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Published: September 6th 2008
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Bako sunset
Sunset in Bako National park "Not more flying".. i'm sure the majority of you can hear Katie saying that as we are trying to decide how to get to Sarawak from Sabah. We had 3 options, Boat, Bus or Plane.
My Argument: The boat + bus take near 8 - 10 hours from where we were situated (Back in Kota Kinabalu). A plane took 30 minutes.. 2:30 at worst with check ins. ( I will admit at this point i was a little cranky.. we had just spend 10 hours on a bus..)
Katie's argument: She doesn't like flying.
So we flew to miri, a few valium's later for katie and me feeling better not having to catch a big long bus.. 😞
We kinda did a fly drive tour of Sarawak not having much time to pass through. We spent 2 nights in Miri where we went to the Lambir hills national park. This was a really pretty park to say the least, unfortunately we only managed to get a few hours there to explore. Though we still managed to time it (we should know this by now..) with the midday rains. Though i have to be honest it wasn't to bad.
Pitcher plant
Wild insect eating plants! Alot of the rain got caught in the tree's and we did a few trails to some small waterfalls. I have to admit they weren't to spectacular but i have developed abit of a liking to just trekking through rainforests. Yes, you end up drenched in either your own sweat or if your luckier than most - the rain. But you cannot compare the noises and sounds that happen around you to anything that you hear in those forests.
From Miri we went pretty much straight down the coast to Sibu, where we only spent 2 nights so that we could head a little inland to Kapit. Originally we were going to travel from Miri down through sarawak along the rivers by boat. But the cost of it turned out to be to expensive.. or rather more than we were willing to pay at least. On the way to kapit was, well, i guess the only way i can describe it was "thinned out" rainforest. There were a few logging camps along the way and alot of the boats that we passed going to and from kapit were heavily laden with wood.
Next stop, Kuching! Sarawak's capital city.
This city,
Proboscis Monkey's
Male, female and young proboscis monkey's. Apparently there is only 1000 left in the wild. in all honesty felt like it didn't belong in Sarawak. It had a totally different feel to it, and for the first time really since we hit Malaysia we found "shops". Now, by shops i mean tourists shops. We have seen barely any of these for nearly 5 weeks and suddenly the streets were rammed with them again. Not that this was a bad a thing, some of the souvenirs were pretty funky.
After a few day's just mooching around kuching we went to the Bako National Park. This has to be, by far the best national park we have been to yet (i say yet as we still have taman negara to do.. high hopes).
When we were trying to arrange staying at bako we ended up (by chance) trying to book at the same time as a random english couple so we managed to save a lil bit of money by sharing a room with them. The park itself was really nice, as i said earlier. Wildlife here is in abundance. As you arrive and walk up the beach to the accomodation - little more than glorified shacks really, you are greated by very odd looking pig.. type..
Crazy old man!
Crazy guy who showed us around a temple in Georgetown (Penang) things and macaques. Now.. there are sign's all over about the macaques warning you how cheeky they can be. We (as most people i think) found that out fairly quickly. Check in wasn't until 2 so we thought we'd sit down before going on a short walk. Well, sat we were with cookies (just opened) when they used a diversion tactic on us. It's the only way it can be described and we fell for it hook line and sinker. The big old ugly male was taunting the staff and distracting them whilst one of the smaller females crept along under neath the tables. I must say the speed that that thing jumped up grabbed the cookies and ran off was impressive to say the least. (i am glad to say here the staff didn't even notice the sly one creeping up from behind) We managed to get them back.. but only half the packet, i wish i had a camera because the sight of this macaque with 2 handfuls of cookies and about 3 in it's mouth was fantastic.
The park itself is beautiful. The headquarters is surrounded by thick "primary" rainforest", but as you walk up and ascend you get into what is almost an African bushland. Thin low lying tree's and bramble on hard bedrock. It must be a stream of some sort during the wet season but the views from there are amazing. The park itself is the oldest one in Sarawak at, and it shows. The paths/trails are far more overgrown than any other park we have visited and the wildlife is generally easier to find, which i would presume means there is more there. I could be wrong though.
Apart from the day time trails we also went on a night walk, though i have to say personally we didn't see anything much apart from tree frogs and a tiny male tarantula. It is a great spot though to see wild Proboscis monkey's. They are in abundance in the park around the mangroves (dawn + dusk), which fortunately is about 5 minutes walk from the accomodation! So we spent a good while there watching them from the shelters.
Back to Kuching to spend the last few days in a small place called the Seahare. It was effectively an apartment where we were left to roam free. The owners Wesley and his wife were really nice people and only made the odd appearance in the evening to show any new arrivals around. I have to say we had a bit of a break from traveling at this point. We found a local supermarket, spent about 100ringgit on food and just spent 2 days sat on the couch watching films (this place had about 2000 films to choose from..) It was a needed break if you ask me, this traveling lark is tiring! I also managed to satisfy my mad cheese craving, i'm not sure i expect you guys at home back to understand but i must have been lacking calcium or something because ever since we started i haven't been able to get decent cheese! finally did, all sorted now. No more cravings.. except apple crumble..hmm you'd be amazed how many conversations we have with random travelers about food!! It just makes you hungrier than you previously were which is a tad annoying but never mind 'ey!
I think i'm going to leave it here, it's a pretty big mission of a read already. It's not quite up to date but it's the end of Borneo sadly. It's been a great place to visit and i'm really glad we managed to get out here. We are currently in Georgetown (penang) and are about to head out to the perhentian islands but i'll say more in the next blog 😊
All the best
Pete + Kate
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