MULU NATIONAL PARK - LANG AND DEER CAVES

After lunch, I joined a group of hotel guests to Gunung Mulu National Park. This World Heritage Site is just 5 minutes drive from the Royal Mulu Resort. It is the largest national park in Sarawak, covering 52,865 hectares of primary rainforest. Mulu is dominated by three mountains - Gunung Mulu (2,376 m), Gunung Api (1,750 m) and Gunung Benarat (1,585 m). However. the greatest attractions lie deep below the surface, hidden underneath the forested slopes of these mountains is one of the largest limestone cave system in the world.
As no visitor is allowed to enter the Park without an official park guide, all tours into the rainforest and the caves are guided tours.

Crossing a suspension bridge as we entered the Park area.

It's about 3.5 kms from this point to the caves - an hour walk.

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The trail leading to the caves offered some of the most fantastic natural wonders of the primary rain forest. I did not expect to see any wildlife as the place was swarming with visitors. Wild animals usually stay away from people.

The amazing creeping trees - hurdled together. Jungle river Walking under the canopy of the rainforest was shady but very humid. A rock formation

Beautiful plants such as these grew along some parts of the trail.

Approaching the caves area.

We were guided to the first cave - Gua Lang or Lang cave which is the smallest of the four major caves in Mulu National Park.

Lang Cave, a deep and narrow cave is known for its fabulous limestone stalactites. As we entered the cave, our guide reminded us to be careful when walking on the walkways as some parts could be slippery since the cave was humid with water dripping from above.

Some of the pictures taken inside Lang cave.

The spectacular limestone formation.

An opening of the cave.

Next to the Lang cave is the Deer cave, the world's largest cave passage and home to millions of cave swiftlets and bats. It is the largest known cave with a size of of more than two kilometres long and 90 metres high and wide. We were told that this cave could hold over 40 jumbo jets.

Some vegetation inside the first 100 meters of the cave

Huge rocks in the cave.

As we proceeded further into the cave, I could see people ahead of us.

The upper entrance of deer cave.

Plenty of space for 40 jumbo jets. After emerging from the Deer cave, we headed for the bat observatory platform for the last attraction of the day - watching free-tailed bats storming out of the caves for their nightly actitivies.

3 millions of bats were expected to fly out from this Deer cave mouth.

It was amazing to see so many bats snaking and weaving across the sky as they were emerging from the cave in groups. One after another and following in succession. Some flying high while others flew low and fast and all maintained their long snaking line.

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It was a tiring but enjoyable day - the return trip to Royal Mulu resort took us another hour +. Just in time for a quick shower and the buffet dinner at the Resort.

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I was supposed to join the upriver tour to see the Penan settlement (Long house), Clearwater cave and Wind cave on the next day but I had to cancel the trip because of my flight schedule back to kota kinabalu. I plan to return to Mulu National Park in a couple of months to complete my tour.