Checking in Mulu Rainforest

Short Note: Just recovered from a 4-day sickness. Well, not really, I'm actually still sick. 5th day and counting.


After arriving in Mulu, I promoptly lugged my luggage to the official National Park office to enquire about my room which I have booked via email.




Just google mulu park and you will find the official website with the contact of the office on the site.

After making my registration known at the office, I proceeded to check into the dormitory at the Mulu National Park.




Okay. I know what you're thinking.

It's so shabby.

Well, duh, I was in a rainforest!




What better way to experience nature then to sleep among it, to have cricket sounds sing you to sleep every night and to run away from mozzies in the early evening and let the hot scorching sun wake your sorry butt up in the morning.




I know I know, I could have gone for the Royal Mulu Resort where I would be pampered with comfortable bed, privacy, heated shower and mozzie-free nights, not to mention a god-sent swimming pool on those heat-dreading moments (like every second).

NO!

When you're hot, you don't just go find a swimming pool in the middle of the jungle to take a dip, go jump in the river! or something.




This was a rainforest I was in. I'd be damn hell if I could allow myself that sort of pampering.

I meant, how long more could I do this? Dragging my sorry ass through trecherous jungle and sleeping on hard beds. I might as well do it now before my body and mind tell me I'm too old for this. It's now or never for the rest of my life. So let the roughing out began.
Besides, the dorms were cheap.


this haircut proved how long ago this trip was made. Shut up, I hated that hair stylist.


So I opted for the bed that's furthest away from the door (I'm a light-sleeper) and not too close to the window.




After dumping my stuff on the bed, I walked back to the office to sort out my plans during my stay here. I was to be there for approximately 4 days, but Mulu caves were plentiful and there were many to do, so I had to plan to fit in as much as my stamina could allow in the time frame of these 4 days.




Thank god for a map that stated the activities one could embark on during one's stay at Mulu National Park. And these activities range from child's play a-walk-in-the-park to hard-core 3-day-adventurous-life-threatening-caving-experience-up-in-the-pinnacles.




That's the good thing about travelling to Mulu on your own, you can plan your own itinerary according to your liking and body strength.

The last thing I wanted was to squeeze every ounce of energy I have and to come back to a really hot and uncomfortable bed at night for a nap of 5 hours before I have to get up again, only to hybernate for one week after the trip.


So basically, after looking at the map and considering the suggestions of the rangers, I decided to take up a few actitivies, in no particular order:

1. take the longboat out to visit Clearwater Cave & Cave of the Winds.

Skip the longhouse since I've seen that in Kuching.




2. talk a walk to discover our beautiful Borneo Rainforest and climb the Canopy Skywalk




3. this is a must. Visit the infamous world's biggest (until 2009) cave passage Deer Cave, and another beautiful Lang Cave and observe the return of millions of bats at dusk.

That could be a handful to handle until my 4th day afternoon departure.

Oh, one more activity.




4. a walk in the Rainforest after sun down.

Oooo... spooky.

My drunkenness means you did it deliberately

With our brains gently soaked in alcohol we're generally more sociable and relaxed - it's a sedative after all. So why do drunk people seem so prone to aggravation and argument? One reason, say Laurent Bègue and colleagues, is that alcohol exacerbates the 'intentionality bias', our natural tendency to assume that other people intended their actions. So when that guy jolts you at the bar and you're drunk, you're more likely to think he did it on purpose.

Bègue's team recruited 92 men (aged 20 to 46) to take part in what they were told was a taste-testing study. They were given three glasses to taste, each containing a cocktail of grapefruit and grenadine cordial, mint and lemon concentrate. For half the participants, the drinks also contained alcohol - approximately the same amount found in five to six shots of vodka. To control for expectancy effects, half the participants with the alcoholic drinks and half the non-alcohol participants were told the drinks were alcoholic. Next, the participants spent 20 to 30 minutes on filler tasks, in keeping with the cover story that this was a taste-test study, and to allow the alcohol to kick-in. Finally and most importantly, the participants read 50 sentences about various actions (e.g. 'He deleted the email') and gave their verdict on whether the actions were intentional or not.

The intoxicated and sober men alike said that obviously intentionally actions (e.g. 'she looked for her keys') were intentional, and that blatantly unintentional actions (e.g. 'she caught a cold') were unintentional. But crucially, when it came to more ambiguous actions, like the email deletion example, the intoxicated men were significantly more likely (43 per cent) than the sober men (36 per cent) to say the action was intentional. Whether participants were told they'd had alcohol or not made no difference.

Why should alcohol have this effect? Bègue's team think that it takes cognitive effort and control to overcome the intentionality bias, especially so as to take in all the information necessary to consider alternative explanations. Alcohol's well-known disinhibitory and myopic (the 'narrowing of attention') effects would clearly undermine these faculties.

'In summary,' the researchers concluded, 'alcohol magnifies the intentionality bias. Napoleon said, "There is no such thing as accident." Our findings suggest that drunk people are more likely to believe Napoleon's statement than are sober people.'
_________________________________

Begue, L., Bushman, B., Giancola, P., Subra, B., and Rosset, E. (2010). "There Is No Such Thing as an Accident," Especially When People Are Drunk. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36 (10), 1301-1304 DOI: 10.1177/0146167210383044

By popular request: Re-post of the Blueberry Muffin Recipe

Two posts before dinner, after not getting to post in almost a month. I'm on a roll now. A few of you have asked me for the recipe for the muffins that were served for snack today. That was a triple batch of this recipe . I did have yogurt on hand this time, so I used yogurt instead of sour cream. And, since blueberry season has passed in CT, I thawed organic berries overnight and used them with equally delicious results.

Meatless Meal Idea: Black & Pinto Bean Cakes with Feta

Whoa, time to play catch up. My friends' comments that my postings have been few and far between have gotten less subtle. Apparently, while we can all do recipe searches online, many of you are waiting for me to cull through the clutter and test the recipes on my own kiddos, passing along those that everyone likes-- and that we can all quickly whip up. Lucky for you, everyone's (finally) healthy and back to school as of today. I am doing a little happy dance right now, but I'll spare you the visual. I do, however, have some cooking videos (from this winter when the film crew was here) that I will be sharing once I have a moment to work out the technological side of things.

In the meantime, let me share a good recipe...or two or three.

I know a few of you are trying to incorporate more meatless meals into your family dinners. Here's one that I recently made that was a total hit:

Black & Pinto Bean Cakes

1 onion, diced
olive oil
two 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-ounce can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 tub crumbled Feta
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons chili powder (optional, omit if you want them more mild)
2 eggs
1 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs (maybe a little more)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Saute the onion in a bit of olive oil, until tender, and set aside to cool.

Place drained pinto and black beans in large bowl. Using a potato masher (or fork if you don't have one), mash beans coarsely. (You want some left whole, and some smashed into more of a paste, so your cakes will have good overall texture.) Mix in onions, feta, garlic, cumin, chili powder, eggs and 1 cup of whole wheat breadcrumbs. Using your hands, combine all ingredients. (If necessary, add additional breadcrumbs until you get to the consistency of oatmeal cookie dough. You want the patties to hold their shape.)

Shape bean mixture into 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick patties and place them on a cookie sheet that's been lightly sprayed or rubbed with olive oil. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes or until warmed through and a little crispy on the outside, carefully flipping the cakes after 10 minutes.

The cakes themselves are more of a vehicle for toppings than being scrumptious on their own. I serve warm with a variety of toppings, letting each person choose their own. Here are some topping ideas:
Corn (fresh, or thawed frozen)
Cherry Tomatoes, halved
Avocado chunks
Sour cream
Guacamole
Salsa
Hot Sauce
Pickled Jalapenos
Shredded Cheese

And to answer the next burning question of whether my kids ate them too?: Absolutely! They loved them. I went light on the chili powder and heavier on cumin. Then I let them choose their toppings...and to spice mine up, I just added some extra hot sauce.

The Special Issue Spotter

We trawl the world's journals so you don't have to:

William James memorial issue (Journal of Humanistic Psychology).

Imaging genetics (NeuroImage). From the editorial: 'Imaging genetics can be defined as research strategy that applies anatomical or functional imaging technologies as phenotypic assays to evaluate genetic variation with the potential to understand their impact on behavior ... Imaging genetics has become tremendously popular over the past years and many hundreds of studies have utilized genetics and neuroimaging techniques so far in order to investigate the subtle relationship between genes and their neural correlates.'

Implicit measures of consumer response (Psychology and Marketing).

Mental health courts and diversion programs (International Journal of Law and Psychiatry).

Collaboration, coordination, and adaptation in complex sociotechnical systems (Human Factors). From the preface: 'Sociotechnical systems comprise integrated human and machine entities that, when functioning as an integrated, coordinated unit, can address a wide range of problems that are too complex to be addressed by individuals or machines working alone. However, the design and implementation of modern work systems tends to place primary emphasis on technological innovation without equal consideration for the social component—the teams and groups of humans—that uses that technology.'

Self, other and memory, memory and self-understanding: Self-concept – self-image – self-deception (Consciousness and Cognition).

Power leads us to dehumanise others

'How can you not feel sorry about people who have died? I mean you would be inhuman if you didn't think that,' former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair speaking to Andrew Marr on the BBC.

Think how terrible you'd feel if a decision you made led to the death of another person. How then does a political leader cope with the burden of making decisions which lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands? According to a new journal article, they cope through dehumanising those over whom they have power. By this account, dehumanising - seeing others as less than human - isn't always a bad thing. It serves a function, allowing leaders and certain professionals, such as doctors, to cope with the decisions they have to make.

Joris Lammers and Diederik Stapel had 102 student participants complete a measure of their sense of power (including items like 'to what degree does your opinion typically affect other people's opinions?'). Afterwards they were asked to read about a fictional, poor, South-American-sounding country called Aurelia and rate its inhabitants. Those who scored more highly on the power scale subsequently showed more evidence of dehumanising the inhabitants of Aurelia - for example, rating them as less civilised and more childish.

Next, the researchers primed some student participants to feel more powerful by having them write about an occasion when they had had power over an another person or persons. Those primed this way were subsequently more likely than controls (who wrote about a supermarket visit) to say they would back a plan to move Aurelians living in slums to an undeveloped part of their country, against their will if necessary. What's more, the participants primed to feel powerful were were more likely to show evidence of dehumanising the Aurelians when asked to rate them on factors like civility and childishness - an association largely mediated by their decision about the planned eviction.

In a final study, Lammers and Stapel had 50 student participants role-play the position of senior surgeon, junior surgeon or nurse before making a treatment decision about their fictional patient - a 56-year-old man with an abdominal growth. Those participants role-playing a more powerful position were more likely to opt for the painful but more effective of two treatment options. Moreover, the participants role-playing the senior surgeon role were more likely to show evidence of dehumanising the patient in a 'mechanistic' fashion - that is, rating him as more passive and less sensitive. The association between seniority of role and dehumanising was largely mediated by the decision to opt for the more painful treatment.

'By treating other people as objects or tools, the emotional consequences of the powerful people's actions are downplayed and become irrelevant,' the researchers said. 'Although this can lead people to abuse others, it may also facilitate the powerful in making tough decisions. ... Without dehumanising they would be overcome by the pain and suffering that result from their decisions.'

Lammeres and Stapel acknowledge, however, that the link between power and dehumanising wasn't entirely mediated by the making of tough decisions. 'We interpret this as evidence that power can also increase dehumanisation for reasons other than to justify decisions,' they said, before adding that more research is needed to explore what these other factors are.
_________________________________

Lammers, J., and Stapel, D. (2010). Power increases dehumanization. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations DOI: 10.1177/1368430210370042

Back from Impromptu Krabi

I am sick. :(

I don't know how it came so sudden. I blame it all on a cookie I ate this afternoon. Damn you Famous Amos! It has nothing to do with the nagging headache I have had the whole week while in Krabi. Nothing to do with that at all. Must've been the cookie.

Damn you delicious but sinful cookie!

This must be god's way for punishing of eating fatty food. Sigh.


Oh, here's a photo of the Krabi rock. Or cliff rather.
But it's the infamous rock you'll see when you go island hopping.




Thank you topless uncle in colorful swimming trunk for ruining my photo.


I don't really know why I went island hopping anyway (for the third time). It's the same islands and same activities (snorkelling). I must've been really bored.

So I spent most of the time hiding under the shade while the rest of the tourists dipped around in the beautiful beautiful sea.




Krabi has been more commercialised since I last remembered, it's been what? Three years since I first visit the place? And two years since my last visit.




Testo Lotus was still pretty far away from the tourist place. Not a good improvement.
There were more public transports like tuk-tuk and shuttle buses around. Good thing.
Sea still green and clearn. Definitely a good thing.


Oh did I mention my baby is back?

:D :D :D

And he bought me a perfume. ^^
And lots of wine.
And cheese.


But but... where's my LV bag?! *pout*

Little Love Note

Nothing beats the feeling of receiving little romantic messages when two parties are far apart. In this case, me in Krabi Thailand and he in Australia.

This time the message came in a little white note slid under my hotel room door by the receptionist.




*flutter*


Two more days. Just two more days.

By what age do children recognise that plagiarism is wrong?

To view plagiarism as an adult does, a child must combine several pieces of a puzzle: they need to understand that not everyone has access to all ideas; that people can create their own ideas; and that stealing an idea, like stealing physical property, is wrong.

There's been plenty of research on children's understanding of physical property ownership, which has shown that a rudimentary understanding is already in place by age two. Now in the first ever systematic study of its kind, Kristina Olson and Alex Shaw at Yale have investigated children's understanding of the ownership of ideas.

Across three studies, Olson and Shaw presented children aged between three and eleven with vignettes and puppet videos in which two characters either both came up with their own idea for what to draw in art class, or one character copied what the other one had drawn. By age five to six, children showed less liking for characters who copied and rated them as 'more bad'. Crucially, they gave copying as their justification for these negative appraisals. 'These results demonstrate a relatively sophisticated understanding of ideas as early as age five years,' the researchers said.

By contrast, three- to four-year-olds did not rate characters who copied as any less likeable or any more bad than characters who came up with their own ideas. In a control condition, children of this age gave negative ratings to characters who stole physical property, thus showing that the the null result for stealing ideas wasn't because the children didn't understand the rating scale or weren't paying attention.

Future research is needed to find out if children younger than four don't understand the idea of original ideas or if they don't yet recognise that to steal ideas is wrong (or both). It's also not yet clear what drives the development of understanding in this area - is it a reflection of cognitive development or does it perhaps have to do with exposure to formal rules about copying at school. 'Our hope is that our idea about ideas is unique and will motivate future research,' the researchers concluded.
_________________________________

Olson, K., and Shaw, A. (2010). ‘No fair, copycat!’: what children’s response to plagiarism tells us about their understanding of ideas. Developmental Science DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.00993.x

Getting Away to Krabi

So I sat at my computer three nights ago looking through the list of hotels in this region: Thailand, Phillippines, Indonesia, Singapore, etc.

It was the day after I learnt that my baby was going to go away for a week to fabulous Australia on an assignment, and he couldn't bring me along, that I decided, well, since he could get away, so would I.

Besides, I don't want to stay in KL all alone without him. Most of the friends I have then are either travelling, overseas working, sulking about relationship or couple friends. And hanging out with couple friends without your partner would just... well.. be awkward.

And while it was the weekdays I had to endure, why not endure it in a more sunny happier place.

So Koh Samui came to mind instantly.

Hey I don't like to be alone. I know, ironic since I always travel alone. But that's entirely different. Exploration is better off alone, it's sort of like a soul-searching expedition. And most of my solo trips have always been very fulfilling to the mind.

So as I was going through the list of hotels in Koh Samui dreaming about my impulse getaway, it suddenly dawned on me that... erm... there are no cheap direct and fast way to get to Koh Samui, easiest way would set me back RM860 on Fireflyz from Subang. And I've already way over-spent for this month after a weekend in Hat Yai and a week of shopping in Bangkok. I was already planning an impulse trip, no point having an impulse splurge.

That was how I ended up in hotel suite in Krabi.

Sleeping my mornings away in a king size bed, and taking evening dips with Sex and The City season replay on my laptop in a big tub.




So far, I've walked 2km to Starbucks and spent the rest of my afternoon reading erotic novel in the air-condition cafe, had my favourite toasted 7-11 sandwich for lunch and walked bare-footed along the beach on the way back.

Then spent the rest of the evening dipping in the tub and finishing season 1 and half of season 2 of SATC.

Productive.

Will try to edit some photos tomorrow, after the pool, after the gym (maybe) so I can blog.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Just before I left, I went to Marie France for a quick session before my beach departure.

Truth be told, I have skipped a week of session before that simply because I was swamped with deadlines, or perhaps I was putting it off. Either way, once I stripped down, I was welcome with a most unpleasant comment from my therapist.

"Oh, you're getting flabby" while looking intently at my thighs.

I only have myself to blame, week long of absence and negligence of my diet and work-out regime (not that I have one, since travelling are mostly my work-outs and I haven't been doing much walking during the recent travel trips I've made), I looked at my rear in the mirror and was emotionally brought down by a not-so-toned-anymore sight.

Since my fifth sessions with Marie France, I have come to realise that beauty takes effort, constant effort.

People go to slimming and beauty salons wishing for a miracle. And when they couldn't get one, they blame these salons for slander, cheat and money ripping programs.

The thing is, like our hair, or nails, our body and skin need as much constant taking-care of. You didn't do treatment on your hair once, and after a month it became brittle and dry again, you swore that hair treatments were useless and you will never go back again.

Like our hair, nails and every part of our body, fats can continue to develop if you never control your diet, our body age and skin lose its elasticity.

A one time session even at the most pretigeous beauty and slimming salon won't get you miracle, just as a 12-session program won't guarantee you youth and slender beauty the rest of your life. In fact, if you're not careful, as short as one month after the treatment, you could grow twice the size from when you stepped out of the salons.

Don't blame it on effective-less treatments, blame it on yourself. For not taking care of your own body.

And I have myself to blame. It's been 9 treatments and after the 8th, my thighs were looking great, and then I have to take less interest in toning up and keep a watchful eye on my food. It's only sad that I have 3 more treatments to do before the end of my program.

Though I have been thinking, ever since my 3rd treatment really, to actually sign up for a life-long program with Marie France. Make it a regular thing.

Like I've always said, beauty does come at a price. But if maintenance is as important to you as it is to me, then this price is all worth paying for.

I've once asked that a 40-session program could fare between RM8000-15000? Or more (depending what sort of treatments you're looking for). Well, a 12-treatment program lasted me slightly more than two months.

Spread it out and it would just be like setting aside a small portion of my income to spend maintaining my body. Sounds fair.

Like how we spend RM300 average on our hair, RM100 on magazines, RM1000 on clothes, or RM30 on nails every month.

It's all part of being a woman. ;)

Well, I guess the next time I visit Marie France, I'll ask if they offer long-term program. Till then, wait for my good news.


xoxo

~*~*~*~*~*~

For try-outs:

SMS For a free 60min slimming session (worth
RM380)

type MFB NICOLEKISS Name send to
32996

What do I want? Don't ask me: Choice blindness at the market stall

Imagine you sampled two jams, chose your favourite, and were then offered another taste of it before being asked to explain your preference. Would you notice that you'd been offered the wrong one, that you were actually tasting the jam you'd turned down? A new study conducted at a market stall by Lars Hall and colleagues found that even for tastes as dramatically different as spicy Cinnamon-Apple and bitter Grapefruit, fewer than 20 per cent of participants realised that they'd just tasted the jam they'd moments earlier turned down. Even after being told the truth, fewer than half said they'd suspected they'd been offered the wrong jam.

This striking lack of insight has been dubbed choice blindness. Before now, it had only been demonstrated for visual preferences, in relation to women's faces, in a lab environment. This new study finds the effect in the real world, and in the context of taste and smell (as well as choosing between pairs of jams, participants also used smell to choose between pairs of specialist teas including Pernod vs. Mango).

To test the choice blindness effect, researchers used sleight of hand and double-ended jam jars or tea jars with a divide in the middle. Each jar contained a different jam/tea option at each end. Participants were presented with a pair of jars and tasted/smelt a sample from each. Then, by surreptitiously inverting the jars, the researchers were able to offer participants a second taste/smell from what appeared to be the same jar they'd just selected as their favourite, but actually now contained the jam/tea choice that they'd turned down.

Remarkably, on trials in which the tea or jam had been swapped, participants were just as confident about their choice as they were on control trials. However, as you'd expect, participants more often detected that the jams/teas had been swapped when choosing between pairs that pilot work had established were more different from each other. Another twist was that some participants were told they could actually take away their favoured jam or tea as a reward. However, this made no difference to the rates at which they detected their choice had been swapped, thus undermining the idea that the choice blindness effect may have to do with a lack of motivation.

People's apparent lack of awareness about choices they themselves have just made not only raises awkward questions about the limits of conscious awareness, but surely also has real-world implications. The researchers put it this way: 'The fact that participants often fail to notice mismatches between a taste of Cinnamon-Apple and Grapefruit, or a smell of Mango and Pernod is a result that might cause more than a hiccup in the food industry, which is critically dependent on product discrimination and preference studies to further the trade.'
_________________________________

Hall L, Johansson P, Tärning B, Sikström S, & Deutgen T (2010). Magic at the marketplace: Choice blindness for the taste of jam and the smell of tea. Cognition, 117 (1), 54-61 PMID: 20637455

Mickey and Minnie Mouse Baby Diaper Cake

The classic Mickey & Minnie Mouse baby shower theme remains our all time favorite! So we decided to create these gorgeous three tier baby diaper cakes that will fit in perfectly with your Disney baby shower theme. Once you have this premium diaper cake, you can design your whole baby shower using its vibrant and rich colours.

Each baby diaper cake comes with 45 Pampers Diapers, Size 1 and a Mickey or Minnie Plush toy. They are accessorized with colour coordinated ribbons and shreds. Visit us at www.finestexpressions.com and let us know what you think!

Extras

Eye-catching studies that didn't make the final cut:

A little self-doubt can benefit sporting performance (for skipping, at least).

Meta-analysis shows job satisfaction and pay are only weakly related.

Brain-damaged patient who displays disproportionate difficulty producing verbs compared with nouns.

Photograph-induced memory errors.

Camaraderie protects fire-fighters from effects of stress.

The emergence of collective memories.

The parental behaviours that affect junior tennis player performance.

Questions raised about the idea that creativity resides in the right-side of the brain. Via MindHacks.

The fear and pain associated with committing suicide prevent many people from fulfilling their suicidal thoughts - these barriers may be weakened in people with combat experience, placing them at increased risk.

A new technique for inducing false memories.

Mental time travel in animals.

Epic StarCraft 2 TT1 vs MasterAsia

You so got to watch this!!!

OMFG!!! It just blew my mind away!!!


Ok wait, let me rephrase that.

If you're a fan of starcraft or if you've been play starcraft 2 battle.net, then you so have to watch this!

Which if you don't know, was the reasons I've been absent from the internet. Haha... I'm just done with the campaign after days of playing on battle.net. Gotta love Starcraft 2 people.

The videos are showing a single battle between two of the top players in the world versus against each other, TT1 being protoss and MasterAsia as zerg.

I know it can be a bit boring when you reached the end of part 2 and probably might snooze but laugh a little at part 3, but make sure to watch it till the end!

Because YOU WON'T EXPECT WHAT'S COMING IN THE END!!!


Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



What'd I told y'all.

Mulu Caves Backpacking Expedition: Getting There

Now that we're through with my travellings and finish publishing advertorials, it's back to me leaving Kuching behind to embark on my East Malaysia Expedition.

Kuching Food Quick Tour.

Kuching Orang Utan.

Kuching Native Long House.


As you probably have guessed from my title, I was heading solo to the National Park of Mulu Caves.

Why? Because after being a Malaysian for so long, the idea of not yet visited one of the most famous UNESCO World Heritage locations in Malaysia - World Largest Cave, shamed me, when most of the foreign travellers I've met have been there done that.


Mulu Cave image taken off google image.


Hearing the legends of the Deer Cave, it's hard to imagine to be standing in the middle of the largest cave chamber on earth and has an easy fit of 100 boeying 707 planes without a hunch.

However, this was true until last year (2009) where Son Doong Cave in Vietnam overtook the largest cave title in the world. (Damn, now I have to make a trip to Vietnam again)

Now after a month of research, I found the one cheapest way to get to Mulu Caves.

First I need to get to Miri.

So from KL, the only way is to fly to Kuching, and not wanting to spend the extra money on a flight from Kuching to Miri, and since I have all the time in the world to spare then, I decided to get on the road.




More like 13 hours on the off-road.

Urgh. Remind me never to do that again.


Once you've arrived at Miri, head straight to the airport to board another short flight to Mulu.




Here you would experience riding a Fokker 50 properller that would rendered you wondering if it would actually be safe to fly in the first place.




I meant, gosh, the plane was so tiny!




It was like boarding a toy plane.


the only airline that flew to Mulu: MASwings


With plastic propellers.




Oddly, the sight of a stewardess inside the Fokker was comforting. Perhaps it took the resemblance of one of those shitty American budget airlines with horrid tiny planes that shook the entire flight journey out of my mind.




So I turned back to take one last glance at the runway, prayed and boarded the plane.


God be with me


Soon I was off the ground.

Trapped like a sardin in a tin can, I peered out the window to stare at a seemingly wobbly weak wing of the plane piercing through the sky.




Called me a chicken, but I was feeling slightly uneasy. With every cloud the plane passed through, came turbulence that had me on the edge of my seat and hands gripped at the side.

As close as the distance looked on the map, it was a 30-min journey from Miri to Mulu.

So after quarter of an hour, the pilot was announcing our descend soon.

The sight down there, was br.ea.th.ta.king.




In that instance, I forgot all about my fear and realisation of me hovering on top National Park of Mulu Caves has hit me.




It's Mulu. I was in Mulu!




The very essense of Malaysia. East Malaysia! The reason why Malaysia was such a beauty, the reason why travellers flew thousand miles from their homeland to see. A true blue rainforest in the heart of Borneo.

Now I've been to the national park in West Malaysia, but this was entirely different. Nothing could compete with the wilderness on offer here. Like I said, a true blue rainforest in the heart of Borneo.




Oh Em Gee was that a river?





A real river inside a real rainforest!

God it was so beautiful.




My heart was thumping like crazy, I couldn't remember the last time I was this excited looking at a view out of a plane.

Not with Spain, not with London, not even with Japan.

Soon we arrived in front of a very expectedly tiny airport that was of Mulu airport.




And a sign that would really make your heart skip a beat.




A quick unload of luggages, locating my luggage,




An ungrateful and speedy wave to the smallest plane behind...




And I was out of the airport and on my way to the National Park of Mulu Caves.




Standing in front of the long green walk-way with a luggage behind me, I eagerly anticipated the discovery of this journey ahead.