Borneo Island - Malaysia

I flew from Bali (see blog) to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then to the Island of Borneo on March 31, 2007. Borneo is the third largest island in the world (see Wikipedia article) and occupied by three countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei). There are about 15,000 species of flowering plants with 3,000 species of trees, 221 species of mammals and 420 species of resident birds in Borneo. The Borneo rainforest is the only natural habitat for the endangered Bornean Orangutan. It is also an important refuge for many endemic forest species, and the Asian Elephant, the Sumatran Rhinoceros and the Bornean Clouded Leopard.

I spent most of my time in the Mulu National Park (see Wikipedia article) and took a three day trek up to the 'Pinnacles' which was a pretty demanding hike with ropes, bridges, ladders, leeches, viper snake, etc. along the way (see pics). One of the main attractions of the park is a series of caves including the world's largest naturally enclosed space which is 2,300 feet (700 m) long, 1,300 feet (396 m) wide and at least 230 feet (70 m) high and is big enough to fit several jumbojets inside (see pics). Every day at dusk 3 million bats fly out of Deer Cave for feeding time in the jungle streaking across the sky in the shape of a snake for about 40 minutes.

Next I fly back to Kuala Lumpur and then will travel up through Malaysia on the 'jungle train' towards Thailand.