National Day public holiday saw us trekking 8km with heavy backpacks across the rainforest in East Msia - mom's great idea that she wanted to see the famous Pinnacles and Mulu caves. Getting to Mulu itself was a mini adventure - we had to fly spore to KL, KL to Miri and then hop onto small propeller plane to Mulu. We checked into the rustic Royal Mulu Resort and lunch was at the Royal Mulu National Park (the resort charges RM35 for a bowl of curry noodles..good grief..talk about price exhortion!!) - where we had the Mulu laksa (yummy!) for RM10 a bowl.
Then we joined a group of 20 over tourist and walked to see the world's largest caves. Although I do not particularly like caves cos they are usually wet, smelly and dark - the beautiful formations created by nature makes it worthwhile to endure the cave other not so nice elements :P After 2 hours of cave exploring, we settled at the nearby viewpoint area to view 5 million bats coming out of the caves for their nightly rendevous and makan time. These amazing creatures fly over 100km each night..how exhausting it must be to be a bat..but then again, I hv no idea why they need to fly so far to get insects..there were tons of insects just outside their cave :p..how batty ..lol.
Next day, 6am saw us up and out on a longboat ride to see more caves (and beautiful Raja Brooke butterfly) and the boat will stop at the start of the 8km trek into Camp 5 (our home for 2 days). Unfortunately, what I thought would be a nice boat ride turned up to be extremely strenous as the water levels were low and that required major boat pushing. puff puff puff 
The 8km trek in was quite relaxing and slow as we did not want to tire ourselves too much..that is, until it started pouring about 5km into the trek..then we scrambled..and walked really really fast..and reached camp 5 pretty soaked. We were introduced into our "rooms" - house on stilts, raised floors with thin mattress and no windows..so you literally get the wind going through the room along with insects, bats and fireflies..talk about going back to nature...i missed my hot water shower and bed immensely :D
The Pinnacles is NOT, I repeat NOT for beginners..only 2.4km uphill and after 1 km, mom had enuff and I was quite happy to follow her down (though quite bummed out not to see the Pinnacles. Jin was sent as our defacto eyes;). Mom and I took ages to climb the 1km downhill and on top of that, we made a wrong turn from Camp 5 and ended up back to Camp really really late, tired and hungry. Was really happy to see that Jin made it safely up and back - within good record time too!
Next day, with sore muscles and legs, we started the 8km trek back at 630am. Thankfully I had my iPod to help make the journey seem shorter...would hv been an uneventful trek back if not for poor mom falling off while crossing the log..thankfully the ground below her was soft and only about 4 feet high..ouch ouch! The long boat ride back was much more relaxing that the trip up as the water level rose thanks to the rain and we were also following the flow of the river.
Was very very happy to check into the Marriot at Miri..back to civilisation..Jin and I cant imagine being as brave and gung ho as mom is at her age..really salute her! For us, next holiday better be at the beach and spa..no more jungles :D
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