---

Since I spent much more time than anticipated in Kuching I had some ground to make up on my journey to the top of Borneo. So I spent the next three nights traveling through Miri, Bandar Seri Bagawan and Pulau Labuan (Labuan island)..

First stop was Miri. This is still in Sarawak, Malaysia territory. I had two options - 16 hour direct bus journey, or boat trip inland through river to Sibu & 7 hour bus journey from there to Miri. I took the boat option as it's more scenic and I don't like sitting around on buses for hours on end. 7am start, the boat journey was a little choppy as we hit a monsoon. I liked the staffs sense of humour as they played Hellraiser 2 & 3 on the tv while people were trying to hold their stomachs together. Some lady next to me blew chunks, but generally the trip wasn't so bad. The boat got into Sibu around 2:30 and I had a bit of a rush to get the bus at 3pm but I made it. The bus journey was from 3pm and I arrived around 10pm. Miri was closed by the time I got there, but I managed to find one place open for food which was good as I was so hungry I may have resorted to eating one of my flip flops had I not found something to eat.

After a chat with the lady who runs the guest house I decided not to hang around Miri for long. She talked me out of it infact! There was an open air swimming pool so I went for a morning swim and took off mid afternoon for Bandar Seri Bagawan, capital city of Brunei. The journey into Brunei was straightforward. I took a highly illegal route of hiring a 'private car' and making the journey as a passenger as it cuts 3hrs off your travel time having to clear customs, change buses etc. It only cost me 10 Ringgit (GBP 1.50) more than the bus journey would have cost so I went for it. I arrived around 7pm and Brunei was already asleep. There is one main youth hostel which is subsidised by the government. It was just B$10 (GBP3ish) for a night. The place was deserted. It was already dark so I just took a walk around and had some dinner. Since it is a Muslim country there are no bars and generally nothing open after 10pm. So I planned my trip to Pulau Labuan the next day.

Early morning start, there was on thing I wanted to do in Bandar Seri Bagawan which was a trip around the river on one of the high speed boats that runs people too and from the water village on the opposite side of the river which runs through the middle of the city. They do guided tours for tourists and this was worth the stop in Brunei alone. The scenery was amazing, the skipper even took me through a water woods area which you can see from the pics was pretty special. After that I made my journey to the ferry terminal for the boat to Pulau Labuan.

Pulau Labuan is an island on Sabah territory. Sabah is the northern most of the two Malaysia states in Borneo. It occupies the tip of Borneo. Pulau Labuan is a duty-free island, and so is a popular place with the mainlanders since the government places high tax on alcohol and all the fun things in life. It was busy busy when I got there and although I wanted to hit the beaches the next day, I decided not to stick around for long. I couldn't walk 10 metres without someone trying to sell me a 'genuine' Brietling watch for 50 Ringgitt (GBP8ish), or some other thing that I didn't want. I walked to 4 hotels before I found one that had a room available, and even then I had to pay 3 or 4 times more than I usually would. I went off the place and decided to plan my trip to Kota Kinabalu the next day.

Much planned for KK, my last stop in Malaysia, so I am looking forward to settling somewhere for a good week or so after the last 4 days of traveling.

---