Borneo

I had quite enjoyed hanging out in Kuala Lumpur, but a week stuck in a city as a tourist was getting me down, what better way to find a little excitement than flying across to Borneo for a bit of jungle adventure while I waited for my bike. I arrived in the city of Kuching and was immediately surprised, I'm not sure what I expected, perhaps an underdeveloped town, what I found though was a well planned and well organized, neat and tidy little city. I stayed at Nomad hostel, which was a great decision, the place was full of character, as was the travelers I met while I was there. The staff were also great, especially David who worked behind the counter, although he was deaf communication was never an issue and his big, genuine smile would always seem to improve your day, no matter how good it already was. I set about exploring the laneways of the local Chinatown area with some of the friends I had made at the hostel and after visiting a few of the trendy cafes that were dotted around the place we eventually we ended up at a local wateringhole called the Monkey Bar. I was told that half the proceeds from the bar go towards Orangutan conservation so not only was I enjoying myself getting drunk but I felt as though I was doing it for a good cause. A little into the evening I accepted an offer to  join a group of friends on an overnight trip to Bako national park the next day. With a slight hangover we caught a small boat to the national park and arrived on a picture perfect beach full of monkeys , we soon set about exploring this little paradise and the walking tracks let us enjoy hours of jungle trekking. One of the main reasons I came to Bako was to see the proboscis monkeys and in the evening I wasn't disapointed with many of the strange looking monkeys filling up the trees along the beachfront. A guided evening walk introduced us to quite an array of insects, frogs and snakes, including a beautiful and photogenic green pit viper.

Kuching was a great place to visit and as always there was much more to do in the area that I didn't have time for but the real reason I came to Sarawak, Borneo was to visit the famous Mulu caves, I organized a flight with my new Dutch friend Jasper and we soon arrived at Mulu airport ready to explore.The expanse of cave systems in Mulu is mind boggling, it is famous for having the worlds largest cave entrance (Deer cave),  and the worlds largest natural chamber (Sarawak chamber), which is approximately 700m by 400m, with a mix of show and adventure caves my 3 day visit was going to be non stop. Deer cave is probably the most well known of  Mulu's caves, it is home to over 2 million bats from 20 different species and every evening in what is referred to as the "bat exodus" they leave the safety of the cave in search for food. Using the safety in numbers method, groups will circle around the cave entrance until they have enough bats in their group, then they leave the cave in huge swarms, some of which have hundreds of thousands of bats, its a very spectacular sight indeed! We visited some of the show caves and they were very impressive, showcasing the natural beauty of this underground wonderland but the highlight for me was the adventure caves, having to crawl through mud, squeeze through tight spaces and coming face to face with the creepy crawlies that live in the cave was pure excitement and I loved it.
Once again time and money weren't on my side, I could of quite happily spent another week exploring Mulu conservation park but I was happy with what I'd seen so it was time to say goodbye. I had initially intended to visit Sabah in the North East and hopefully climb Mount Kinabalu, Malaysias highest mountain, however it was closed due to a recent earthquake so I decided to make my way bake to Kuala Lumpur via the small Sultanate of Brunei.