SARAWAK: WHERE ADVENTURE LIVES
It’s the stuff of legends: Deep in a steamy, mysterious jungle lurks untold danger and adventures, so be prepared for anything in Borneo
f adventure had a home, it would be the vast wilderness, grand, green and awesome like no other place on earth.
If adventure had a home, it would be filled with the friendliest people on earth, people of different races, religions and cultures.
If adventure had a home, it would be here where one arrives as a guest and leaves as family – and that home would be Sarawak, Borneo.”
– Anonymous
It’s 6am as I peer through the damp mist rising out of the dense jungle foliage. I am perched on the top of a vertical cliff overlooking the enchanting accommodation of the Mulu Marriott Resort & Spa in the far north of Sarawak, Borneo.
As the mist melts away, the resort and all-encompassing tropical rainforest is revealed with native longboats on the Melinau river below readying to take visitors to the Wind and Clearwater caves hiding high up in the limestone cliffs further upriver.
The aroma of my exotic breakfast cooked with aromatic Malay spices mixes strangely with the fragrance and sounds of the jungle – alive, never sleeping as I return to the resort built high above the rainforest jungle. The suggestion of heat and humidity is high on the agenda telling me that this is not going to be just another day and just leaving this five-star resort with it’s enchanting accommodation built high above the jungle, along with a beautiful swimming pool, amazing guest facilities and services, is going to be difficult.
Sarawak is a country of difference, a beautiful place with a colourful history, of coastal pirates and intertribal warfare where head hunting was rife, of 27 different ethnic groups speaking 40 distinct languages, a state covered by 70 per cent of the world’s oldest virgin rainforest and superb national parks.
It’s a story of Englishman James Brooke, a swashbuckling adventurer, who arrived in 1841 and became the first ‘White Rajah’ after putting down the piracy and pacifying the warring tribes.
The Gunung Mulu National Park in the north of the state is
an hour’s flying from the capital Kuching and covers 52866ha of jungle, thick rainforest crisscrossed by fast flowing rivers and clear jungle streams. With an average annual rainfall of 4500mm there are 80 types of mammals, 270 species of birds, 130 reptile and amphibian species, 281 varieties of butterflies, more than 20,000 species of insects and 4000 species of fungi.
Add to that 2000 species of flowering plants including 170 species of orchids and 10 species of carnivorous pitcher plants and you have a breathtaking natural paradise that’s also a UNESCO World Heritage site.
There are three limestone mountains in the park, the highest Gunung Mulu at 2377m however, many of the attractions lie below the surface. Here, hidden beneath the deeply forested slopes are the largest limestone cave systems in the world, and there are some exceptional quirks of nature, which add to their mystery and beauty.
There are 18 caves in the park and Langs Cave is the first that we visit after a wonderful 3km timber boardwalk trek, two to three metres above the forest floor. This makes it very easy for tourists of all ages to come face-to-face with real virgin jungle without all the hardships of trekking through water, limestone peaks and walls and the thick, impenetrable foliage. I can only imagine how the Penan tribal Headhunters of old managed this so long ago with bare feet, very little coverage and just a spear and blowpipe for hunting and protection.
The boardwalk is a breeze but still