Gunung Mulu

Gunung Mulu National Park lies on the island of Borneo (Sarawak state). It has been made a WHS because of its biodiversity and its karst features and cave systems including some of the largest in the world.

Year Decision Comments
2000 Inscribed Reasons for inscription

Reviews

Frederik Dawson (Netherlands):
Malaysian Sarawak seemed to be the last frontier of the world with the images of unexplored jungles, unique animals and fascinating tribal cultures, on July 2010, I had a chance to visit Sarawak to find out that my imagination toward this land was not exactly I dreamed but with full of surprise and sometime beyond my expectation. The first view of Sarawak on the plane was endless palm oil plantation, quite amazing sight but truly a tragedy of environment that all lowland jungle had been destroyed. The leftover jungles were on the high mountain and one of the survivors was my destination of this trip, Gunung Mulu.

Visiting Gunung Mulu was expensive and bureaucratic over killed from pricy airline and limited park entry permit. Visitors were almost impossible to visit the park without park ranger and had to go in group. However Gunung Mulu was really a fascinating place with many incredible things to see. The star of Gunung Mulu was the four show caves, Wind Cave, Clearwater Cave, Lang Cave and Deer Cave. These four caves were different and had their own characteristic. Wind Cave was full of beautiful stalactites and stalagmite especially in the King Chamber. Clearwater was jaw dropping with huge underground river caverns, one of the longest cave in the world beautiful pond in front of the cave and uniquely one leaf plant that only found in Gunung Mulu. Lang Cave was the smallest but with many fantasy stalactites. The last and my favorite was Deer Cave with its gigantic cave entrance was so incredible and full of mystery feelings, Lord of the Ring’s Moria cave in the real world, and in my opinion one the best thrilled I had encountered in recent year!

Not only was the cave, the jungle also amazing with many insects and trees that in my life never ever expected to see. The only down point was the much advertised bat exodus, Gunung Mulu had one of the biggest bat colony in the world, but its bat exodus was quite mediocre than I expected. Also one of my favorite surprises was the sign of this national park which made from glass, located in the lush tropical jungle, but the sign was really always shining and clean! Another surprise was the Royal Mulu Resort, a nice hotel with full of UNESCO WHS symbol, and well recommended.

In just 2 months I had opportunity to see two important karstic regions of Asia, Gunung Mulu and South China Karst. I was quite surprised to see many reports compared these two sites especially Pinnacle Rock of Gunung Mulu and Shilin, Stone Forest of China. After long climbed, Pinnacle Rock was quite disappointing since it could not be compared with the enormous size of Shilin. However both Gunumg Mulu and Shilin were equally fascinating on their own. Although seeing many karsts in just a short time, boredom had not overcome and really made me want to see them more.
Date posted: August 2010
anthony sun (USA):
The most efficient way to visit Gunung Mulu is to fly in for an over night stay from Kota Kinabalu. They have daily flights into Mulu via Miri and the plane lands at about 3.30pm. You can do the Deer Cave right away and watch the bats come out in the evening. It will take an hour walking through the forest on raised plank walks. The Clearwater cave can be visited the next morning via a 30min boat ride on the Melinau River. This is really pleasant and peaceful ride.
After lunch, there is a flight back to Kota Kinabalu at about 2pm. Well worth the effort but bring rain coats.
Date posted: May 2009
Mohan Rao Gunti (ASIA):
Gunung Mulu National Park

Within the boundaries of Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak is one of the most extensive and spectacular limestone cave systems on earth, as well as the second highest mountain peak in the state. Gunung also enjoys unusually high rainfall. As a result it bursts with life, and many new plant and animal species have been discovered here. Officially constituted in 1974 and opened to the public in 1985, Gunung Mulu National Park encompasses only 544 sq. km in North Sarawak, Borneo. Gunung Mulu's Caves are extraordinary. Mulu's Sarawak Chamber is the largest natural chamber in the world, and Deer Cave is the largest cave passage known to man. It has two huge entrances at either end of the mountain it penetrates. Most of Deer Cave is illuminated, one can see 600-foot waterfalls pouring from the roof following a rain storm. Perhaps the most popular attraction of this cavern, however, is the daily exodus of its colony of nearly a million bats. Every evening the bats stream from the cave to spend the night dining on Gunung's rich insect population.

Clearwater Cave is the longest cave system in Southeast Asia. Although little of it is open to park visitors without special permission, over a hundred kilometers of passages have been discovered so far. Not all of Mulu's limestone features are contained in caves. Gunung API, a 1,750 meter high mountain of limestone, lies directly beside Sarawak's second highest mountain peak, Gunung Mulu (2,376 meters). Both mountains are over five million years old. About two-thirds of the way up Gunung API sits a mass of enormous razor-sharp limestone pinnacles, the result of the steadily heavy rainfall experienced in this area over the last, oh, couple of million years or so.

To visit please check the site : www.sarawaktourism.com
 


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