The heart of Borneo

Ok so following on from the oil-rich land of Brunei we ventured back into the Malaysian part of Borneo, firstly to explore some gigantic caves deep in the jungle a la BBC Planet Earth, then over to the north-east coast to check out a scuba dive spot regularly featured on "World's Best" lists.

What a view!

Gunung Mulu National Park definitely exceeded our expectations. Arriving in Mulu via light aircraft we were able to take in some of the incredible equatorial jungle views from above - we knew things were going to be good. We took a night safari along the park's board walks on the first night, keeping our eyes peeled for huge jungle insects, jungle lizards and jungle fireflies (I came to refer to everything as jungle-related), the sounds from the trees and vegetation were very cool and helped to set the scene for our next few days.

On one morning we travelled along the river to an indigenous long-house village and then continued down stream to the park's main attraction - the limestone caves.

A glimpse of things to come...

The millions upon millions of years old stalactites and stalagmites 

Inside "Lady Cave"

The caves here are arguably some of, if not the, largest in the world and apparently there is one chamber alone that is so big it could accommodate 40 Boeing 747s! They really are breath-taking to stand inside.

At dusk we headed to the entrance of Deer Cave (the locals used to hunt deer as they rested out of the humidity in here) and literally saw millions (approx 3 million!) bats emerge for their evening feeding ritual. Giant swirls of bats right across the sky was one reason the BBC chose to film a Planet Earth programme here (that and the huge mounds of protein-rich bat poo...)

The bats in action

Mulu is also home to the world's longest tree canopy walkway and seeing the jungle from above was pretty cool. Walking timidly along the high creaking floorboards and being told not to hold on to the sides because snakes tend to be curled there isn't for the faint hearted!

Our final highlight of Borneo was heading out to the Semporna archipelago to give the world-class scuba diving a bash. We rather stupidly decided to take an overnight bus from the city of Kota Kinabalu which meant arriving in the rather dodgy and run-down town of Semporna at 3.30am - not one of our finest plans. We hung around the bus station, being hassled by local guys trying to get us to take a taxi, a mean-looking pack of stray dogs and more than a couple of rats(!) until the sun started to rise at about 6am. At this point we gave in to one of the persistent locals and found ourselves in the back of his home-made taxi veering around corners with the car doors flinging open voluntarily!

Thankfully our home for the next week, the island of Mabul, was complete with an incredible underwater world. I completed my scuba diving course whilst Tom took his advanced classes with "Sean" who not only looked and sounded like a giant but happily told us prior to becoming a dive instructor he used to sell all kinds of weapons to governments and rebel groups around the world... he's not someone you'd want to meet in a dark alley.

The local fisher-boys

My first taste of diving was amazing. I would recommend it to anyone as it's so peaceful under the water with hundreds of colourful fish and corals all around, not the mention the friendly turtles. We both had a fantastic time, until I managed to pick up a nasty ear infection (which I'm going to see yet another doctor about tomorrow).

 The sunsets were as good as ever...

... and at times quite surreal

Woo hoo!

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur last night so more blogging and pictures will follow soon...