Sunday, June 02, 2024

Muawiyah, family and friends go to Mulu - Day 1, Friday 31 May 2024

 




What a day to kickoff our first day for our Gawai Long-weekend holiday at Mulu: with 21,000 steps! 


This trip we went with 3 other families: Faiz+Rosma, Syazana+Syafiq, and Yani+Haris (9 adults + 9 kids) 


Flying in from Miri via MAS Wings, we arrived at Mulu at 1:00pm. After checking in at Mulu Marriott, we headed to the national park entrance at 2:30 to immediately start our first caving adventure: to catch the bats sighting before sunset 🦇🦇🦇


After a 3km trek, we arrived at the cave entrance at 4:00pm, where we went in Deer Cave, quickly check out the famous Abraham Lincoln 🗿 before we headed back out to look at the bats moving out, from 6:00 to 6:30pm. It was a sight to behold, indeed: to see the bats moving out graceful in formation within their groups, as they head out for food: primarily insects. 


Fun fact: unlike most other forests in Malaysia, the whole Mulu barely has any mosquitos or flies, because they get eaten up by the bats! We never had to use our repellants 👍🏼


Just when we thought the day was over after the bat sighting, the evening gets interesting as there was a sudden burst of constant, heavy rain - and continues to pour throughout the entirety of our 3km walk back to the national Park entrance. In the dark with kids... That wasn't easy! After a long night walk in the rain, we made it Alhamdulillah: back at the park entrance at 7:30, and back at our rooms around 8. 


Pretty exciting start, as we ended with the day with over 21k steps with the kids in s good mood, having gone through that tough adventure with their friends. 

Muawiyah was pretty proud of himself for too: "Abah, I walk the whole journey by myself, no one had to carry me" 😁. Well done, little man. Well done indeed. Masha Allah.. Allahumma barik 🤲🏼

No comments: