The lady at the post office, the same one as yesterday, was surprised to see me back again today, I think, but when I explained about Mick and the stamp collecting she seemed to understand my struggles and was very helpful and patient! :-)
After the early morning trip to the post office I was heading down to Niah and the caves there. A further 2 hours on from there is Bintulu and although the LP didn’t really rate it I had booked a flight from there to Kuching the next day instead of coming back to Miri. I think in hindsight I should have gone back to Miri, but if we had the joy of hindsight things would, of course, be a whole lot easier but no-where near as much fun or as exciting or at times as scary.
So first I had to get to the long distance bus station. Since the publication on the LP it seems that all the bus terminals in every town over Borneo have been moved to the outskirts, I can understand why but it does mean you have to get a taxi everywhere backwards and forwards to the terminals which is a bit annoying.
The bus to Niah takes just under 2 hours and cost RM10 and it drops you at the Niah Junction. It’s then a further 15km to the park itself and the only way to get there is with a taxi or a private car (usually a bit cheaper). Again the bus was virtually empty, perhaps it was because it was almost falling apart I don’t know. Getting off at Niah Junction was just me but as soon as my feet touched the ground there was a guy offering me a ride to the park, for a fee of course. I managed to barter him down to a sensible price and after picking up a bit of a packed lunch we set off.
Niah Caves NP appears to be deserted, I noticed one other backpack left in the office area but apart from that I’m not seeing any great signs of life, I know it’s a popular park though so there should be some people around somewhere.
I had read all the info in the LP about the caves as well as a NP guide I was given but still I’m not sure I quite understood that 4km to the caves meant 4km back from the caves in addition to the 2 km or so walking around the caves. Now to be fair my legs are pretty much ok now but even so some of the ups and downs were a little tough. And when I actually arrived at the caves to see how many stairs were involved in it all I could have turned around there and then. Me being me though of course I didn’t!
The first cave you come to is the traders cave and this is where the trading used to go on many years ago for the birds nests that were collected from high within the cave. They still collect birds nests but only during the ‘season’ which I believe is in October sometime. They say the swiftlets birds nests are made purely from their saliva but the raw product is actually quite unappealing in that its interlaced with feathers and poop and who knows what! As to what it actually tastes like, you’re asking the wrong person.
The Traders Cave
The local people also collect guano produced from the swiflets and the bats in the caves, it seems these caves are particularly profitable ones.
It took a good 45 mins to walk to the first cave and along the way I think I saw just one other couple. Just before the entrance to the caves there are a couple of stands when some of the local women sell souvenirs and cold drinks. There was a small family sitting there having a rest and as they chatted I actually thought there were from Europe of somewhere by their accents, later on though when they spoke to me it turned out they were from Scotland! I’ve never been very good with the Scottish accent.
As you approach the Great Cave you get a real feel of exactly how big this cave system is, its immense and it goes on forever and ever. You could see the poles in places where the local people climb up to harvest the nests. I don’t know how high they climb to get them but it was very high and by all accounts it’s a very dangerous activity!
The Great Cave
As we emerged out of the Great Cave on the other side it was pouring with rain and the Scottish family were sitting down to enjoy some Jammy Dodgers I joined them with my packed lunch and we chatted about what we were all doing here etc. It turned out they were both teachers and living and working in Brunei. They were now in their 3rd year of being there and although they said it was very quiet and could be quite boring in a way, they liked it. Their reason for coming there and leaving the UK was so they had somewhere safe to bring up their two children. It sounds like a great idea and I admire that but I couldn’t help but think that that kind of lifestyle just wasn’t for me.
After the great cave came the painted cave which was supposed to be fantastic. I chatted to someone last night at the hostel who said it really wasn’t worth the extra walk and I wanted to believe them and not go really I did, but of course I didn’t and so wanted to check it out for myself. They were right though, despite them thinking that everything they had seen so far wasn’t very good, on this account they were right. I saw it though for myself. The rest of the caves were amazing and incredible. I wonder how these are going to compare to Mulu caves next week?
Before I set out on the trek to the caves I had left my main bag at the park HQ and that is always a little concerning for me in that you really need to make sure you get back there before they close for the night and go home, so that’s always on my mind. In addition to this I needed to get back to the junction to try and get a bus to Bintalu, actually there was no real choice in this, I had booked my flight and therefore I was going.
I had pretty much stuck with the Scottish family all the way back through the caves, they hadn’t bought a torch with them and were worried about the battery life on the ones they had rented so I assured them that there was plenty of life in my torch if theirs failed and so we pretty much stuck together. Once back at HQ I tried to sort out getting back to the junction, there are no buses which do this route so you have to rely on private cars and taxis which when you’re on your own is pretty costly. Fortunately for me the Scottish family had bought their car with them from Brunei and were going straight past where I needed to get out and so offered me a lift. Potentially I could still be there trying to get away from the park! Thanks guys!
Once back at the junction the next bus was leaving in 10 mins so just enough time to get take-away noodles and hop on the bus to Bintulu.
On arrival in Bintulu a taxi ride took me to the only budget place in town, this is why I should have stayed in Miri, the Seaview Inn, needless to say I didn’t have a seaview but by the time I got there all I wanted to do was sleep.
Next morning I’m off to Kuching and as I had eaten on the bus down I didn’t even leave my room I was so tried.
This morning Blanka and I had made a plan to visit the Royal Regalia Museum which appears to be all about the sultan and all about how great he is! It also holds all the gifts he was given from all the different heads of countries for his coronation in 1967. The gift from our Queen was an interesting one, it was like a large green glass vase! Apparently it’s meant to be a beer mug but I’m a little wary of that interpretation seeing as Brunei is dry! I’m sure in 1967 someone somewhere advised her that this was going to be the best gift to get the sultan but really?? Some of the other gifts were quite incredible in choice and design ranging from small handmade objects from small villages within some of the Malaysian states to elaborate gold and silver ornaments. I’m not sure what use he ever got out of his gifts though seeing as they are all now being glass cabinets! :-)
I have to say though it was a very interesting museum and I could have stayed longer if it wasn’t soooo cold in there.
Next stop was a coffee shop. They don’t have alcohol here but they do have 24 hour coffee shops.
After a sufficient refill we headed off to the mosque. Blanka had already been there on her last visit but now she had nothing to do until her flight this evening so came along as well. It is, of course, a very elaborate mosque and really beautiful with it. We’re allowed to visit inside but only very briefly and we were only allowed to walk on the tourist carpeted areas and of course we had to totally cover up. We took lots of photos of the outside and even some of us with our cover up gear on, it’s not a great pic though so I won’t be publishing that one either. :-)
After the mosque we went off for a wander around another part of the water village, this was one you could just walk to and we saw some really lovely places in amongst the not so nice places. One lady even invited us into her home to show us around and it was very surprising considering it was on stilts over the river. We would have liked to stay longer with her but Blanka had a flight to get to and all the walking was taking its toll on my tired legs and I needed a rest.
Tomorrow morning, on Dannys advice, I’m taking a coach from Bandar to cross the border into Sarawak and then onto Miri. Then the plan is to have one night in Miri before heading down to Niah Caves NP and then onto Kuching where Keith will join me on Sunday.
After Blanka had left to catch her flight I thought I would have a bit of a break from the heat, take a shower and relax for an hour before going out to get a bite to eat and those award winning pics of the mosque at night. Well the pics of the mosque at night was fantastic, if I do say so myself and I even had the company of a very cute mini Milo, almost as vocal as Milo as well. I then had dinner at a lovely Indian Muslim place that did the best Mee Goreng I have tasted since I’ve been here and after that I headed over to the Coffee Bean cafe to try and catch up a bit with the blog and make some plans for Sarawak. Brunei is a dry country so the entire youth population seemed to be in two side by side coffee shops on their computers so I joined in. Connection wasn’t that great and just before 11pm I decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel. The entire hostel is surrounded by 10ft high fencing and protected by foot long metal spikes, I had asked Blanka the night before if there was a curfew but she didn’t know and seeing as we were back fairly early it was ok. Tonight however was a different story! As I approached the main gate I caught a glimpse of what I thought were closed gates (!) as I got nearer and actually up to them I say that they were not only closed but locked with a great big chain and padlock!! Oh at this point I should also point out that the building is also surrounded by a moat oh and there was a storm going on, thunder, lightning and rain!!! To reach the gate you go over a little bridge and either side of the bridge is a lethal rounded type spiked system making it impossible to climb over the bridge and over the fence from that angle!! It wasn’t looking good, my stomach lurched, oh my god, what now? I called out to see if anyone was around but the whole place seemed totally deserted. I had visions of trying to climb over the fence and impaling myself on the foot long metal spikes and not being found till the morning! I also had visions of having to try and book into a hotel somewhere and then get back to the hostel in the morning and then on to the bus, at the moment I wasn’t sure what was the worse option, this country isn’t cheap you know! J I called out again but no answer and so for some reason I decided to try and climb over the gate. I hung my bag of water and tomorrows breakfast on the gate with my umbrella, then with my backpack on my back with my laptop inside, oh and in a skirt I might add, I amazingly managed to scale the fence! I’m still not sure how I did it really.
I was shaking when I got to the other side but managed to collect my belongings off of the spikes and head up to the dorm, only to find two guys sitting outside chatting, literally about 30 metres from where I was calling and they were totally oblivious to all the drama, they said ‘Hi’ as I walked by so I returned the greeting and headed off to my room, only to find my hands were absolutely filthy with black oily tar of some sort, I think it was the kinda stuff they coat railings and fences with to stop people getting over them, fortunately for me it didn’t work in quite that way tonight, but getting the black stuff off of my hands is a serious mission!! At least I was back inside the hostel, I did wonder though what would have happened if we wanted to get out in an emergency............I guess we just didn’t.
Mini Milo!
Tomorrow I’m off to Sarawak and I hope to find a hostel that doesn’t lock you in at night!
This morning I’m off to Brunei and apparently the best way to get there from KK is to go by ferry. The ferry leaves at 8am and gets to Labuan, an island belonging to Sabah, at 11.30am and then another leaves there at 1.30pm and arrives in Brunei at 2.30pm. Sounds good to me and an interesting way to cross the borders, more fun than going by bus I think.
Getting up this morning was a real trial, everyone else in the room was still sleeping and I would have loved to have been doing the same, I lay there for a couple of mins and thought how easy it would be to just delay my trip by another day but no I thought better of it and dragged myself out of bed.
The ferry terminal is only a 10 min walk away but because my legs are killing me and I’m carrying all my gear I thought I’d get a taxi...........that was until they tried to charge me a fortune for it and out of principle I walked! It’s only 7.30am and its hot already! I’m carrying around 16kilos of gear and I’ve just climbed a mountain, what was I thinking?! I made it to the ferry, amazingly, sweating more than I care to recall and bought my ticket. I got on the ferry 5 mins before it departed and as I did so one of the ferry guys took my bag and safely stowed it away. Which was great until about 5 min into the journey it appeared we were actually travelling in a deep freeze box! I had turned up in shorts and a vest top and everything else was in my big bag, the big bag that was now inaccessible. I had 3 and a half hours to go and potentially I could freeze to death on this journey.
Fortunately, of course, I didn’t but I’m not sure what good it did my cold. :-(
Labuan was our first port of call and as we had a couple of hours there I did the dutiful niece thing and headed straight off to the post office! I managed to get a couple of things Mick wanted but not everything, tomorrow is another new issue of stamps so hopefully at my next destination after Brunei I’ll be able to pick up some stamps for you Mick. I’d like to say I’m becoming an expert with this stamp stuff but I think it’s still all beyond me! :-)
Back on the boat to Brunei and this time I’m prepared, and this time of course it wasn’t anywhere near as cold!
Arriving in Brunei I had no money and no where to stay! Nothing new there then. I actually thought the ferry came into the main town and I could go to an ATM but it comes into Muara, which is around 25km by bus away. Fortunately there was a money change at the terminal. My experience of having no money and ferry terminals usually indicates there isn’t one so I was lucky this time.
Then as for accommodation, I had a phone number of the only budget place in the whole country and they weren’t answering the phone! I had clocked another tourist on the boat who seemed to know what there were doing and as we got off at Muara I started chatting to them. It turned out Blanka was heading for the same place as me and she knew it well having only been there 10 days beforehand. She was on her way home from working in Oz and NZ and got a cheap flight to Brunei but then went straight to Sabah for a few days and was now heading back again as she was flying home the next day.
The bus into Bandar town took around 45 mins and as we got off of the bus there was a guy at the bus station that Blanka seemed to know. As we walked away she told me all about him, his name is Danny and he seems to be a freelance tour guide of some kind and seems to know everything there is to know about getting into and out of Brunei and what you can do while you’re here. He looks like he’s out on safari on holiday, with a Bermuda style shirt, shorts and a backpack with a Proboscis monkey soft toy attached, he looks more like a tourist than a local guy and so really stands out. When I chatted to him a bit later he told me all about how he’s on the internet just type in ‘Danny Brunei Bus Station’, so I did and he is, try it.
The only budget place in town appears to be a local Youth Hostel and Sport Centre called Pusat Belia, we were greeted with a very abrupt ‘you wanna stay?’, well with all our worldly belongings on our backs it was almost tempting to say ‘no just thought we would come by and say hi’, but thought the humour would be lost here! The hostel is actually very nice and very clean, our dorm has just 4 beds and there’s just the two of us in it. You can’t be too late in the day though getting here cause apparently they close up the office at around 4.30pm then the only option is a one of the big hotels. Lucky I took the morning ferry huh?
Pusat Belia has a swimming pool as well where this afternoon there appears to be the local swim club practising. For BD$1 we can use the pool and I kinda thought a nice dip in the water might make my legs feel better. I guess it could have done if I could have actually used my legs in the water!! There were so sore still that I couldn’t swim a stroke! Oh well there’s this whole country to explore yet.
Everyone says there’s nothing really in Brunei to see and nothing to keep you there more than a day or so. There’s a beach apparently a bus journey away but it’s full of rubbish and I don’t sunbathe, there’s also an amusement park just outside of town but apparently it’s like a ghost town and you tend to be the only ones there, I didn’t fancy it. So that leaves the main town.
There are some great water villages here which the guide book says don’t miss so after a very quick dip and a shower we both headed out to hire a boat and driver. Our driver found us rather than we found him and after a little bit of bartering he took us off on a tour of the water villages.
Some of these places looked very nice indeed, of course some didn’t but that’s like any neighbourhood. We passed by several schools so there must be a lot of kids around. Education is free here so I guess they make the most of it. All the people who we saw during our boat ride were very friendly and calling out hello to us and waving which was nice. Brunei is such a lesser travelled country than Malaysia so you don’t really know what to expect but it seemed really nice to me.
After an hour cruising up and down the river and enjoying the sunset over the palace we came back to town and made our way to the satay market form some vegetarian noodles. I don’t think Blanka had really been eating at the markets, she’s vegetarian and I think a little cautious of knowing for sure there was no meat in it. I assured her that what we had ordered had no meat and we tucked in.
Brunei seems to be very quiet indeed, there doesn’t seem to be many people around anywhere at all and certainly not many tourists.
Lets see what tomorrow holds.
