This gallery contains 12 photos.
The day after rice wine … most of us with (including myself) with a slight headache. So it was perfect having a day of rest without many activities … just nice to chill out, read a book, go for swim, … Continue reading
After arrival we had a bit of time to check out the surroundings … followed by dinner.
After dinner we presented the gifts (some of the stuff we purchased earlier in the market, plus other stuff organized by Sally based on a wish list); the gifts were evenly distributed between all families in the longhouse – followed by a ‘thanking’ ceremony and loads of ricewine…
Eventually the ricewine was out … and the real party started. As we had gotten to Skandis just after the Gaway festival (similar to Thanksgiving), most families were still complete, means also the young generation was at the longhouse – to join in for Gaway from their normal lifes in the city. So there were plenty of people to drink (and to share the grilled pigs head) with ..
No further comments below … just a few notes (mainly for my fellow travellers)
We left Kuching this morning; first stop at the market in Serian to get some fruit as part of our gift for the longhouse community.
We had lunch in the small town of Lachau, before finally moving over to longboats once more – and arriving at our home for the next days – Skandis Longhouse.
We made it into Kuching in the afternoon; I started the usual town exploration – and discovered many cat statues around every second corner in town.
In the evening we had a briefing on the upcoming longhouse stay; after which we left the hotel and moved to a parking garage with a hawker center on the top floor to get some of the best food of this whole trip … for a mere 35 ringgit.
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 …
This gallery contains 11 photos.
This next morning we left camp 5 the same way we got there (8km hike, followed by a trip on a longboat) and made our way back to the park head quarters. After a confusing lunch some of us headed … Continue reading
The Pinnacles – the first big highlight of this trip.
The hike to get there is probably the steepest hike, I ever did. The pure distance from camp 5 is just 2.4km, however – as one needs to climb from about 50m above sea level to 1175m – this is more than a simple walk in the park (while technically – this being a National Park – iit remains a walk in the park).
We left Camp 5 around 07:00 … with Richard and myself making ground pretty quickly; we made it to the top – means the Pinnacles view point 1125m higher than the start point – already around 09:00.
After a 45 minute break at the viewpoint, we started to climb down again. On the way down, we met the others on their way up.
We finally made it back to camp by 12:00 … in time for a relaxing afternoon in and around the river. The others made it back to camp around 16:00 … and also ended up in the river to cool down.
This gallery contains 20 photos.
After breakfast we were back to the longboats, heading further upstream – destination of the day being Mulu National Park’s camp 5. On the way we had a number of stops, the first already after short time at a settlement … Continue reading
After an introduction evening the tour officially went going today. We left Miri in taxis to make it to the river boat port to board the first boat of a series of three – for our 12 hours epic river journey downstream to Mulu NP. While there is a flight available from Miri to Mulu, it was well worth it doing the boat trip … a small adventure in itself.
After arrival at the river boat port we had breakfast in a small restaurant nearby – before we finally boarded our aeroplane shapped boat (no wings of course) for the first three hours up to Marudi.
We made it into Marudi after around 3 hours – here we got our seats reserved for the onward journes … then we were of for a well deserved toilet break, limited shopping, some sightseeing and lunch.
After lunch the next express boat was waiting for us – and taking us from Marudi to Long Terawan – another journey of four to five hours.
On arrival in Long Terawan we changed to a longboat for the last bit of the journey (around 2 hours). In the last bit we were hit by a torrential – yet refreshing – tropical rain shower (look for the photo with the wall of water below … the rain, we were heading into). We made in into Mulu NP just in time for a late dinner.
A 16 hours journey did bring me to Miri via Kuala Lumpur.
As I was coming straight from a swine-flu country, I was directly given special treatment, my temperature was taken and I got a special Welcome Package including a face mask (in case I show flu symptoms), which proved helpful later on.
A quick taxi ride got me into town, we I directly started exploring town. The center itself felt pretty boring to me … as it was mainly consisting of shopping centers.
The city fan however makes a nice change – a big park with different kinds of themed gardens in it, including a Chinese and Islamic garden … nice for a some rest
Later in the day … once I found the tourist office and had a map, I made my way up a hill outside the city – up Canada hill to the Grand old Lady, Malaysia’s first oil well.
