Wings, water or walking… the only ways to reach Mulu! To be more precise, travelers wishing to reach Gunung Mulu National Park can opt for either a 30 mins flight, a 6-7 hour boat ride or embark on a 2-day hike along an old tribal trail dubbed the Headhunter’s Trail. Needless to say we opted for the short flight.
Summary of our guided and self-guided activities during our stay at Gunung Mulu National Park.
| Mon – Jan. 30th | Tues – Jan 31th | Wed – Feb 1st | Thu – Feb 2nd | Fri – Feb 3rd | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AM | n/a | CLEARWATER CAVE & CAVE OF THE WINDS (4 hrs) | Paku Valley Loop trail (2.5 hrs) self-guided | MULU CANOPY WALK (2 hrs) | The Botanic Trail (1 hr) self-guided |
| PM | relax | relax | relax | FASTLANE IN LAGANG CAVE (2.5 hrs) | DEER & LANG CAVES (3+ hrs) |
| Night | THE NIGHT WALK (1-2 hrs) | Night Walk trail (1hr) self guided | SUNSET CRUISE with Summit vista (1 hr) | relax | relax |
2023.01.30 – Miri – Gunung Mulu National Park (Malaysia)
We had breakfast “à la carte” at our hotel’s restaurant. Before leaving our hotel for the airport, we deposited our snorkeling equipment at their luggage room as we planned in stay at the same hotel upon our return from Mulu. We had no difficulty securing a Grab ride to the airport. Our 30 mins flight was sparsely occupied with less than 16 passengers. Surprisingly, the flight attendants managed to hand-out packaged snacks and water bottles. After retrieving our backpacks, we jumped into a local lady’s small car for a short ride to the park’s headquarter. After confirming and paying for our 5 night stay and 6 guided activities, we walked over to our comfortable Garden House for an afternoon rest. We had opted to stay in an accommodation within the park’s boundary. If we had benefited from an heftier budget, we could have booked a room at the Marriott Resort just outside the park limit. It rained heavily in the late afternoon so we were convinced our planned Night Walk activity would be canceled. Unsurprisingly, the rain stopped and we had an early dinner at the park’s cafe. Only one other guest joined us at 7pm for our 2 hour guided Night Walk. Throughout our walk along a boardwalk trail, our guide expertly pointed out to us numerous frogs and insects – these animals are typically difficult to see during the day. We were pleased to note that our phone’s cellular reception was quite good thanks to the roaming service associated with our Singapore sims.
2023.01.31 – Mulu – Mulu (Malaysia)
We never realized how noisy frogs could be during the night. They hindered our chance of getting any deep sleep. We had our breakfast at the park’s cafe before joining our 8:45am Clearwater & Cave of the Winds guided tour. The 20-30 mins long boat ride to the start of trail for the cave was very enjoyable. We first stopped to visit the Cave of Winds. After a steep staircase ascend, we reached the entrance to the cave and we then proceeded to walk 385m along a boardwalk path. A guide provided some information at different points along our visit. Back to the river, we continued our ride on the long-boat for another 10 minutes to the start of the trail head leading to the Clearwater cave. Last night, I googled about the largest caves in the world as it appeared every time we visited caves in different countries (e.g. Spain, Slovinia, etc) the guides were often quick to report that their caves were among the largest in the world. Well, we learned that Clearwater was truly among the top 10 largest caves in the world. Our visit did not disappoint as we walked along a lengthy boardwalk loop. The cave system extends 250km to-date and more needs to be explored. Although the Clearwater cave was very impressive we still preferred our caving experience in the northern part of the Philippines (Sagada) for its pristine and unaltered cave condition (i.e. no walkways) as we recalled the experience of walking barefoot in the cave. We finished our cave visit with a swim in the water emerging from the cave. Our long boat return ride was quite fast as we went down current. After a good shower, we had lunch at the cafe. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in our Garden House. In the evening after our dinner at the cafe, we embarked on 2km self-guided night walk with only one head light. It was on this occasion that we discovered that not all trails in the park were on elevated boardwalk with lightning. Jenny blasted me for the next 1.9km for having brought her along a muddy trail. Nonetheless, we managed to return to our room without any problem. In light of the previous night’s noisy frog, I used earplugs before falling asleep.
2023.02.01 – Mulu – Mulu (Malaysia)
Jenny regretted not having worn earplugs for the previous night as she did not sleep well. We were able to enjoy a late breakfast this morning as our planned guided tours were canceled due to a lack of participants. We also had to move today to a different accommodation building as the Garden House was already booked for the rest of the week. We found our Longhouse II accommodation even more comfortable than our Garden House – while being slightly cheaper. After settling into our new home, I embarked on 8 km walk/hike while Jenny took a rest and preferred not to tackle any muddy trails. It turned out that I enjoyed the trail but would have hated it as the first 4kms were 70% muddy while the last 4kms were only 20% muddy. Back at our room after 2h and 15mins walking, I desperately needed to shower the mud off my sandals, socks and legs. I was glad to have taken my walking poles along with me as I would have probably slipped on the ground a few times. After our lunch, we opted to pay at the park office for the “minimum of 3 persons” in order to enjoy a sunset cruise tour. Jenny really enjoyed the lengthy long-boat ride. We requested to be dropped off at the Marriott Spa and Resort jetty in order to have dinner there. After splurging on our meal, we walked 3.5kms back to the park headquarter.
2023.02.02 – Mulu – Mulu (Malaysia)
We had a much better night sleep in our new Longhouse II accommodation as it seemed further away from the frog noise. The downside of our more distant lodging (~ 100 m) was that our cellular data reception was suddenly much weaker. After breakfast, Jenny and I were the only participants led on the 8:30am Mulu Canopy Skywalk. It was quite trilling to be up in the trees trying to glimpse of birds and monkeys. In the mid-afternoon, we joined one other guest, a Chinese adventurous and seasoned traveler lady, on the “Fast Lane in Lagang Cave” tour. We actually preferred this cave visit than our more prestigious Clearwater cave visit on Tuesday. We finished our day with a dinner at the park’s cafe.
2023.02.03 – Mulu – Mulu (Malaysia)
After our breakfast, we walked to the start of the 1.5km Botanical trail – the same trail our guide used for our Night Walk activity on the first evening of our stay in Mulu. Very informative display panels were sprinkled along the trail and explained every aspects of the vegetation and insects in the rain-forest. After a brief lunch, we joined our guide at 2pm for the Deer and Lang Cave activity – the last of our planned activities. Although the Lang Cave was relatively smaller than most caves in Mulu, we voted it as the nicest cave with plenty of stalagmites/stalactites and other interesting structures. On the other hand, the Deer Cave’s main chamber was massively large. The main attraction of the Deer Cave was the chance to witness a large bat exodus from the cave before sunset – the key element here was “a chance”. The cave was said to be the home of over 2.5 millions bats of a given single species. Our guide reminded us that there were 12 species of bat living in the cave. With so many bats in the cave, it was not surprising that the cave floor was covered by bat poo and exhumed a pungent smell of ammonia. Although the cave was impressive by its sheer size, it lacked much of the typical structures found in caves. We waited with many other guests over one hour at the nearby bat observatory with the hope of witnessing their exodus. We gave up at 6pm and walked the 3kms back to the park’s cafe for dinner. Apparently some guests that stayed longer witnessed a small exodus around 6:40pm.
2023.02.04 – Mulu – Miri (Malaysia)
We noticed during our stay in Mulu that our washed clothes would not dry thoroughly overnight – even with the A/C and a ceiling fan running all the time. We had our last breakfast at the park’s cafe. We checked out of the park at 11am after collecting our key deposit. We then took a local car ride to the airport for our 1:00pm 30 mins flight back to Miri. From the airport, we took a Grab to our hotel. In the evening, we had a large dinner at a nearby busy Chinese restaurant. We booked an extra night stay in Miri after we resigned ourselves in modifying our travel itinerary. We learned from another guest in Mulu that many mode of transportation to Brunei had been halted during the pandemic and had not resumed since then. A few days ago, we had reached out and received no answers from a bus company and Brunei tourist office after inquiring on the availability of an international bus service. Hence, we decided to book a flight to our next Malaysian destination in Borneo instead of visiting nearby Brunei. We considered flight options to Brunei but the flight time of 6 hrs (via Kuala Lampur) and the associated extra cost to cover a mere distance of 150 kms did not warrant our planned short stay in Brunei. We were further comforted in our decision by the lady in Mulu who gave us a ride to the airport as she re-iterated that there were not much for tourists to visit in Brunei.
2023.02.05 – Miri – Miri (Malaysia)
This morning, we showed up too late for breakfast at our hotel’s restaurant. Instead, we visited a Kaya & Toast outlet for an omelet, toast and coffee. We noticed a lot of folks shopping in the large modern mall across the street. We thought many of them could be coming from Brunei for a weekend escape. In the early afternoon, we walked over to the Miri City Fan – an attractive open landscaped park. From there, we took a Grab up to visit the Petroleum Museum atop of Canada Hill. We were eager to find out why the place was called Canada Hill. As we did not find any explanation on-site, our googling revealed that it was simply named like that because a person living in the area was from Canada. Eh! In the evening, we splurged on some Korean hot pot and BBQ.
