Thrice bitten

I last left off in Miri, about to catch a flight to Gunung Mulu National Park. Miri also gave us a chance to enjoy a little variety in food and to stock up on groceries and snacks for Mulu. However, we couldn't take too much, since these small planes have strict baggage limits. We ended up almost having the plane to ourselves (only 2 other passengers).

The 15 minute flight was impressive. After seeing so much of Borneo's forests replaced by oil palms, it was amazing to see so much virgin jungle, with meandering rivers cutting through it and tiny settlements along their banks. It would have been possible to get there by boat (Balthazar wanted to give it a try), but you have to make a series of connections going up river, and you're lucky to make the journey in one very long, exciting day. $40 for a plane ticket didn't seem so bad.

The national park was like an expensive version of Bako. Unlike Bako, almost everything at Mulu requires a guide. While I can understand that for some things (scaling the summit of one of the peaks), it really seems like overkill for everything else.

We did manage our own night hike along the miles of boardwalks near the park headquarters, rather than pay for the official guided tour. We didn't happen to spot any nocturnal primates up in the trees, but Alice and James were really good at finding the tree frogs from the chirping sound. In this one, I noticed I'd also caught a tiny stick insect in the same photo.

We were also fascinated how the sounds of the jungle changed as the night went along, sort of like new instruments being added to a complex symphony. In fact, one of the creatures we weren't able to spot sounded almost like a violin tuning up. When a few of those got going, it was like the sound track for a really creepy horror movie. I'd wandered ahead a ways by myself when I first heard them, and I couldn't help thinking of the famous last words "Let's split up, we'll cover more ground that way." I quickly headed back to the others. We also had to really watch our footing, since I almost tripped over some sort of huge spider (see the gallery for more) as well as several frogs.

Our first full day at Mulu was packed with tours from sunrise to sunset (and then some), starting with an early morning canopy tour. This consists of a series of suspension bridges (something like 17?) carefully attached to the upper parts of the jungle trees. They claim it's the longest canopy walk in the world. Though we didn't see much for wildlife other than a brief view of a couple of hornbills flying overhead (the symbol of Sarawak, and getting to be quite rare), we really got to see how unique each of the types of trees was and the amazing variety of other plants that work their way up (or down) the trees.

The main event for the day, though, was what they call the Garden of Eden. See below for details. Getting there was most of the fun, especially once we got past the nice walkways used for the normal cave tours. Deer Cave claims a few world records, including largest cave entrance and biggest cave passage. The record for largest cave chamber is also held by Mulu, but since it takes up to 15 hours to get there and back, you need special permission to visit that one.

Of more immediate importance, Deer Cave is home to a colony of about 3 million bats! The smell alone is pretty overwhelming, though oddly like Windex (bat guano is high in ammonia). The consistency is like fluffy, brown, warm snow. It gets a little harder to convince yourself it's OK when you're sliding knee and elbow deep through the stuff and notice it's wriggling with critters feasting on it.

Though not super difficult, the trek through the cave made for some tricky footing. We had to wade through a river in many spots, so most of us wore sandals. However, the footing was so slippery that you really needed good hiking boots to be able to hold on (as long as you didn't mind ruining them). Fortunately, they had ropes to grab in the trickiest spots, so you wouldn't slide off the edge when you inevitably slipped. We also had fun in one spot, when Alice spotted the largest spider any of us had ever seen (some sort of colorful cave spider - sorry, no pics), just as she was about to use it as a hand hold! Over the strong objections of our guide, we found a new route down - there's no way we were putting our hands right next to that thing.

Here's the view we had at the end of the cave - The Garden of Eden. This is a collapsed section of cave, providing a little section of jungle in the middle of the mountains, completely cut off from the rest of Borneo. Apparently one of the Planet Earth episodes is mostly dedicated to this and the surrounding caves (I'll have to watch it when I get home). We spent a couple of hours exploring the Garden of Eden area, and hiking to a beautiful waterfall where we had our lunch.

Those of you who've already skimmed through the gallery probably know what's coming next, but I need to give a little background first. It had become kind of a recurring joke since Belaga that each time we started a hike, Alice would ask the guide if there were any leeches. Their response was invariably "You'd be very lucky to find one." By this, I assumed they meant that we were unlikely to find any leeches, but if we did find one, it was nothing to worry about.

On this hike, Alice asked at the start whether there were any leeches, and the guide assured us that there were none in the cave. When we got to the Garden of Eden, she asked again, and got the more typical response about finding one. What I didn't realize is that this statement could also be interpreted another way.

Back to the waterfall. Here we are, enjoying our lunches, blissfully ignorant of the horror that awaits. After lunch, we had a half hour or so to swim before starting back. I was about the last to get my swimsuit on and get in, but I figured there wasn't much risk in rapidly moving water. It turns out leeches can swim really well.

As we got out of the water and started to get ready for the hike back, I think Alice was the first to let out a shriek as she started flicking at the first leech to get it to come off. I kidded her, reminding her "you promised to let me take a photo before you pulled it off."

Famous last words. Others started finding leeches, and pretty soon I found one on the back of my right ankle, right where my sandals had started to cause a blister. Taking a photo never occurred to me, as I frantically started flicking at the big, juicy bloodsucker. It gave up and dropped off pretty easily, probably having almost drunk its fill. Of course, the blood continued to flow, which I knew was going to be a problem under my sandal strap (that's the special thing about leeches - you can't feel them, and their anticoagulant is so good that it keeps bleeding for hours).

Then I found another, right on the sole of my foot. This skinny guy had just gotten started, and he wouldn't let go. I kept flicking at him, but he just seemed to dig in. "This is what I'm supposed to do, right?! It's not working!" Finally, after a combination of pulling and flicking, he finally let go of my foot.

Everyone in our group managed to get at least 2 or 3 bites, most of them bleeding quite profusely. After checking myself pretty thoroughly, it looked like I got by with just 2. Boy was I ready to get back on the trail.

By this point, we were not quite so bothered by the leeches. When a big, stripey one jumped on Alice from one of the trees, the guide pointed out it was a tiger leech. She was kinda proud to be the only one bitten by this leech species.

On the way back, I started to regret not changing back into my regular shorts after swimming (guys probably know what I mean), but I stuck it out and the discomfort eased.

After making it back to the entrance of Deer Cave, we explored the adjacent Lang Cave. This one was much smaller, but filled with beautiful limestone cave formations, including one called helictites (tiny sideways stalactite fingers, created by the wind). More photos of Lang Cave can be seen here and here.

We finished the day waiting outside the entrance to Deer Cave for a couple hours, watching for the ~3 million bats to emerge around sunset for their evening meal. Apparently they were convinced it was going to rain, so the main group of them never flew out. They had several remote control video cameras with spotlights setup inside the cave, so we could at least watch the activities of the bats on the cave ceiling up close. We also got to see a rare bat hawk (bird that only eats bats) picking off some of the bats emerging from nearby caves.

Finally, it was back to the park lodge for a much needed shower to get rid of the layers of bat guano. As I got rid of my swimsuit, I discovered the reason they'd gotten a bit uncomfortable on the hike back. I'd missed a leech! My swimsuit lining was completely drenched in blood, which was still flowing. I finally found the bite, all the way up the inside of my leg. Any further, and it would have been truly tragic. No sign of the leech, but I wouldn't have been posting a photo of this one anyway!

I'm now in the city of Kota Kinabalu, over on the other side of Borneo. I'm well over a week behind on updates, but I'll try to get you caught up on what's happened since Mulu before before I head inland again.