The next stop after Sandakan was actually supposed to be the small Sultanate of Brunei in the north of Borneo, but here we give up on the complicated travel planning in Borneo. Flying is not only expensive, but you also have to fly out of Borneo and back to Kuala Lumpur. There are no buses from Kota Kinabalu and the ferry service, which actually sounds good, was stopped during Corona. The “easiest” option is to fly from Kota Kinabalu to Miri, 150km away, and then take a shuttle for 100 USD half the way back to Brunei. That’s too stupid for us and we’d rather fly to the Gunung Mulu National Park in the middle of the jungle of Borneo (it can only be reached by flight 
)
The park entrance is in the town of the same name, Mulu, but “place” is almost too much of a good thing. In fact, it consists of a few handful of homestays, a large hotel chain and a resort in the park. We chose a cheap homestay a little outside, but right on the river, and the owner James picked us up at the airport together with another couple who were on the plane with us. And James will often drive us around town for the rest of the days 
The park itself is known for its huge cave system (the largest of which can fit several Airbus A380s in a row) and the millions of bats that live there. Branda, the owner of our homestay and James’ wife, is also conveniently a licensed guide and takes the four of us in the afternoon directly into two of the most famous caves, the Lang and Deer Caves. The latter is not only huge, but is home to around 3 million bats and the cave is marked by their remains in some places 
After the tour, we stay in front of the entrance to the cave and wait for the evening spectacle of the bats, the so-called “Bad Exodus”. Around sunset they first gather in swarms in front of the entrance, then go looking for food together and leave the cave in the most bizarre formations. It is truly an incredible spectacle and we even spot an eagle that is probably expecting a feast…
The next day, after a river trip, Branda shows us two more no less impressive caves (Wind Cave and Clearwater Cave), before we go swimming in a small lake that extends from an underground exit of Clearwater Cave 
We’ll also be spending some time on the next few days beautiful hiking trails in the park and enjoy nature, the birds, insects and also discover the local mini squirrel, which is barely bigger than a mouse
On the last afternoon we go on a little adventure, so-called “caving” in the “Racer Cave” – it gets its name from the racer snake that lives here. Caving means a kind of via ferrata through the unlit cave, we are given a safety harness, helmet and lamp (although we only use the former once as an alibi, our guide seems to consider it quite useless 
) And so we climb through the cave, up and down again and again, squeezing ourselves cracking through narrow spaces and crawling through waist-high holes past dozens of spiders, some of them the size of your hand – which our French colleague in particular doesn’t find funny at all
. And we actually discover one of the racer snakes in one of the crevices, which is lurking here for bat prey 
The last obstacle deep in the cave is that we have to squeeze another 80cm down through a crack. Our Belgian colleague begins and groans painfully because he twists his knee. Tobi then looks for a better descent, but gets stuck in the same place, just as consumed with pain, and so we both hobble in pain the whole way, up and down, crawling and squeezing… Well, we’ll get it right again and the experience was definitely great exciting
After a night walk in the evening and a canopy walk the next morning, our time in Mulu is over again and we fly to our last stop in Borneo, to Kuching…