Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Malaysia
The Gunung Mulu Marriott is the most interesting Marriott I've ever stayed in. Be prepared for a trek to get there! 😊
Many years ago traditional print media marketing got me. Why wouldn't I want to visit a distant rainforest in Borneo with a Marriott resort attached. It ended up on a Google Maps List📍. A few months ago I was "close enough" for the visit to make sense. Sound interesting?
Here's what you should know about the Marriott at Gunung Mulu National Park
The main challenge in planning a holiday in Mulu, is that it's kinda difficult to get to there.
Flight routing to Gunung Mulu National Park is limited.
The Park and hotel are located in a remote portion of Borneo near the Brunei border. You can only reach the park and villages surrounding by air (unless you are very adventurous and take a boat). Mulu Airport (MLU) is small by any standards. Most of it is even outdoors (checkin/security has a roof, but is open air. You will probably be on an ATR (maybe even the one in the photo below).
Fun fact: These flights are considered part of the "Rural Air Service" and are subsidized by the government of Malaysia because Mulu is so rural. There simply is not enough passenger volume to commercially support the route otherwise.
Each day there are 4 flights operated by MasWings (owned by Malaysian Airlines). Per above note the flight is less than 20% full. Even if you pay to select a seat up front, you'll probably be moved around to balance the load (it happened to me!)
You can reach Mulu Airport via direct flight from these 3 cities:
My suggestion: Route through Kuching or Kota Kinabalu, then spend a few days checking out the parks there.
Buying round-trip tickets into Gunung Mulu won’t save money over buying tickets separately. You can stop at one airport on the way in and another on the way out. When deciding your layover:
Island hop for beaches? KK
Check out national parks with proboscis monkeys? Kuching
Next decision: Fly through either Singapore or Kuala Lumpur. If you take a day or two on each end of your trip you can check out one (or both) of my favorite cities in the region. Choose Singapore for surreal, KL for breadth of culture.
Sell it to me… Why bother going out of the way to visit Gunung Mulu?
There are 3 big reasons I'd suggest visiting:
It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park is renowned for its flora and fauna, especially the bat colonies. It's worth paying the money to go on the park's guided bat cave tour in the evening.
You can find one of the largest cave systems in the world in Gunung Mulu The entrances to Deer Cave are over 140m tall, it's one of those "see it to believe it type of places!" My images simply don't do it justice. In addition, for those who like to live more adventurously, you can hire guides to take you trekking thru the park on 2/3 day journeys!
There are tons of other animals to see if you are quiet and patient! Here's a pit viper that I saw near one of the park entrances.
How to plan the trip
Once you've booked airplane tickets, you'll need to decide if you'll go trekking or not as I mentioned in pt 2 above. You should add 3 days to your trip if you choose to schedule this.
Gunung Mulu Prices
All trekking, tours, and other activity should be paid and scheduled through the park directly. You can visit their website here.
You need to email them to schedule anything, and they asked me to pay in cash on arrival. Fees are very reasonable (approximately $7 (USD) for a 5 day pass as a foreigner. Tours will cost you a bit more.
The park offers 10 km of unguided hiking trails (boardwalks) split into 5 separate walks. None of these require strenuous exertion, just bring water and bug spray.
The park also offers guided group walks into protected areas. These are the only way to see the best attractions, like Deer, Lang, and Clearwater Caves. The cave tours do involve stairs, particularly at Clearwater Cave.
All tours are inexpensive (<$10/person), but limited in spots, so you should book them in advance by contacting the park directly.
3 days is enough to "see it all" unless you choose to go trekking