CHEAP HOSTELS IN MALAYSIA

Gunung Mulu National Park
Northern Sarawak, island of Borneo


Important both for its high biodiversity and for its karst features, Gunung Mulu National Park, on the island of Borneo in the State of Sarawak, is the most studied tropical karst area in the world. The 52,864-ha park contains seventeen vegetation zones, exhibiting some 3,500 species of vascular plants. Its palm species are exceptionally rich, with 109 species in twenty genera noted. The park is dominated by Gunung Mulu, a 2,377 m-high sandstone pinnacle. At least 295 km of explored caves provide a spectacular sight and are home to millions of cave swiftlets and bats. The Sarawak Chamber, 600 m by 415 m and 80 m high, is the largest known cave chamber in the world.

Kinabalu Park
State of Sabah


Kinabalu Park, in the State of Sabah on the northern end of the island of Borneo, is dominated by Mount Kinabalu (4,095 m), the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. It has a very wide range of habitats, from rich tropical lowland and hill rainforest to tropical mountain forest, sub-alpine forest and scrub on the higher elevations. It has been designated as a Centre of Plant Diversity for Southeast Asia and is exceptionally rich in species with examples of flora from the Himalayas, China, Australia, Malaysia, as well as pan-tropical flora.

The Tanan Negara National Park of Peninsular Malaysia
The Taman Negara has been gazatted as the first national park in Malaysia in 1938/1939 where by Peninsular Malaysia, Malaya at that time was still under the colony of the British. Taman Negara is the largest protected area in Malaysia covering an area of 434,350 hectares of pristine tropical rain forest of estimated 130 million years of age.
Ranges from 60m to 2187 meters a.s.I., Taman Negara has diverse geological, ecological and species diversity. It contains diverse types of forests such as low land dipterocarp forest, hill dipterocarp forest, mountain oak forest, mountain ericaceous forest, peat forest , riverine forest, limestone and heat forest. It is estimated to house 185,000 species of fauna and 8,000 species of flowering plants. Amongst the fauna are endemic such as crested argus (Rheinardia ocellata) and mountain pheasant (polyplectron inopinatum,.and endangered species such as the world smallest rhinoceros Dicerorhinus sumatrensis which is near extinction and can only be found in Penisular Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra.