We went to the Mulu National Park office to join the
The Pinnacles march. Robert and his wife will leave tomorrow in their rowboats to compete in the Baram Regatta canoe races in the town of Marudi.. These races have been held every 2 years for 100 years, in order to build peace between the tribes that have hunted each other’s skulls for centuries.. Besides the tribes living in Sarawak, there are also competition groups from Brunei.. Robert is also one of the rowers of the canoe who will represent Mulu.
We left our bags in the security office at the entrance and went to the main office.. We were surprised to learn that we wouldn’t be able to do our scheduled walk today.. In order to do The Pinnacles Trekking, there must be at least 3 applications.. For today, the activity has been canceled due to no other request from us.. They told us there is a group tomorrow and we can join them. Of course, we can’t do anything, it’s okay, you know.. When we got our bags and went back to Robert’s house where we stayed for 2 days, they were surprised to see us at the door.. When we said that we wanted to stay one more night, they said that it was okay, we could stay tonight, but they would leave the village tomorrow.. We spent the day editing our accumulated photos, resting and watching movies.. We started walking towards the Bats Observatory around 4 pm.. We waited for 1 hour yesterday but we couldn’t see it.. After a 45-minute walk, we came to the bat watching point and took our place.
Not long after, hundreds of people were excitedly waiting for the bats to come out. Many people who came to watch had already set up their tripods with huge cameras and lenses, and were already prepared to view the moment.. It was an unforgettable moment for me to see the first batch of bats glide through the sky like snakes when I looked up, soon with the sounds of excitement and surprise rising from the crowd. started. From the main entrance of the cave, from other small cave exits, they were flying and disappearing in black silhouettes, rippling through the sky with their bird chirping sounds.. One group goes, followed by another for a few seconds or minutes.. It is impossible not to get excited by seeing the shapes, curves and ripples they create in the sky.
There is a live broadcast on the LCD screen of both the main park office and this cafeteria, showing the bats coming out of the cave mouth.. In addition, you can watch the bats’ life inside live from the LCD in the Park office and from several infrared cameras placed inside the cave.. When we left there, they were still going out of the cave in groups.. Now it was feeding time for them, they spread out into the forest and feed their stomachs well.. Each bat preys on between 5 and 10 grams of insects during this feeding time.. This unique ecosystem is an incredible environment for countless insects and their predators. exists. This height difference creates a corresponding climate difference.. While the air temperature at the park office level is between 19-34 degrees, the temperature around Mulu Mountain is below 10 degrees, with a maximum of 20 degrees.. Under these climatic differences, the caves and fertile soils formed by the erosion of the alluvial, sand and limestone soil in 40 million years again brought a wide variety of living life together. It allows the growth of flowering plants, algae and the incredible variety of life that lives within them.. Among the 170 wild orchid species, there is also an orchid species known as the slipper orchid, which hunts and digests the insects that visit it.. It is home to a wide variety of species such as 27 kinds of bats, long-tailed macaque monkey, bearded pig, gibbon, squirrel, dwarf deer that bark like dogs, and sun bears that only live in South Asia.. Between 1977 and 1978, more than 100 scientists conducted research in this region for more than 15 months.. It is the largest island and there are caves in this park area with a total length of 350 kilometers.. Some of these chains of caves are home to bats, birds, reptiles, fish and insects that only live here on earth.. A part of the rainforest covering only 2% of the earth’s surface is located on the Island of Borneo, and this tiny slice is home to 50% of all life on earth! One hectare of these rainforests has 480 tree species, while even a single bush has a greater diversity of ant species than on the island of England.. It is easily understood from here how different and remarkable Mulu Park is.
The diversity of all this life began to take shape millions of years ago when this part of Borneo was still under water.. The structure, consisting of sand and limestone, melted in time with the waters, broke off from the land deep in the surface area and reached its present place with the movement of the continents.. While the current state of the earth was being formed by the continent movements, I learned in the information museum in the main office of the park that the land piece that includes Anatolia, Iran, Spain and the Western Himalayas is on the same land piece with Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, Malaysia and Borneo.. Think about it, this incredible island at the other end of the world and we were once neighbors of Anatolia! created a variety of plants. The amount of water in the region also varies according to the height of the land.. There is a huge difference between the amount of rain at 30 meters above sea level and the amount of rain on the slopes of Mulu Mountain at 1600 meters.
These differences have brought with them various plant and animal life.. Of course, a place with such a rich living life has become a home to many tribes over time.. The Lun Bawang, Murut and Iban tribes have lived in these rainforests in the north, and the Berawan and some nomadic Penan tribes in the southeast have lived for thousands of years.. Because of all these riches, it was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000.. A full day awaits us tomorrow, followed by a challenging trek.
Day 418: Borneo:6 Mulu, Borneo 26 September 2011
