A Stairmaster for Giraffes (Malaysia - Part 2)

Other people come here because they enjoy being in damp small spaces with thousands of tons of rock above them. Any enthusiasm I have for self improvement does not extend to beating claustrophobia.

Fortunately, watching the bat exodus didn't require acquiring a Batman backstory. I sat comfortably on the open ground, in shorts none-the-less. Despite being the tropics there's a strangely zero number of mosquitoes here.

It turns out mosquitoes are a favorite bat snack. I ❤️ bats.

But I didn't fly into Mulu National Park to look at bats or dive into caves. I came for the overnight Pinnacles hike.

Day 1 starts off with canoeing down the river. Normally you'd have to get out and push the boat through, but the recent typhoon downpours swelled the river.

A brief stop at some large caves, and then onto the trail.

It's 9km of flat rainforest paths to camp 5. This is perhaps the truest definition of rainforest, because half the trail was underwater as well.

At first I tried to hippity hop on the rocks, until I hippity hopped too much and landed in the water. I did anticipate a risk of wet feet - so right before leaving park HQ I panic bought the $5 Adidas rubber shoes that are popular with locals. But with wet shoes and a limited amount of dry socks, I gave up on playing hopscotch and sloshed for the rest of the day.

Camp is a nice open complex with plenty of green space, a river and mountain view, a full kitchen, showers, and prison bunks. No mosquitoes. Have I mentioned I ❤️ bats? What a lovely day.

Or it was... until I became the reluctant contestant in a new episode of Naked and Afraid.

Bees have taken over the complex. I first noticed them feasting on the sweat of all the clothing that's been hung out to dry.

But that wasn't enough for them. They wanted to go to the source.

Now look. I respect the role bees play in the ecosystem. I strongly prefer to coexist.

But when you attack me at my most vulnerable, the natural balance is the least of my concerns.

Those little shits followed me and my sweat to the shower. Aggressive but large and slow - a swat with a towel - accompanied by a scream and a f-bomb (#justgirlythings) - neutralized the enemy.

While drowning in a pool of water by the drain the bee must have emitted some sort of cry for help. Because another little shit comes to investigate. Swat. And another. Swat.

What occurred next was a minor event of a mass execution that I prefer to think of as accelerating natural selection. I will not reveal my body count but at least it is lower than that of Ted Bundy.

After the horrors of the shower - traumatized but physically unharmed - the bees still would not leave me or my things alone.

Thus I self-imprisoned in my mosquito net cocoon until dusk. I could hear them buzzing and hovering and took great pleasure in their frustration being unable to access a favored food source.

Once the coast was clear I emerged for dinnertime. Now I'm not exactly gifted around a stove. Nor do I follow directions well.

So when I made this sad concoction of chicken sausage, cabbage, and noodles - without even asking, a hiking group from Kuala Lumpur gave me a plate of what their chef cooked up.

We start out at 6am on a stairmaster for giraffe-length limbs. The stairs get too high for my tall-dwarf stature pretty quickly, so it's a scramble on all fours. I'm desperately hoping none of the trees or roots I touch are poisonous. We lose a few good men to the time cutoff at stage 1.

Stage 2 is more scrambling, and gets more vertical. I'm not used to carrying so little so it's really a pleasant climb. We lose a few more who gave too much thought to the downhill problem before lunch.

And finally stage 3 - the best part. 17 ladders, many ropes and planks, and vertical sections of nice grippy rock.

And all too soon it was over, and today I'm luncheoning with the Pinnacles. And a squirrel. What it lacked in views it made up for in fun.

The descent.

I take back EVERYTHING I said about fun.

The 2.4km that took 3 hours up took almost 6 hours down. The most efficient way down ended up going backwards on all fours and using tree roots to rappel, hoping that they hold.

And those rubber shoes - my initial delight at decent grip and quick drying turned into loathing.

I spent the entire first day thinking how to rearrange my luggage to accommodate this new possession.

No more. Every pebble feels like stepping on a lego, my heels are bleeding, a pinky toenail is gone.

Back in civilization I couldn't find a pyre to throw them in, so I left them in the hostel with a note: "Free to a good home. Any home, really".

On the plus side, my bottle of nail polish will last longer with just 9 toenails to paint. Cost savings!