i was being a bit of an alarmist to say it never stops raining. eventually it did, and what kind of jackass would not expect rain in the rainy season? but for our first two days, it did not let up, and people were telling us we wouldn't be able to get into the park, which is the whole reason we came to borneo, or that if we could get into the park that it would be flooded and we wouldn't be able to do anything. those people were jerks.
four days ago we did fly into mulu national park, and it was incredible.
i think i'll have to go through this one day by day:
day 1: our small plane touched down on an airstrip in the middle of the jungle at about ten in the morning. right away we headed to the park office and organized activities for our entire four day stay in the park. after settling into our 15 bed dorm room, we grabbed lunch and set off for the first adventure, an hour hike through thick jungle to the world's longest canopy walk. it takes one hour to cover over 400 meters of suspension bridges linked between ancient trees, swaying 200 feet above the forest floor. not surprisingly, we didn't see any animals aside form mammoth stick insects but the experience of dangling above the treetops was amazing.
following the canopy tour we made our way to two of the park's myriad caves for which the park is best known. the first cave, known as lang's cave, is an impressive home to stalagtites, stalagmites, helectites (that's right, helectites) that rivalled amazing cave in halong bay. and then we went to deer cave...
deer cave makes amazing cave look like a shoe-box diarama. amazing cave was nice, but deer cave... deer cave is just out of control. it's the mother of superlatives; the largest cave passage in the world, it's home to, are you ready for this? 3.5 million bats!!! now before you get started thinking about what the floor looks like in a cave filled with three and a half million bats, cause i'll get to that too, picture a cave a mile long and five hundred feet high. at both ends of the mile long passage are giant, GIANT openings that let in just enough light so that when you peer upward, mouth closed (very important), you can see that the gargantuan black, sqeaking patches on the ceiling are actually moving. when someone reminds you to look down, you shine your flashlight onto a neverending pile of guano, teeming with cockroaches. i realize this last sentence might make the trip seem unappealing, but believe me, it is one of the most incredible, jaw-dropping sights i have ever seen. and ashley agrees, so there you go.
two hours before the sun set, we exited the cave to a clearing in the woods not far from the opening to watch an unparralelled spectacle of nature that i honestly, couldn't believe. coming out in groups of tens of thousands, the bats leave the cave where they gather over the cave's mouth, swarming in a massive donut shape before, all at once, they rise above the canopy and tear out over our heads in a perfect black ribbon, out for the night's hunt. this ribbon is then picked apart by a small group of hawks that wait above the cave. we watched this for about an hour, seeing at least fifteen groups of bats, before we walked back to the lodge and turned in.

day 2: along with three others, we started our day in a long boat, heading upriver towards wind and clearwater caves. i was afraid that deer cave had spoiled me for caves for the rest of my life, so when the boat pulled up, i braced myself for disappointment. turns out, wind cave is also unbelieveable. in terms of size, it can't compare, but it is filled with the most unlikely, dr. seussian rock formation you can possibly imagine. rather than trying to describe them, i will include some photos, and move onto clearwater cave, possibly my favorite of the bunch. you take a long stairway down into the belly of clearwater cave, a monster of a cave in its own right, until you reach a huge underwater river, speckled with light from an enormous vertical shaft overhead. i felt like i was in goonies.
after the caves, we carried on up the river to a trailhead where we started a two and a half hour hike to camp 5, the base camp for the pinnacles trail. we arrived at camp in the early afternoon, to a group of rustic riverside buildings nestled between sheer limestone cliffs and jungle. we slept that night and the next in a wall-less lodge, cooking and eating our meals with hundreds of bats zipping by within inches of your face. solely in managing this feat, ashley is a new person. she can eat a meal with bats. is anyone else impressed?

day 3: up at six to start the pinnacles trail, an entirely uphill climb of 2200 meters that averages a 45 degree incline, until it reaches the top, when the incline increases to 70 degrees. for the last 200 meters of ascent, you have to use fixed ropes and 15 ladders bolted into the rock, stepping over sheer drops, razor-like limestone edges, and pitch black chasms. sound dramatic? well, it was. at times it was terrifying, with even a few moments where we asked ourselves "what in the hell are we doing?" the payoff is at the summit, when you reach a vista overlooking an unusual bunch of 30 and 40 meter limestone spearheads, shooting out of the ground below you, towering over the trees. we ate lunch up there, and patted ourselves on the back, all nervous to repeat the ladders, but this time backwards. in the end, it was the section with the ladders that ended up being our favorite part. the pinnacles themselves were incredible, but the trek was unlike anything i've done, and definitely reinforced our desire to feel burly. we made it back to camp that afternoon, just before a torrential rainstorm that swelled the river up to twice its normal speed and volume, making a perfect soundtrack for a long nights sleep.

day 4: woke up very stiff and sore, and hopped along the trail that brought us in, to catch a boat back to the main lodge. we made a quick stop at a local village along the river before collapsing into puddles at the lodge. we had made plans to do another cave tour, but had to cancel after an ingrown toenail had caused my toe to swell into a purple monstrosity that forced me to think briefly about life with nine toes. instead we took a leisurely evening stroll through the jungle, where we saw a parade of monkeys jumping through the trees, and marvelled at how funny it is when life finds you in a jungle in borneo.