The next morning we flew out of Mulu, back to Miri and from there onwards to Kuching – this time no full day river-journey.

We used pick-up trucks as transport from the park to the small airfield … here we changed to a brand new ATR plane … just coming in from Miri on its Borneo maiden flight.

During the flight we could see, why it takes 12 hours to make the 160km beeline from Miri to Mulu by boat … just check out the bends of the river. Also – clearly visible – the fragility of the whole area … what seemed like jungle from the river, indeed is nothing else than a gigantic palm tree plantation – nature would never be set up in squares …