Our flight was delayed slightly from Miri but eventually our flight was called for boarding. Yay!
It's a short 30 minute flight to Mulu. Mulu's airport is one of the smaller ones I've seen. There was transport of sorts for the 5 minute drive to Mulu Park - a single Land Rover that took people 4 at a time. We had to wait for the 3rd trip.
More line ups at Mulu Park HQ - we had to register for the park and our walks, check-in to our chalet, and reschedule the canopy walk, which we were supposed to be on this morning but missed because of the cancelled flight.
Our chalet was pretty nice, an even had air conditioning. We had lunch at the open air restaurant beside the park office - nasi goreng, it was really tasty.
We geared up for our 2pm trek to Lang's Cave and Deer Cave. We had way over-geared - the trek is a boardwalk the entire way, and in fact is wheelchair accessible for almost the whole walk, including partially into the caves.
Lang's cave was okay; Deer Cave was amazing - 2km long and 174m high at its maximum. Because it's so big it seemed more like a big tunnel than a cave, but it was still really cool. It's also home to 2-3 million bats - you smell the guano well before you see the cave.
The cave is open on both ends, so there was a cool breeze blowing through. Our dork lights came in handy to watch where we were walking, and also to see the crickets with 15cm attenae.
In the piles of guano there were mongoose footprints - I can safely say I've never seen that before.
The panoramic view near sunset (the sun shines into the cave at this hour) is an amazing view - it makes my list of top things to see in the world.
After Deer Cave we waited at the "Bat Observatory" - just a couple benches in a semi circle facing Deer Cave. Around 6pm, the 2-3 million bats fly out in a spiral. The bats don't come out if it's raining (cause their echo location doesn't work as well in the rain) so we were lucky to have a blue sky as we waited.
Sure enough, around 5:50pm the first waves of bats appeared. They spiraled out (to avoid the hawks that prey on them). After a few waves, a constant stream lasting about 5 minutes came out of Deer Cave - it was pretty cool to see.
It was a bit like watching fireworks or making popcorn - how do you know when it's done? After the interval between bat spirals reached 3 seconds, we headed back to park HQ. (Actually, there's only so many bat spirals you can see before it gets repetitive.).
Showered, then had dinner at the park restaurant. It's a nice place to hang out - the bats keep it relatively insect free, and there's a nice breeze going through. Plus, the kitchen serves up pretty tasty food, and desserts (and beer and wine, although I was still feeling a bit under the weather so did not partake).
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