First week

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Well, the first week, and sorry there have been no reports. For some reason there are no internet cafes in tribal villages in Borneo!

So, a quick catchup.

Arrived in Miri last Friday after about 27 hours, including a 6 hour wait through the night at Kuala Lumpur airport, thanks to Air Asia (who also by the way do the WORST airline food - and his from someone who has flown ANA!).

Spent the first night in the 5 star Marriot - we thought we might as well get the luxury out of the way!

Met up with Tom and Lizzie - great to see Tom after 7 months.

On Saturday, flew to Mulu in a twin prop plane - great view of the raim forest - and the palm oil plantations. Spent a few days in the Mulu national park, which is in the rain forest. Tom and Lizzie flew in to join us on Monday (Lizzie's birthday), and told us they had arranged for us to visit a tribal village further into the interior! So we cut short our stay in Mulu, and on Tuesday morning set off in a long boat (more like a hollowed out tree trunk with an outboard motor!), for a 2 hour trip up river - fantastic! We arrived at a village called Long Terrewan, and the boatman told us we should go straight to the headman's house. It seems that the headman always provides hospitality to unexpected visitors! We were treated so well, immediately offered tea or coffee, and shown our sleeping quarters. We had a look round the village, which is mostly a longhouse and a school (a big, very well appointed school, with 7 teachers and 12 pupils!) We were offered coffee and homemade goodies wherever we went, including delicious banana fritters. Everyone very smiley and very welcoming. Then back to the headman's house for dinner.

On Wednesday we were up early for breakfast, then off in a 4*4 along the logging roads to a very different village called Long Bangan. This is an extremely poor village of the Penan tribe. Until 40 years ago, they were nomadic, and have not come to terms with a static existence. The houses are amazingly basic, just wood with a corrugated iron roof; no electricity, no running water. But such lovely warm people; we were treated like royalty; we all sat on the wooden floor in one of the houses, and gien yet more coffee (and crackers!), and gradually the room filled with more and more villagers! In the end about 2 dozen adults and a dozen children who seemed to find us very strange (I can't think why!).

We spent 2 days there, really looked after well. On Thursday we bought a couple of legs of a wild boar from one of the villagers who had just caught it (unfortunately he immediately spent the money on alcohol, and within an hour was fighting another villager!). We presented the meat to the family we were staying with, and Thursday night we sat down to a feast! And with the wild vegetables and fruit from the forest, it sure was good!

Friday (yesterday), we had been asked to be ready to leave at 4 am, as there might be an express boat at Long Terrewan, and if so someone would come to pick us up. There wasn't an express, so the guy arrived at 6:15!! Hey ho! After a very emotional farewell to half the village who came to see us off, we set off in the 4x4 on the worst logging roads! We drove for 3 hours, (real bum-clenching stuff!) to a village called Long Lama, where we planned to catch a boat all the way downriver (crocodiles included!) back to Miri. But just as we were boarding the boat, our driver rushed up and told us he had organised us another lift, all the way! Pretty sad, as we were looking forward to the boat ride, but we couldn't refuse. So another three and a half hours on just as bad roads, then dropped off at our B&B in the centre of Miri - and a night on a mattress - what bliss!! And that is where I am writing this.

Off tonight with T &L to KL, then an early flight tomorrow to Yogjakarta, in Sumatra (Indonesia). I'll report next week!

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Comments

[Laura]

Good to hear from you.
Thanks for the update - have been wondering how your first week went. Sounds amazing. Laura ps - Can you tell me how come you were on Skype still for several days after leaving the UK?

[Dennis]

Enough of this proxy! I have to get packing my bag!
Mike, you're reminding me too much how I miss Asia! But that's the good bits and the bad bits, which is how it ought to be. Shame you missed your boat ride, but I'm sure there will be other unscheduled experiences to make up for it... I was amused by your mention of crackers... now, I don't want to go on and on about my time being detained at Dr. Mahathir's pleasure in Malaysia, but one thing I remember particularly was the ubiquitousness (and popularity!) of cloned Jacob's Cream Crackers on the inside. Much of what else we got to eat was to say the least suspicious (incinerated small fish, rice with half a ladle of what looked like washing-up water), but the cream crackers looked beyond taint, manna from heaven, you might say. I hope you're enjoying Java, I have great memories of Jogja (spelling varies!) and my stay at the Jogja Village Inn... and of course the incomparable Borobudur... looking forward to your next report...

[Andy Simms]

Youngsters
You may think you were adventurous when you were in that long boat, but I think my mother-in-law tops this. Aged 78, she and her 84 year-old husband have just spent four weeks in the Malaysia area. Here's her latest description of what they did: "We are now back near Kuching in a blissful hotel on the coast. After our minus starred hotels we have been in we are luxuriating! We have travelled 200 miles up the Rejang River to remote places including a stay at a longhouse hotel on the notorious Pelagus Rapids. We were the only guests and it was v. good. We were taken down the rapids in a dugout long boat (they all have incredibly powerful out boards in order to negotiate the rapids. John enjoyed it but I was petrified and thought that I had used up a lifetimes adrenaline but found that I still had some when we went to Niah Cave a few days later." Andy.

[SW19MIKE]

Youngsters
Damn. We have been out-adventured!

[SW19MIKE]

In-laws
But didn't your father-in-law die some years ago?