After loading three chests full of scientific equipment (and
at least a million clif bars!), four packs of personal gear, and a slew of
carry-on bags into two cars, our journey to Borneo was finally underway. In
spite of reminding our second driver to be sure to take I-75 to the new
international terminal of the Atlanta airport, I proceeded to take the old
route to the airport via I-85, as muscle memory took over. Correcting this
added an additional 20 minutes to our journey, but we made it to the check-in
counter with plenty time to spare, so all’s well that ends well! The first leg
our journey was a 15-hour flight to Seoul, South Korea, which departed on
Sunday Oct 14 at 12:30 am EST. Thankfully, we were all able to get a decent
amount of sleep during the flight. We arrived in Seoul on Monday Oct 15 at 4am
local time, and stared a 12-hour layover in the face. This was made more
bearable since we booked a hotel room near the airport and were able to sleep
for several hours. We certainly crashed hard! Eventually we managed to pick
ourselves up and explore a little bit of South Korea by train before heading
back to the airport for our 6-hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of
Malaysia. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 9:55 pm local time, a little less
travel weary than before, but we were very thankful for our beds once we
checked into our hotel. We spent all of Tuesday October 16 running necessary
errands around Kuala Lumpur, like picking up our federal research passes and
buying food for when we are at the remote Camp 5. But along the way were able
to see many of the sites of the city, including Kuala Lumpur’s huge twin towers!
We were also asked to pose several times in photos with other tourists, which
was a little strange but made us feel a bit like celebrities! After completing
all our official tasks and taking in a few of the sites, we were back at the
hotel for our last night in ‘civilization’. At 8:30 am local time on Wednesday
Oct 17, we finally boarded a flight headed for Borneo and Gunung Mulu National
Park. After a quick stop in Borneo’s coastal city of Miri, we hopped on a
puddle jumper plane to Mulu and flew over the rainforest. More than 72 hours
after leaving Atlanta, GA, we were finally at Mulu. It was a pleasant surprise
to find park manager Brian Clark waiting at Mulu airport to take us and our
dozens of bag to Mulu park. After settling in at Mulu Park’s research center,
we were ready to start the next leg of our expedition – the science!
