Yesterday I went on a daytrip with Josuy and his collegue. They take care of the sewerage in the schools, here in Sabah. A nice chance to see some of the remote places and enjoy the nice scenery in Crocker Range, another protected mountain area with forests as far as your eyes reach.
The road however was quite dangerous, see below a perfect illustration. It’s a miracle this guy got out alive and luckily had no passengers in his jeep… This is somewhat the 10th heavy accident I saw in Malaysia.
Wideshot of a school in Tambunan, located in the mountains
village atmosphere around noon, lunch time
late noon, Papar area…
scenery at highest point of Crocker Range. They used to hunt flying foxes here.
The largest national park in Borneo. One of the oldest jungles in the world. This place has survived the ice age! It’s all about superlatives here.
Mulu contains 8 different types of forest, 4000 species of fungi, 1500 species of flowering plants, 1700 species of moses & liverworts and an estimated 3500 species of plants.
Mulu’s wildlife is equally impressive and includes 75 species of mammals, 262 species of birds (including the eight species of hornbill found in Sarawak), 74 species of frogs, 47 species of fish, 281 species of butterflies, 52 species of reptiles, 458 species of ants and 20,000 species of invertebrates (insects etc).
And thats only the surface. The true treasure lies beneath. In Mulu you’ll find the largest cavesystems in the world. Now they already found passages of 200km+ and they expect only to have discovered 30 to 40%.
Only reachable by air or river. As I wanted to experience the Fokker50 propeller airplane and see the place from a bird’s perspective, I chose the first option.
Let me take you with me.
hello Mulu! Huge limestones and jungle as far as you can see!
This is the cave where it all happens, deer cave, longest cave passage in the world, and the home of millions of bats. When it doesn’t rain and the weather for the night looks dry enough, you can witness a gigantic exodus of the bats at sunset. Below I stitched two pics to give you a better impression of the cave and surroundings.
the exodus, a truly amazing spectacle…
the exodus lasts for 20 to 30 minutes!! The second day I took a movieshot of it.
Enjoy some 20 secs of it, hit the PLAY button:
The bats hunt all night, return seperatly and will all together have eaten about 5 to 10 ton of insects.
Insects…hmm..here are a few of those creatures I shot there.
I have actually about a hundred plus shots and it’s damn hard to make a selection…though here a few I’m pretty proud of. I’ll spare you the very creepy ones. Sent me a special request if you really want them to see
Remember the images are compressed. In original quality, the color and sharpness is even a lot better.
yep…it’s really a living being…the eye is on the right side
So uhmm..I have many many more…but the list would be too long. Why not end with an ordinary fly? hehe.
mmm, this one I also have to share, the cutest mushrooms I found:
Now, the people of Mulu, the “penan”. Actually a sad story of nomadic people forced to settle down by the government. What you see is semi-happy people acting a bit disordered by suddenly seeing tourists all the time and having not a life they chose for. These are very shy people, but highly respected by other tribes, as the true masters of the forests. However I could make nice facial shots, I spared them from it and just gave them smiles instead. I guess they’ve been pictured enough by others. Just a few snaps on the boat without them knowing about it. Some operate now as guides in the park.
one of their homes:
And to finish, some more views of the caves and surroundings.
On the way to the clearwater cave
inside the lang cave, a small but very nice one with huge stalagtites and mites.
inside the deer cave:
more shots I’m pretty proud of as an amature photographer…only possible with manual settings:
Ok, this took quite some work, pfiuuuw again…hehe. From now it will be kinda quiet here on my blog, coz I have a full month of work ahead. Only some short weekends out…nothing planned yet though.
Except Chinese new year, which will be a huge party with my hosts’ family and their friends.
This weekend we drove with a group of 6 towards the Klias wetlands to experience the wildlife and scenery on the Klias river. After we spent the night at Tempurung. Very chill place, another one of those probably zillion great beaches in Borneo. It took us a lot of dirtroads to get there.
Did some kayaking in the sea, tried to master the big waves, couldn’t stop with it…imagine surfing, but with a kayak…and finally got an awful sunburn. Yuk. Its painful.
But without pain, no pleasure, right?
Also big news: I got my new cam! A Canon powershot G9 pocketcam, and I’m extremely happy with it. It feels as a pro cam, not a toy. Finally I can shoot those monkeys far away, use zoom without too much blur, take supermacro shots, adjust all the settings manually so I can easily play with shuttertime (from 1/5000 to 15 seconds!), aperture etc etc. And most of all, if no crop is used and the image doesn’t contain too much noise, it can be printed on A2 format!
Still learning how to use it though in different kind of environments and settings.
However, here are the first shots with it.
Beach-art made by crabs:
monkey romance:
klias river around 17h
fishing and catching…took the shot with zoom while speeding on our boat. Fairly good result, only a little bit blur.
sunset on Klias river
babycroc (don’t worry, we nicely put it back where we found it)
capturing the purplish sky…
more sunset…
trying to capture the moon behind the clouds, haha…shutter at 4 seconds
can even see the halo around it!
proboscis at 6x optical zoom, no tripod, shot in the boat.
cant get enough of sunsets, sorry …hehe
no pineapples…
my harem, hihi…
macroshot of beautiful small coralstone
more Klias river…
Tuesday, tomorrow that is, I’ll head to Mulu National Park, the biggest one in Borneo. Will stay there 5 days and watch the exodus of 2 to 3 million bats, see amazingwildlife etc etc…till sunday!
