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Published: October 25th 2009
Marvellous Miri
Miri is located in Sarawak (next to Brunei) in Borneo, and faces the Sth China Sea.Prologue
With a couple of days to kill between Gold Coast & London (the el cheapo flight schedules didn’t work our way) we headed to Miri (in Sarawak, Borneo). When booking, we’d not a clue about the place. Later, we read up and came to the conclusion it was merely an ’industrial’ town servicing the oil industry. How wrong we were.
As always, if you want to 'see' more detail in an accompanying picture,
click it to enlarge.
The Journey
We left GC early and had a 4 hour layover @ KL before connecting to the Miri flight. We hopped onto the LCCT - KLIA shuttle and had a wander around KLIA, also enjoying aircon, a few beers and a meal. Eventually, after a longish day, we arrived into a pitch black Miri. Our Guest House owner came and collected us, and after a cuppa and a chat we were soon in bed.
The 1st day
The next day opened into a lovely day - tropically balmy, with a gentle breeze. We enjoyed breakfast , and as we’d pre-arranged motor scooter hire, we prepared for an ‘escapade’. We quickly learnt
Adventure Wheels
With wheels, let the adventure begin! that there were no maps - so we to rely on a mud map on back of the GH brochure. This sums up the laid back atmosphere of the Miri region. As per Malaysia generally, the roads were good and traffic minimal.
We’d read about Lambir Hills National park and so headed in that direction. The GH owner suggested we take the bike to the local bus stop, leave the bike, and use the bus: we didn’t take his advice - one doesn’t hire a bike for a day to ride a bus. With some trepidation as to direction (we’d arrived at night so didn’t even have those ’bearings’), we eventually got onto the right road and happily scootered the 30km’s to the NP. As we entered the park, Judy started chuckling: some ’works’ were being undertaken and the ‘notice’ sign summed up our very early experience of Miri (as per photo below).
The NP was delightful. The park trails were well fashioned to the major attraction - a waterfall and swimming hole. And, the quality of the jungle forest quite good. To proceed to the ‘next’ part of the park, we were faced with the most amazingly
Jungle vegetation
Creekside vegetation. steep set of concrete stairs with extremely steep stair treads (we found the treads steep and the Asians are small!!!). Once we’d clambered up the 150+ treads, and stopped to recover our breath, we found ourselves amongst a really diverse rainforest. Given the size of some buttressed trees, they had to be soooo old. We wandered ahead, enjoying the sounds of the forest, amazing ourselves at the size of the insects (there was one type of ant that was all of 40mm), and delighting at the beautiful aroma’s of the several trees in blossom (so, so sweet and aromatic).
Near our destination - another waterfall - the topography became rugged (reminding us of our time ziplining in Laos). At the waterfall, we relaxed and ’vibed’ into the dense rainforest. Soooooo nice! What we really liked was once we’d huffed and puffed up the steep stairs, we appeared to be the only humans in the area. We liked that.
After departing the park, we headed for Miri town. Along the way, B decided on a shortcut. While the landscape and scenery was interesting - challenging even (the abuse of the environment by locals appears to know no bounds) -
Lambir Hills NP Waterfall
One of the several waterfalls. the main hassle was that the road deteriorated into a bush track. At one point, with gravel like marbles, we came unstuck. Fortunately, we weren’t going fast and aside from a graze or 2, and some torn clothing, only our ego’s suffered the effect (we thought we were doing brilliantly)!!!
What a great town is Miri. The streets are wide, well vegetated, clean, and without logjam traffic. We learnt that aside from an oil town (Shell), there are many pre-Merdaka Chinese (before independence some 50 yrs ago) and they have fashioned a delightful town. Sadly, they are also spearheading the widespread logging of the native forests. Their palatial mansions along the foreshore are testament to the value (and scale) of forestry. On this issue, our eyebrows raised as we saw the tourism staff wearing Forestry Dep’t uniforms!!!
After refuelling and sightseeing, we decided to find a foreshore café for a beer to watch the sunset. After a half dozen, and a great meal, it was time to head ’bush’ to the guesthouse (15 km from town). Without a map, and past the urban streetlights, we missed the unlit turnoff. Fortunately, we did a U-ey, and found our way
Miri IS relaxed!!!
Miri folk may say life is hectic, but from where we come from.... home.
2nd Day
Next day saw us head to Niah National Park. This is highlighted in the tourist literature as a series of caves in a rainforest. We found it a quite different experience to the Lambir Hills NP. Where Lambir Hills was elevated (300m in sandstane country), Niah is a limestone outcrop in a lowland rainforest. In fact to get from the carpark / entry, we had to cross a quite wide Niah River. Unlike Lambir, the ’walking’ in Niah is entirely on boardwalks (very civilised). Even so, with the dense rainforest, the walking was extremely slippery.
We learnt that until the late 1950’s, the cave complex housed a local Dyak tribe that both lived in the caves, and earned an income (and food) from harvesting swallow nests. They exchanged the nests with ‘visiting’ Dyaks for grain, etc. Archeologists have had a great time unearthing artifacts - to us fascinating history. Once entering the cave complex, it was torchlight all the way. The bat guano smelt really bad, so we liked departing more than entering.
On the way out of the park, we met some others staying at the GH, and they'd bought a Durian
Entry to Niah NP
Nearly everywhere, access is via boardwalks. from some Dyaks. They asked if we'd like some. We tried some... We think it may have been a little green as it didn't smell (and we'd been told ripe Durian smells awful), and wasn't sweet at all. If this is the 'king of fruit', we remembered the great mango we had a few days before in Oz, and wondered what all the fuss is about. Mmmm!!
Back to Miri, and we spent more time in this great little town (apparently 250,000 - but a major centre for the region). We had a curried chicken Dyak style - with dried fish, chilli, etc., an eggplant dish that was deep fried and rolled in shredded pork (wonderful) and stir fried fern shoots (all washed down with beer). Absolutely great way to finish a mini holiday.
We were ’impressed’ as we left Miri (by air) with the dominant language on the plane not Bahasa Malay, but Chinese!!!
We landed back in KL, and had 3 hours before getting back onto a flight for a 14 hour trip to
Old Blighty. But, that's a story for another time..,.
Cheers
- - - -
😊
ps Looking out the Great Cave
You may be able to distinguish the bamboo poles used to gather birds nests. If you are interested in our journey to the 'old blighty', you can move to this by scrolling back to the top and 'clicking' on NEXT.
Alternatively, link to ...
http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/blog-450770.html 😊
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