Our plan was to spend another day and a half at Mulu National Park – and wishing we had more time – before finishing our journey in the sultanate of Brunei.  So yes, it was from the jungle back to the sea but the route had some unique twists to it and we learned a lot along the way.

The first lesson we had already been reminded of – getting sunburn is painful as well as stupid.  And we were suffering big time but Julie had the even worse problem of her sea lice bites – she always gets a bad reaction from insect bites or stings and she was in misery.  But if you were going to have some misery Mulu was a good place to do it.

The tropical forest around Mulu is full of huge caves but no roads.  So we caught a long boat up the Melinau River to the Cave of the Wind and Clearwater Cave, a small part of a cave system that stretched almost 130 km underground.  Along the way we stopped at a village called Batu Bungan which was inhabited by the Penan people, one of the largest tribes in Sarawak.  They had a little over-priced market of locally made goods, most of them dusty and forgotten.  Julie bought two items.

The Wind of the Caves came at the end of a 250 step climb up the mountain and was chockablock with great cave formations and structures.  Back down the steps and then back up another set of steps (give me a break!) to the Clearwater Cave.  This cave was unique in that it had quite a large river flowing through it, very cool, before it disappeared in a rock crack.  Back down at the river’s edge we could see where the water flowed out of the mountain and into the river we had come up earlier by boat. 

We opted to walk the 3.6 km trail back to the park headquarters instead of taking the boat.  The trail wove its way along the river banks, up and down, quite a tough walk in the heat.  At one stage we climbed 400 steps up to the Moonmilk Cave which was unique in that it did not have any lights and we did not have a guide.  On go the torches and we weaved our way through the narrow channels until we saw light at the other end.  The cave itself was not spectacular but the whole claustrophobic experience in the dark was great.

We got back to the park headquarters totally buggered, the heat, tough walk, sunburn and bites draining us.  We got some lunch and tried to re-gather our strength for the afternoon excursion.

The two of us hired a long boat which took us down the clear calm Melinau River to where it merged with the much larger brown muddy Tufoh River.  We turned upstream on the Tufoh which was a very large river flowing very fast and our little long boat had to work overtime to win the battle against the current.  The river took us up even further into the heart of the tropical rainforest to our goal which was Penan village called Long Iman.

After some time and many bends in the river the village appeared on the banks.  As we began to wander through the buildings we could tell the locals just endured us, mainly ignoring our smiles or gestures.  The main feature of the village was the long house, a tradition in Borneo, where multiple families, sometimes the whole village, would live in a single long building.  During the day they would stay downstairs in the overhang shade while at night they would go upstairs to sleep.   This village had a fantastic longhouse, much longer than any others we had seen, and even though the locals weren’t as friendly as we were used to it was fascinating to see how they communally lived in one structure.

We surprised a couple of men who were sitting in the shade of a separate building cleaning and gutting a huge barking deer.  This was a big animal, much bigger than deers I was familiar with in California, and we asked how they had hunted it.  One man showed us a little 9 mm nylon rope and said he had trapped it.  Julie and I looked at each other…I don’t think so.  By the nervous body language from these great hunters my guess is that they hunted this deer illegally and weren’t keen to go into too many details. 

The next day we got up early to do one more excursion before catching our plane out.  Mulu also sported the longest canopy walk in the world, a fascinating walk on a series of narrow swinging walking bridges of 460 metres total length strung between trees high above the rainforest floor.  This was great stuff, kinda thrilling to be swinging 30 metres above the floor, enjoying the jungle from another perspective.  Unfortunately it rained most of the time (as it does in the rainforest) and no self-respecting hornbill (or any other creature) would be out in this weather. 

We want to come back to Mulu – and in particular do the five day Headhunters Trail hike with our kids.  The name alone sells it but the extended journey through the rainforest, in particular a climb to the top of rock formation called The Pinnacles, camping, the whole jungle scene would be great. 

But now it’s time to catch our twin prop plane from the little air strip of Mulu to the coast city of Miri and return to the sea.