The sultans birthday party, red light bulbs, a few snakes and a whole lot of bugs!

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Hello from Brunei! This is in fact our second visit in 2 weeks but as the Sultan is coming out to play tomorrow as its his birthday and we were so close we figured it would be a shame to miss the celebrations. So we’ve bought him a cake and are heading out into the crowds tomorrow to see if he will blow out the candles! I like Brunei. Yes it may not be the craziest place I have ever been, but there is something about the city centre I quite like. It has some amazingly beautiful mosques, some great sunsets, the drivers stop and let you cross the road just because they can, the people are lovely and it has ginger beer, waffles, beans on toast and masala dosas all in one street (anything that is not chicken and rice is exciting!!!). Sadly there is no alcohol, you can’t hold anyones hand in public and you have to wear a massive dressing gown and “button it all the way up” to head into a mosque but for a few days visit I like it.
Its maybe a bit richer in parts than Malaysia but sadly no, if you have images of gold plated houses and streets like I did its not really like that. We spent a few days here the first time, before we got yet another Malaysian stamp in our passports and headed into Sarawak. Here we kind of got stuck in the border town of Miri. This is not too bad for a few days as there are some impressive national parks around it which you can visit on day trips but after these you really start scratching your head for things to do. Even the city tour you can go on lists “shopping malls” (yes plural!) as one of the few essential sites they will take you too on the 4 hour tour!! To be fair Miri does have a lot of these along with Reflexology clinics. Is there a surfeit of stressed people in Miri desperately needing foot treatment? Well maybe (spend long enough there and you will get stressed) but by the presence of all the red lights illuminating their dodgy looking entrances, there is either a shortage of natural light bulbs in Miri or the towns main business does not come from Shopping Malls!!! 
So as you can imagine we tried to escape the town as much as possible whilst we waited for a cheap flight to the interior of Borneo. Our expeditions took us to Niah Caves (possibly the largest cave I have ever seen- its scale is truly breathtaking and interestingly they still collect birds nests to sell to the crazy Chinese for soup!), the Lambir national park to swim in jungle waterfalls (and then get stuck in a tropical thunderstorm within the forest), the local crocodile farm (where we got marooned and spent 3 hours hitchhiking back) and Miri swimming pool. Yes, this is how sad things had got but on our last day in Miri we discovered to our delight an Olympic sized outdoor swimming pool, immaculately clean and completely empty!! For 25p entry we therefore spent 3 hours slowly turning into prunes in our very own private Olympic pool – we had not a soul in sight!
Eventually the day arrived for our flight and we finally got to leave Miri behind and skipped onto the small plane that flew us half an hour in land to Mulu. Our guide book reported that the flight there was spectacular but it was 5 years out of date and sadly as we headed away from the coast all we saw nearly all the way to Mulu was grid after grid system of palm plantations stretching to the horizon. A trip to the Amazon taught me the rainforest isn’t there any longer – I have no idea why I thought Borneo would be any different!
So slightly depressed by this discovery we arrived at Mulu national park. Yes its organised and touristy in parts but it also houses the largest cave opening in the world and the largest cave chamber. Sadly the Sarawak chamber is a 10 hour adventure caving expedition so a little beyond me and at 100m high and pitch black I’m not sure I would really get the scale of it anyway. So instead we did the Intermediate option which is a much smaller cave known to be home to several hundred bats and the snakes that eat them.
Because the bats obviously come out at night, this is the best time to see them meaning 7pm one night found us headtorches on heading into this blackened hole. First we had to scramble up some rocks, then squeeze through some tiny holes before we came out into this large chamber. It was just like a scene from Indiana Jones – there were bats (and a few snakes) everywhere. Luke had one fly into his head and me well i just stood in the cloud of wings (for someone that doesn’t like butterflies flapping I think I did ok!) it was amazing. We stood for a while just watching them all beforepassing deeper and deeper via some interesting 85 degree rock faces which you had to haul yourself up or down towards the final chamber. Here we found giant spiders and a lot of bat poo! I loved it.
Inspired by this expedition the next day we headed off on the lot more touristy tour of Deer cave, which is home to over 2 million bats of 15 different varieties and the largest cave opening in the world. It truly is amazing, I have included a picture but its difficult to convey the scale – it is awe inspiring. Making our way further and further into the cave we finally ended up at a view point built so you can see the famous garden of eden (an unusual area of flauna and florna caused by the collapsed roof of the cave). Here our guide stopped to show us a naked bat hiding on railings and i stopped for a look. Leaning on the handrail for a rest I was suddenly horrified as he then went onto point out the hundreds of giant horrible bugs covering the handrails. I stood up but it was too late. I was covered and spent the next few minutes with Luke flicking them all off me.
From here we wandered back and into another impressive cave before joining everyone else waiting the exit of the 2million bats (they all come out in snake like formations every evening) It was while we were waiting for these about 1 hour later that I suddenly became aware of something tickling my back. I itched it but it came back. The itch turned into something crawling and as it headed up my neck it was all i could do to keep still to let Luke flick it off. Well one tickle led to another and the tourists waiting for a bats that night got an extra show in the form of me stripping! I got caught in my undies by more than one guide but I didn’t care I just wanted them all gone. In the end I gained 3 rather persistant extra friends that evening (where they had been hiding I don’t know!) and spent the rest of the night jumping every time I felt an itch.
Luckily they are harmless though (if not very disgusting – think cockroach crossed with woodlouse) so apart from pretty much showing everyone everything I was no worse off. My only hope is that we have bought no extra friends with us (we had a room crawling with cockroaches!) as it was a rather bug filled week.
After Brunei we’re heading back into Sarawak and aiming for Kuching before heading back up into Sabah and I’m thinking of aiming to Bali as Luke is going home. Currently I have no flight though so we will see - things can always change (maybe I will stay with the sultan!)
I’ll look you all up from the south. Take care
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Photos

deer cave
hopefully you can see the people - its huge!