World Malaysia Sarawak Gunung Mulu National Park

A Whole New World

Gunung-Mulu National Park Jul 24, 2012

Miri is the gateway to Gunung Mulu National Park, which many consider to be the highlight of a visit to Borneo. (As an aside note, nobody in Eastern Malaysia describes his or her homeland as Malaysia. They all say that they’re either from the state of Sarawak or that they’re from Borneo). The charm of Mulu is its remoteness. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but it is only accessible by air via a prop plane that lands at the park’s paved airstrip. Mulu is only a half hour flight from Miri but as soon as we took off I knew that we were headed somewhere special. It was as though we were flying over an ocean of trees. There were no roads in sight and a dominant feature of the landscape was a winding river of the type that today rarely exists in America and Europe because of damming. Although the park is remote, it is laid out well. There are a number of trails which visitors can hike on their own as well a several trails requiring the services of a guide. Along the self-guided trails one encounters periodic informative signs explaining the terrain, fauna and flora so I was able to learn quite a bit. The park also offers limited lodging including a nice hostel where I stayed. The hostel reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of public works projects during the depression because it consisted of a large wide-open room with a total of 21 beds placed side by side. Despite the park services, Mulu is truly remote jungle. In fact, a small band of semi-primitive nomadic hunters still makes its home within park boundaries. This tribe so shuns contact with the modern world that the authorities are not even sure of the exact number of members, estimating it to be between 300 and 500 individuals. One of the neatest things I experienced was the jungle coming to life after sunset. As darkness descends the sound of insects and animals, particularly frogs, makes for quite a racket. This continues throughout the night until it becomes strangely quiet around 4:00 am. Electricity in the park is provided by generators, which are turned off from midnight until 6:00 am. It was amazing to wake up in the middle of the night and look out of the hostel at a pitch-dark night reverberating with the sounds of the jungle.

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