier than the set time and we arrived at the park earlier than the actual departure time! Snacks were still being served in spite of the short flight!
Once you reach the Mulu airport, the park is a mere 15-minute walk from the airport, or a one-minute taxi ride. Once you are in the park, basically you just pay for the accommodations and the activities you participate with a minimal five-day park fee of MYR RM30. If you do climb the Pinnacles, it is suggested to allot at least five nights in Mulu, and you can be assured there is no way you would be bored.
UNESCO Inscriptions
Important both for its high biodiversity and for its karst features, Gunung Mulu National Park, on the island of Borneo in the State of Sarawak, is the most studied tropical karst area in the world. The 52,864-ha park contains seventeen vegetation zones, exhibiting some 3,500 species of vascular plants. Its palm species are exceptionally rich, with 109 species in twenty genera noted. The park is dominated by Gunung Mulu, a 2,377 m-high sandstone pinnacle. At least 295 km of explored caves provide a spectacular sight and are home to millions of cave swiftlets and bats. The Sarawak Chamber, 600 m by 415 m and 80 m high, is the largest known cave chamber in the world.
Songket is a traditional Malaysian handwoven fabric created by women in the Malay Peninsula and Sarawak. The term songket refers to the decorative weaving technique used to make the fabric, which entails inserting gold or silver thread in between the base threads. As a result, the extra threads seem to float over a colourful woven background to create an ornamental effect. Songket is woven using a kek, a traditional, two-pedal floor loom. The final product is a delicate fabric resulting from months of skilled handloom weaving by expert artisans. The weaving technique, which dates back to the sixteenth century, is passed on from generation to generation, and the songket style can be identified by the design patterns that use geometric shapes and organic elements, such as flowers, birds and insects. The songket material was traditionally worn only by royalty and their families. However, today it is used by Malay people all over the country in traditional ceremonial clothing, for royal installations, weddings, births, festive occasions and formal state functions. Although the weaving of songket has always been firmly in the hands of women, men also partake in the practice by making the weaving equipment.
References
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