Day 47: More caves, more boats, and a treacherous hike to Camp 5

This day started out fine, apart from having to pack up and leave the lovely lodge at Mulu National Park. We headed out on a boat and stopped at this village; here are some more longhouses:

There was a market there selling jewellery and crafts, and a happy puppy was following me around.

I learned all about the local bats...

I have probably bored the non bat lovers; as a nature and bat-loving linguist I found this fascinating. Feel free to scroll if you don't!

I made friends with another ginger cat...

First up: The Cave of the Winds. No fart jokes, please!

Fabulous entryway...

Some fabulous formations:

Next we entered Clearwater Cave:

It contained a lot of greenery:

We got back in the boat:

When we disembarked we went to a partly sheltered platform with some wooden tables for lunch. While we were there the heavens opened. We had been told to bring our water shoes as at times we might have had to get out of the boat to push it. This did not happen. But because it was so hard to get my hiking boots off I had not laced them up very tightly, and there was absolutely nowhere to sit down to do this before we set off on our long hike to Camp 5.

It stopped raining and we set off at around 1:30 PM. The trail was muddy, slippery, and full of treacherous roots and sharp stones. At first I was more concerned about leeches - they were everywhere! I had not bought any leech socks before this trip as I thought they would be cheaper in Malaysia, but I hadn't seen any anywhere for sale...

My knee started bothering me again and before long both my ankles were screaming, partly because of my boots not supporting my ankles and partly because I kept twisting my ankle when nearly tripping on roots and rocks. It was not fun. Everyone in my group was so far ahead that I never even caught a glimpse of any of them. I passed a Chinese group who were having a break but as soon as they finished, they all passed me, one by one...

Then it started raining again... Pouring. In the five minutes it took me to remove my rain poncho from my backpack (a passing guide helped me), I was drenched, and it wasn't very pleasant wearing plastic over soaking wet flesh and clothing. And now there was more mud to contend with. By now I stopped worrying about leeches and the only thing that drove me on was the thought that once I got to the camp, I would arrange to have a boat take me out, as the Headhunters' Trail, which we were going on tomorrow, was an even longer trek!

I decided I had better make a video for posterity:

And a little while later I made this one:

Somehow, at around 5:00 PM, I reached Camp 5. Everyone else had been there for at least an hour or even longer. The good news was that the view was gorgeous, and I think I was almost the only person in our group not to have been attacked by leeches. (I was apprehensive when I took off my socks but I was clean!)

The bad news was... There was no boat out. Even if I paid good money, this was impossible. There was a helicopter pad, but a helicopter would only be summoned if a mountain climber broke a limb or something. (You might guess what I was hoping for, but no luck...)

I will finish this story in the next blog post...