Malaysia - The Rough Guide to Southeast Asia on a Budget - page 489

and offers a whole range of excellent
multi-day jungle treks and mountain
hikes , including the challenging Pinnacles
Trail. here are also short, gentle walks
along well-marked trails.

Clearwater Cave and Wind Cave
Probing some 107km through Mulu's
substratum, Clearwater Cave , thought to
be the longest in Southeast Asia, is
reached by a fifteen-minute longboat
journey (RM30) along Sungai Melinau
from park headquarters. On the way
there's the obligatory stop at the small
Penan village where you can buy some
beautiful rattan weavings, jungle jewellery
and Kelabit beadwork.
First, you visit the Wind Cave , its several
chambers revealing otherworldly
sculptures, some resembling a cross
between giant jellyfish and cauliflower.
he Clearwater Cave is the grander of the
two, reachable by flights of steep steps
and bisected by the subterranean river
that gives the cave its name. Besides the
impressive limestone formations, you
may also spot some harmless racer snakes.

The show caves
Only four of the 25 caves so far explored
in Mulu are open to casual visitors;
they're known as “show caves” and can
get quite crowded. Guides are
compulsory and tours run in the
mornings to Wind and Clearwater caves,
and in the afternoons to Deer and Lang's
caves. Each pair of caves costs R20 a trip.

6

Deer Cave
From the headquarters, a well-marked
3km plankway runs to the impressive
Deer Cave , whose 2km-long and
174m-high cave passage was the largest
in the world until the discovery of the
Son Doong Cave in Vietnam in May
2009. One of the cave's limestone
formations, silhouetted by a cave
opening, resembles the profile of
Abraham Lincoln. he cave itself takes its
name from the deer that used to venture
inside to drink from the stream, salty
with guano. Inside, it's a vast natural
cathedral with streams of water falling
from on high; the ground between the
boardwalks is covered with enormous
mounds of strong-smelling, brown bat
guano - nourishment for the cockroaches
that live in it. A good guide will point
out the paw prints of civets who scour
the guano mounds for dead or injured
bats and will shine a torchlight into the
milky stream to expose blind catfish that
have evolved to function in complete
darkness. he cave is home to an
astonishing twelve species of bat; it is
estimated that they consume up to 30
tonnes of insects nightly, which is why
there are hardly any mosquitoes in the
park. Visits are timed to finish by late
afternoon so that you can relax at the
outdoor “Bat Observatory” just outside
the cave and watch the “changing of the
guard”: myriads of swiftlets flying in for
the night and three million bats
streaming out in long serpentine
ribbons across the sky at sunset.

Adventure caves
he park is one of the best places in the
world for adventure caving, with options
ranging from beginner to advanced. If
you have no prior spelunking experience,
you'll probably try the Racer Cave first
(2hr 30min-3hr 30min), where you'll
spot some non-venomous racer snakes
that feed on the cave bats. Advanced
cave-crawlers may wish to try Clearwater
Connection (6-8hr), which involves
climbing and a 1.5km river section
(you must be able to swim!), or the
challenging Sarawak Chamber circuit (at
least 10hr), a steep traverse which offers a
chance to explore the darkness of the
world's largest enclosed cave.

Short walks from park headquarters
here are plenty of short walks in the park,
from the guided Canopy Skywalk and a
short trek to the Garden of Eden , just
beyond the Deer Cave, to the self-guided
walk that ends at Paku Waterfall (around
4hr return) and the Botanical Trail loop.

The Pinnacles
he first part of the demanding Pinnacles
trek from park headquarters is by
longboat along Sungai Melinau to Kuala
Birar (RM325 per person including boat
transfer, two nights' accommodation and