Itinerary

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Off tonight! All packed and ready to go.

Our first leg is to Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia. Our flight WAS scheduled to leave Stansted 11:20 tonight, due KL 8:30 tomorrow night local time. Got a text message from Air Asia last week: for 'operational reasons', the flight will now leave Stansted 4 am tomorrow! Now due in KL 1a.m Friday! Guess what - last train from the airport to the city is 1 a.m.; last bus to the city is 00:30 a.m. And the airport hotel is fully booked.

So, we updated our plans, and booked a flight to Miri, in Sarawak near the Brunei border, for 7:25 am Friday. So depending on our actual arrival time, and immigration, we will have a few hours in the airport.

Got a deal at the 5-star Marriot hotel on the beach, as we felt the last real comfort for a couple of months would not go amiss!

We fly out of Miri on Saturday morning, on a twin-prop Otter plane, flying over the rain forest for half an hour to a nature reserve called Mulu, right in the rain forest. We have booked a 'rainforest room' for 4 nights, and we will be trekking through the forest to a pool and waterfall; visiting the huge bat caves; watching the mass exodus of bats in late afternoon; and going on a night trek through the forest with a local guide. Exciting!!

Then on 27th January, we travel on a hollowed out tree trunk with an outboard motor for a few hours to a village called Long Terewan. There we will (hopefully!) meet up with Tom and Lizzie, his girlfriend. Tom has been out there since August, researching a book, and Lizzie has been with him most of the time. The four of us will then head off to a native village somewhere in the interior, where the Penan tribe live off the rainforest. Tom has made lots of contacts there, so we will be staying in a long house for a couple of nights.

Around 29th, we will all make our way back to Miri, where we will probably stay in a guest house called Minda. Apparently, the grandfather of the owner of Minda was one of the last cannibals in Sarawak, and ate a Japanese man after the war!

Saturday evening, 30th January, we all fly off to Kuala Lumpur, where we land just before midnight. We spend the night in the airport hotel, and have a 7 am flight from KL to Yogjakarta, in Java. About a week in Java, getting the train across Java to Surabaya for a flight back to KL Sunday evening 7th Feb, landing just after midnight. We are booked into the airport hotel again for the night. Then Monday 8th, we will all go off to the city until early afternoon. Then we bid farewell to Tom and Lizzie, as they are flying home from KL. Boo hoo! Baska and I will stay overnight in the city, then back to the airport for our morning flight on Tuesday 9th Feb to Chennai!!

So, that's the Malaysian / Indonesian leg of the trip. Next time, I will give the proposed itinerary in India. In a nutshell, we travel South down the east coast to the Southern tip, then Northward on the West coast through Kerala and Goa, and on 23rd March fly from Mumbai to Heathrow!

That's all for now!

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Comments

[Laura]

Wednesday
I'll have to go onto Google Maps to plot your journey.

[Dennis]

The Benefits of Slimming
Good job you've lost a few pounds Mike -- you won't be nearly as inviting! Bon voyage!

[Stef]

Rubbish
this blog is rubbish! Where are the updates?!!