Kota Kinabalu

Ignoring the fact it took 11 and a half hours, the bus journey to KK was quite exciting. We got I believe 8 passport stamps, the bus went in to Brunei, then back to Sarawak, back into Brunei, back to Sarawak, and then into Sabah. We also made friends with Aidy and Yanis, an English couple in the pus with us. Turns out that I actually had a few drinks with Yanis and some mutual friends back in Cambodia although it tool a while for either of us to remember, that was a strange coincidence.
That evening we managed to meet up with Tiffany again and then allowed Aidy and Yanis to teach us their illegal drinking techniques, for more info please contact Robbie with any questions.

There is depressingly little to really do in KK, but we both felt that we owed it to Anthony to go and see his museum, the Sabah museum. I would be lieing if I said it was the worlds greatest museum, however there were some interesting exhibits and both Robbie and I learned new things about Sabah. Well done Anthony, nice museum.

I spent most of the rest of the evening trawling around shopping centres in the search for flip flops in my size and one again, for the third time in this holiday someone decided to steal mine. The most annoying this was that this time they were rubbish flip flops, I was in need of new ones anyway. Robbie’s are nice and new, much better than mine, the same size, and were right next to mine, why did this drain upon society chose to steal mine despite better options, I will never understand the youth of today.

That evening Robbie Tiffany and myself had a great night out bowling, but we had to get her home early because she was climbing Kinabalu the next day. Kinabalu is SE Asia’s highest peak, we would be going to the national park, but Robbie and I had decided we couldn’t afford the 100 pounds it cost to climb, we were therefore suitably jealous of Tiffany.

Lambir Hills

After spending a single and uneventful night in Miri (during which we managed to see the community shield) we set out for Lambir hills. We had to go via the long distance bus terminal anyway and so decided to book our onward bus ticket to Kota Kinabalu. It turns out only one bus company runs this service and so the price was astronomical. In the search of a discount we tried lying, charming, complaining and flirting as well as offering oral hygiene advice. I am not sure which tac it was, but one of them worked and we were delighted to gain one up on the frustrating Borneo beaurocracy.

We arrived at the park and, after going through another ‘you really want to camp’ episode, pitched the tent and went to get some lunch. For some reason, and I still have no idea what it was it took us about 30 minutes to be served because every time the waitress looked at us she just burst out laughing, Robbie was convinced it had to be my fault.

It was only a 15 minute walk to a beautiful waterfall with a large pool and a beach. We wasted no time in getting into swimming gear and heading over for a relaxing swim in some of the most stunning surroundings I have ever seen.

It turned out we were the only tourists in the entire park that night, the café closed at 6.30 and there was a power cut soon after. We were forced to spend a memorable evening star gazing and having torches shone at us by Malaysians who had never seen a tent before!

Day 2 in Lambir and we resolve to climb the largest hill in the park in order to see the canopy from above. After about 2 hours of wondering aimlessly in the rainforest we arrived back at HQ, we didn’t really realize how lucky we were until later.

The real disaster was the small shower of rain, while the tent is only semi waterproof to begin with, it is not at all waterproof when the window is left open, my sleeping bag liner was soaked , all or Robbie’s stuff was fine. He informed me that the window was after all my responsibility. Hmm, I don’t remember agreeing to that!

So, undeterred we sat down for some lunch and set out for a slightly smaller hill. This time we found the path without incident. Unfortunately out long climb was not rewarded by clear skies, but we saw enough of the canopy to be satisfied.

After arriving back at HQ we packed up the tent and went to stand by the edge of the road to flag down passing coaches back to Miri in order to spend yet another night there. When we got to the guesthouse Alex was already there, avec new girl in tow. We spent the evening chatting and watching movies. We spent a long time chatting with a man named Dennis Along Along who worked at the hostel. Turned out this bouncy and optimistic man used to do very specialized work on Malaysia’s many oil rigs, being flown all round the country for his expertise. When he got kidney failure the poor man was tied to Miri by 4 times weekly dialysis, I could never have guessed something like that had happened to him, such is his outlook on life.

It was a relatively early as we had an 8 o’clock bus the next morning.

The Niah Caves

The journey to Niah was pretty straight forward and soon after lunch we were there, tent erect and all. When we arrived we had to register, when we asked where the campsite was there was a moment of pure comedy as she stood in disbelief that anyone could be stupid enough to want to camp.

After settling in we set off to the caves themselves. We were hoping to see the much talked about ‘bat exodus’. At dusk supposedly all the bats fly out of the cave, and are replaced by birds going in for a nights sleep. Unfortunately a small mathematical problem reared its ugly head. Our campsite was on the other side of a river, the boats stop running at 7, dusk is also about 7, and it is a 45 minute walk back to the boat. In true backpacker style we cut it as fine as possible, leaving only 20 minutes to sprint back the boat, we managed with moments to spare.

You may think that this meant the trip to the cave that evening had been a disappointment, but nothing could be less true. Who did we bump into but our favourite Dutchman Thierry, a slightly wiser, wittier and less gullible model granted, but Thierry none the less. That evening he came up with great quotes as ‘it is very dangerous to eat fireflies, they are very hot’ and ‘alex, I think 53.2% of the things you say are joking’. Unfortunately he couldn’t quite swallow Robbie’s revelation that locals at Gunung Mulu regularly murder unsuspecting tourists, shame.

The night that followed could never be described as a ‘good nights sleep’, but it could certainly have been worse. We woke surprisingly late, had a bit of breakfast and then head off to see the caves, which not even photos can do justice. We followed through the caves to see the cave paintings. The oldest of their kind in Asia. As you can imagine they were a little faded, but still amazing when it is considered just how long they have been there.

Caves finished we returned to the park HQ, who did we find? The Spanish womanizer Alex, and the two Dutch girls we had met in Kuching whose names I am still unsure about. They told us of the idiots staying in the tent In the middle of the sun, only to learn it was us. We agreed to meet them in Miri in a few days and set off, planning on making it to Lambir hills, home of many a beautiful waterfall.

Chif's crib - Miri

After the excitement with the chief et famile we were all in a hurry to get back to civilization, the irish boys had a flight to catch, and Robbie and I didn’t want to have to spend another night in Sibu, this in mind we asked the chief’s son if he could help us organise a taxi back into town, to which he replied that there was one already booked and on its way for 10.30, great we thought. So 10.30 came, and so did the taxi, we were just about to leave when a very sarcastic Italian woman started to make her presence known, turns out the taxi was actually for their package tour and so despite there being room in the van, and knowing they were stranding us there, the Italians got into there precious taxi and drove off, I am sure I saw smug smiles on all of their selfish Italian faces.

Panic over, about 10 minutes later a taxi arrived, he had actually been dropping someone at the village and was so willing to take us back into town for a cut price, bet that will wipe the Italians’ faces clean.

We arrived in Kapit with just enough time to grab some takeaway noodles and jump on the boat back to Sibu. We were treated to such quality motion pictures as ‘Night in the museum – 2’ and something with no English and lots of fighting.

To cut a long story short, turned out we could get to our next stop, the oil town of Miri that day, so we bid farewell to the Irish lads and jumped on the pus, not really thinking things through. We got on a 6 hour bus at 5.30, you do the math. Arriving in Miri predictably late even the schumacheresque driving of our cab driver could not get us to a hostel that was still open. Robbie and I were forced to seriously consider staying in a real hotel, shock horror. As it turned out our luck was in and at almost 1am we somehow stumbled into a lovely little hostel called Mita.

The plan had been to use Miri as a jumping point for Gunung Mulu national park, perhaps Sarawaks most famous tourist site and home to the largest limestone cliffs in the world. After a good nights sleep we walked to the tourist information, only to find that a trip to Mulu would not just stretch our budget, it would tear in to shreds and then burn the remains, Mulu wasn’t an option. There are however several other national parks in the region so we resigned ourselves to going to one of these instead. That night there were some world challenge kids in the guesthouse and they told us of the Niah Caves which sounded pretty cool. Then came a stroke of pure genius. We decided to buy a tent. The cost of camping in Niah is a fraction of a guesthouse. We managed to find the worlds worst (and cheapest) tent. Imagine one of those play tents for kids that you put in the garden, well it looked like that, but worse. I could almost lie straight in it, so spare a thought for poor Robbie. All said and done we loved it. Next morning we set off bright and early for Niah, very excited about our tent.

Sibu and Kapit - Dinner with the Chief

Alex and I joined Eoghan and Cian, two Irish guys from Borneo B+B, on the 8.30 bus to Sibu; this in itself was a minor miracle as we failed to set an alarm and were still feeling the effects of the night before, even so we slept through most of the 6 hour journey and arrived not so refreshed in Sibu. Sibu is a relatively boring town and is used mainly as a jumping off point to travel up the Batang Rejang river, which is exactly what we intended to do the next day. As a result the highlight of Sibu was an afternoon swim in a local hotel's pool.

Early the next morning we headed to Kapit, which is a four hour boat ride up the river and the place to go for longhouse visits, which is what we intended to do - longhouses are the traditional dwellings of the Iban people who inhabit the interior of Borneo. It turns out that it is quite difficult to find a longhouse to stay in because cultural etiquette dictates that you are invited into a longhouse rather than just turning up. While attempting to find a suitable longhouse we met a Dutch guy called Thierrey who wanted to use a tour operator to visit a longhouse, this turned to be too expensive for the four of us so he went off on his own, which we were quite glad of because he was one of the most annoying people we've ever met. In the end we asked the tour operator which longhouse it was and decided to do the one thing you're not meant to do: turn up uninvited. So we hailed a taxi and headed for the Bundong longhouse.

We got the taxi driver to introduce us to the chief, or at least the chief's wife and she allowed us to stay overnight, as long as we checked with the chief when he returned. After a few drinks we were left to spend the afternoon wondering round the longhouse and it was a brilliant experience as we were immersed in the daily life of the longhouse. Eoghan was in his element playing wih all the children in the longhouse and we all joined in before heading down to the river for a swim. When we got back to te longhouse the tour group full of Italians and Thierrey had arrived and we all noticed a marked difference in the atmosphere and it was disappointing that the lively nature of the place suddenly disappeared and everything was more subdued with the arrival of 20 or so Westerners. We tried to get away from the group and ended up chatting with some locals and their English and genuine interest in our lives and home were as remarkable as each other. I found this conversation the most interesting and enjoyable because it is one thing seeing where they live but it is so much more worthwhile chatting and finding about everything from their family and religious beliefs to their education and which football team they support (more often than not Man Utd!).

We heard that the chief had returned so we went to seek his rubber stamp on us being allowed to stay and to our horror he asked for 150 ringitts to stay the night so we made preparations to leave because this was unaffordable. Luckily Eoghan's charm and silver tongue got it down to 40 ringitts so we stayed the night. We had dinner with the tour group and then the breakdown of communication with the chief became evident as we were beckoned back into the house and showed to our sleeping quarters, which were two double beds in the chiefs house! To put this in context everyone else was staying outside on the wooden floor, which is where we were expecting to stay. To make matters even better we were served supper of sweet tea and bread with coconut jam and spent the evening with the chief's family. So while everyone else got comfortable outside we slipped under our mosquito net, turned our fan on and went to sleep, result!

Our luck continued as we woke up and were served breakfast by the chief's wife, we have no idea why we got all this laid on but it seems that the chief thought we were asking to stay in his house rather than the standard procedure of sleeping outside. Either way we weren't complaining and had a nice chat with Thierrey in the morning who turned out to also be the most gullible person in the world and we were in our element with him. Some of the hilarity that ensued cannot be done justice in a blog so please ask Alex or myself at the next opportunity to fill you in. We caught a taxi back to Kapit, the chief saw us off personally, and then jumped straight on a boat back to Sibu.

Rob

Bako National Park - Monkeys, Ants and Waterfalls

An early start saw us head off to Bako for a day trip to one of Malaysia's premier parks. A bus and a boat got us in to the park, though the slightly annoying thing was me paying full price and Alex getting a student discount when I'm a student and he isn't!!! Anyway, Bako is most famous for it's probiscus monkeys and we saw two in the trees just as our boat pulled in; quite a positive start we thought. However, it turns out that that was our last encounter with nature, well apart from a trail of ants on our trek and another monkey just as we left. This lack of wildlife was no problem as the park was beatiful in itself. We had to be back for our boat in 6 hours so we decided to walk for 3 hours and see where we ended up and that turned out to be the Tajong waterfalls which followed and climb through the jungle and a scramble up a dry river bed. The waterfalls were...well impressive isn't the right word because they were about 3 foot tall, but they did provide ample swimming opportunity to swim in pool created by the waterfall. Cool and refreshed we headed back to Kuching and what I thought would be an early night due to our 8am bus in the morning but I was very mistaken as Alex and I shared two bottles of whiskey as we socialised back at Borneo B+B with Alex the Spaniard, James the PE teacher, Cian and Eoghan from Ireland and a few others. At some point we stumbled across the road to get some sleep before our early bus in the morning.

Rob

Kuching - Meow!

With Tom heading home Alex and I headed to Kuching, literally meaning 'cat', the capital city of Sarawak. Finding accommodation was pretty hard but we settled for the Borneo B+B. In the afternoon we headed to the Waterfront, the focal point of Kuching, and walked into a sea of people as the Sarawak Regatta was in full swing. This annual event is an amazing tradition in Sarawak and we witnessed dragon boat racing, local music and a cultural market. All in all it was just good fun for all the family, even though it was just Alex and me there! Seeing that our first day in Kuching was a Saturday we decided to join in on a game of Ring of Fire at our hostel before heading out on the town. By about 2am we ended up in a karaoke bar (about half of all bars have karaoke, it is crazily popular in this part of the world!) and Alex and I used our natural singing talents to clear the place out. With that accomplished we wandered back to our B+B after 3am.

Our late night led us to sleeping to almost midday the next day and this led to a couple of problems: first, we missed the Kuching Sunday market, which actually takes place on a Saturday, and got booted out of Borneo B+B because apparently we needed to re-check-in! Luckily there was place in a dorm across the road so we moved there before heading out to exlpore Kuching with Kevin, a French guy from Borneo B+B, and his Spanish friend who neither of us can remember the name of. The Sarawak Museum showcased all the wildlife in Sarawak but the stuffed animals looked like they hadn't been replaced since the museum was opened in 1912, but the one eyes porcupine was still very impressive... With Kuching being the city of the cat it has a liberal sprinkling of cat statuesso Alex and I decided to take a few of them in, including the Great Cat of Kuching, which overlooks the entrance to Kuching. I never knew cats could be so impressve or big! We planned to head to Bako national park in the morning so we opted for a quiter night and headed out for a meal with people from Borneo B+B before seeing Public Enemies, which we all enjoyed.

Rob

Kuala Lumpur

On arriving in KL we made a bee line for China town, having been told that it was home to the cheapest digs. To get there we had to take the KL under ground, which is roughly a million times better than the tube, we never had to wait longer than about a minute.
That evening we set out to do something we had been wanting to do for ages, we saw Harry Potter. It maybe didnt quite live up to our expectations, but I dont think any of the reviews have been good, and we were glad to see it. The cinema was in a shopping centre full of western shops, everything from Gucci and Armani to Topshop, marks and spencer and even harrods.
The following day we woke up early to get tickets for the Petronas towers. They are one of the tallest buildings in the world and one can climb up about half way for an amazing view over the city from a sky bridge. We spent the rest of the day shopping in the markets and went out for dinner at the hard rock cafe as a tearful farewell to Tom. Tiffany managed to come and join us for dinner, and it was great to see her.
In the morning Robbie and I went to a Hindu temple, by complete chance we walked in and 'something' (excuse my ignorance) was happening, there was singing and dancing, and we really enjoyed it.
That afternoon we went out for an amaxing curry in Little india, mine came on a Banana leaf instead of a plate. We then went to see a friend of a friend of Robbies who has lived in Malaysia for 30 years. He was unimaginabely knowledgeable, even telling us about the time he guided Attenbrough around Borneo.
That evening we took Tom to the station. It was strange for us both. A guy called Toon who we called the 'dirty dutchman' said travelling is more intense than marriage, maybe he is right, we barely spent a minute apart for 3 months.
Robbie and I spent a night before flying to Borneo, which is where we are now.

Railay bay-Hat ton Sai

Railay is split into three parts, Railay west - full of expensive resorts, not quite our scene, Railay east - full of expensive resorts, not really our scene, and Hat ton sai, full of climbing enthusiasts with fishing trousers and dread locks, exactly our scene.
After getting off the boat we were just getting started on the rock scramble one must pass in order to get to ton sai, when we noticed another beach football match, while not quite as fun as the one o Phi Phi, it was a welcome way of running around and using some energy, even if the Thais didn't trust us enough to actually pass the ball.
Once we got were we wanted to go we found admittedly basic bamboo bungalows for 100b, that 2pounds for a whole bangalow. I strung up my hammock outside and I think we all realised immediately this was going to be somewhere we enjoyed, away from the hectic tourism business. This place has what must be one of the most chilled out vibes in the world.
Unfortunately we were not blessed with good weather on our one full day on the bay so we didnt get out onto the beach, nor did we manage to learn to climb, yet we still enjoyed the place, that tells a story.
The following day we checked out of our rooms early, knowing we had to be in Krabi that evening, but happy to spend a day on the beach first. Yes the beach was great, but that was not the most exciting thing to happen, a hurricane hit the beach! We were looking into the distance at the storm clouds coming when suddenly we noticed a tiny tube in the sky. I went off for a walk, and then suddenly the hurricane was on the water, throwing spray all over the beach before moving onto the beach and throwing towels everywhere. Dont worry mothers, it didnt cause any real damage, their was no real danger, but it was still very exciting!
That afternoon we headed to Krabi to spend a night before jumping on a flight to KL in the morning. That evening we somehow stumbled into a restaurant playing Dirty Dancing on the TV. Tom was so appalled that I had never seen it that we stayed and watched it all the way to the end.

Koh Phi Phi

After a quiet few days on Lanta we were all looking forward to a bit more activity on the very tourist Phi Phi. The Island was used as the location for the film 'the beach'.
We only spent two full days on Phi Phi, I think we were slightly put off by the english lager louts, but nonetheless we all had a great time. On the first day we enjoyed the weather on the beach. We spent a day reading, playing frisbee, swimming, bat and ball, all the normal sort of beach 'stuff'. That evening we hit the town, particularly enjoying the bar with layed on thai boxing, and the beach party. I cannot speak for Tom or Robbie, but I only got home at about 8am that morning, the sign of a good night I think.
Predictabely most of the following day was spent asleep, although we did venture down to the beach at about 4 to find a hugely competetive game of beach football (faring vs thai) and played long enough that we could barely move for exhaustion. As I remember we then went for a treat, some rare western food before retiring early to play our favourite card game which has become a bit of an obsession.
With a few days to kill untill our flight to Kuala Lumpur we decided to go to Railay bay, a tiny little peninsula about an hour from Krabi. We had decided to get the boat at 9, but after waking up at 9.15 that was no longer an option, we started the journey at 2.