MULU Cycling to Penan Village, Lagan Cave, Bat Exodus

29th Aug

After breakfast I cycled towards the Penan Village of Batu Bungun Longhouse. Along the way was Mulu airport. One can see airplane movement through the fence. Only a handfuls of arrivals a day in this small airfield.

 

Beyond the airport sits the Penan village perch along Sungei Merlinau Paku. There are old wooden houses on stilts and well modern concrete houses and some are still under construction.

 

The river are busy with tourist traffic bringing tourists upstream to the caves. Villagers showered in the river and took water from the river back to their houses. Chickens and dogs roam freely in the villages. The smell of burning firewood was evident and occasional noise of the Long boats cruising in the river. Otherwise, the village is quiet with hardly and children playing. I also notice there are hardly and vegetable farms nearby. Later that night, I poised this question to our hotel operator and was told the soil is too acidic for any meaningful cultivation.

In the afternoon, I joined a tour for Lagang Cave. Its 20 minutes by long boat and 20 minutes trek to reach this cave entrance.

This beautiful cave winds about 1.5 km through some magnificent formations and large passages. The Cave also nicknamed "The Fast Lane". The large passageway are well carved and that testifies to the sheer power of the water flows. There are pathway built in the cave that takes you from the sediments on the cave floor and climb up among the stalactites at the roof of the cave.

The caves is mostly unlit and torch light are needed. In the caves are bats hanging and swiftlet flying around looking for food. The tour guide also pointed out large cave insects. The tour ended with boat ride back to Park HQ.

 

After taking a short break, it was  3km walk to the Bat Observation Platform.  Bats normally make their exit from 5 to 6.30pm. If there is rain, the bats wouldn't fly out. One of the reason I am in this park is my yearning to observe the bats exodus and I was just hoping they will fly out of the cave. Truly amazing is how bats living in the caves, with no visible cue, and yet can predict the weather better than human.

It was around 6 pm. when the first convoy of bats streamed out, formation of a snake moving in the sky. The oh and ah and excitement was spontaneous from the viewers. As more and more stream of bats poured out of the cave, the whooshing sound generated by the thousands of flapping wings sound like a distant jet. I was totally fixated.

 

 

For the next 30 minutes, stream after stream of bats flew from the top of mountain in a very orderly exodus. It seems to me like there is a bat "traffic marshal' controlling the flight out of the cave. Mostly each group last 15 seconds to a minute. But there was one which was awesome and lasted almost 10 minutes which I was fortunate to have it captured on video. I was told the bats flew up to 100km in search of food and return at dawn.

The bat exodus was most mesmerising and spectacular sights of nature worth my effort to be here in Mulu. I have read somewhere that a few millions bats exit the caves each time and I now are convinced. By 6.30pm, the last hungry bat had left.

Now I had to walk 40 minutes with torch light to the Park HQ and experience the voices of the jungle at night.