Blogs from Sarawak, Malaysia, Asia - page 4

The boys left this morning to start their climb of Mount Kinabalu. I am home alone to chill out and do my own thing. We arrived in KK yesterday evening after a fraught hour trying to get tickets for the second leg of our ferry journey. After only just having enough Brunei cash to buy ferry tickets to Labuan, we went without breakfast. With Eid being celebrated at the end of Ramadan, the money changers weren't in business and we were expecting credit cards to be acceptable to pay for the tickets. Had a wave at Bruce's oil rig on the way past (our friend who is a commercial diver), we arrived in Labuan for the second hop to KK. Alan queued up for tickets for the last ferry of the day - big signs FULL! ... read more

Serian & Iban Village Sarawak 31 March & 1 April 2016 After one night’s stay in Kuching, we all hopped into 2 vans to travel to a homestay in an Iban Village to learn of traditional ways as well as how things have changed since this head-hunting tribe have been influenced by the 21st century. We experienced the sealed but very bumpy roads of Sarawak. On the way we stopped at Serian to buy food for the village we were visiting. The markets were really interesting with a big variety of different fruit and veg. On my Borneo list included tasting Snake Fruit which we had never tried. I found some in this market along with star fruit (which is slightly like five-corner fruit). The snake fruit skin is scaly, just like snake skin. It has ... read more

Mulu National Park & Caves 28 – 29 March 2016 It was lovely to have a sleep in until 7.45am, have a leisurely breakfast before departing for KK Airport. We were very excited about the next section of our tour as we were off to the Mulu National Park to see the second largest cave in the world. This is Deer cave, 1.2km long and the biggest cavity is 120m high. After a 50 minute flight to Miri to get stamped out of Sabah and stamped into Sarawak, we got back in the plane for a 10 minute flight to Mulu. We were met by our local guide Nelson, who worked for the Mulu National Park. Our group was divided between 4 vehicles of varying ages, to drive us 5 minutes to the office of the ... read more

After a fantastic time stumbling through the jungle it was now time to head (back) to Kuching, our final stop in Borneo...we had originally set aside almost five full days here, with the intention of doing two or three day trips but we were now down to just four with having lost a day the previous week... No matter, arrived and made our way to our lodgings; a really cool boutique hotel near the waterfront called Batik...great place, rooms were good, location was great but it was the folks that worked there that really made the difference...very welcoming, would take the time to help with any activities we wanted to set up, but most of all we enjoyed sitting and chatting with them at their funky little bar over a cold beer... Orangutans and Bako National ... read more

After one failed attempt to get to Gunung Mulu National Park and an unplanned evening in Kuching (due to the Haze mentioned in a previous post the pilot couldn't see the runway so we were diverted to Kuching), the weather decided to cooperate and we safely touched down in Mulu, the beginning of our jungle adventure in Borneo... This is one of the stops I couldn't wait to get to, and with a full slate of activities planned over the next 3-4 days it was going to be busy...checked into our hotel, and as the accommodations in the park itself were all booked we decided to rough it at the five star Marriott resort, sweet! Not a big selection of accommodation here, there are some dorm style hostels just outside the park entrance but we figured ... read more