Advertisement
[youtube=q3U1W-S-j-s][youtube=ZaXXFN59wYk][youtube=vYCbCCLOqAU][youtube=DkHiTo67B_Q]
Panorama
This blogs Panorama...in about 10 tries I didn't manage to upload it as a Panorama so its just a "normal pic"We were already landing at Kuching airport and we just made ourselves comfortable. We hadn't booked anything in advance and we had to tell the taxi driver where to take us, so I was, as always, impulsive and said the name of the first hostel that came to my mind, after browsing the web that morning, that was
Lodge 121.
The taxi dropped us of at what so obviously was not the water front where we thought the hostel will be, but as we entered the hostel, there was no reason to complain. The hostel was amazing, clean and cosy and would beat the crap out of loads of European hostels. The rooms were too expensive for us, being on a budget, so we took the "dorms", which ended up to be a nice 3 bed room that we had all to ourselves. And of course in about an hour our stuff were all over the room. Oh, we also managed to contact our mums - thanks to google chat so that they would be reassured that we are still alive and kicking. We had enough energy to go out and grab something to eat and went to bed
quite quickly.
The next day we were still running on low batteries, so we decided we will take the day off. We pretty much didn't do anything. We just went strolling around the Cat city, Kuching, and ate some food...you can see what i mean. Oh, but we did do something important: we both bought a pair of sunglasses! Our first ones ever. We spent a fortune, of course, 40RM for 2 pairs, which is about £8 😊. We now both look hip and trendy, although Jan's new image is so much cooler than mine, obviously.
Going back to the hostel, and trying to plan what we want to do in Borneo, we realised that one needs to PLAN heavily if coming to Borneo. There is so much you can do, and for us, so little time, that we got into a bit of a frenzy. We discussed how we need to plan the next few days, and know exactly how much time we want to spend at each destination. We managed to put together about 20 different versions of "to do lists", but as always, things turned out slightly different.
For the next day we planned
to go to the Semenggoh natural park and see the orangutans. We were good and we got up at 6am, and arrived to the bus station around 7.30 only to realise we missed the darn bus. So, as the time recommended to see them was between 9-10 in the morning and 3-4 in the afternoon (when they fed the orangutans), we turned around and went back to the Lodge. Jan decided he needed to make up for the lack of his beauty sleep and I went walking around town. We made sure we were on time for the afternoon bus! The national park was set up as a shelter for orphaned and abused orangutans, who found refuge in the park. A lot of the orangutans are then released back into their natural environment. The reason that the park organizes feeding of orangutans twice a day, is because there is not enough food resources in the park for all the orangutans. We were lucky, as we saw 4 orangutans that afternoon. It was amazing watching them climbing and jumping from tree top to tree top (see videos), how they played with eachother...Especially when you consider that 98% of our genetic material
is completely identical to humans. We sat there for an hour and were completely taken with them. I would definetely recommend visiting the park to anyone coming to Borneo. There are four parks like this in the world, two in Borneo. From what we hear this one is much less touristy, which I can believe. The admission is less than 1£ and there is no gift shops etc...
We managed to get a lift back to town from a local guy, luckily enough, as it started raining just a few minutes after we sat in a car.
We were hungry and I decided I can't do another night of Chinese food, we ended up going to India street only to find it completely dead and deserted as all the shops close really early. I decided there and then that there is no other explanation but that the Indians are just lazy.😊 China street namely was still lively and had loads of food courts opened. We ended up at a restaurant called Little Lebanon, where we both ordered Malay food. Ah, don't ask.
When we got back to the hostel, there was a newcomer that they put in
our room. I decided I will not like him, as it forced us to clear our stuff around the room a bit 😊. But you can't not like Kieran, a cool guy from Ireland, that actually knew where Slovenia is, and visited the country, not once, but twice. We started chatting and he was explaining how he is panicking as he had so little time in Borneo and so much to do...sounds familiar. As we were thinking of going to a national park, Bako,the next day, we decided to go together and to just go for a day trip (against all the versions of our plans). So another early morning, taking a local bus, and a boat to get to the park. But it was quite cool. We did one of the longer treks through the jungle, when we realised, it is good we only came for a day, as it was our fifth time visiting the jungle in a month, and we are now officially jungled out. The next treck we did, was a treck where we were supposed to see lots of
proboscis monkeys (the Dutch People, as the locals call them), but we chatted all the time and
no one actually paid attention to where we were going until the jungle opened up and we landed on a deserted beach. Wow.
Well, Jan did see an animal in the end - a monitor lizard eating a fish half its size - see the pics and videos, I found it slightly disgusting, whereas the boys were all happy and jumping up and down, that's how cool it was 😊.
Since arriving to Kuching we were asking about the Rafflesia flower (the world's biggest flower), as it only blooms once a year at unspecific times, for 5 days, we wanted to know if we came at a right time to see it. Otherwise there is no point in taking a two hour bus journey to get there. After trying to get in touch with the park but never did, we found out at the local hostel we came at a right time, and we decided to go and see it - which meant, yet another local bus and then a taxi for the last 3 km to the National Park (where we thought 10RMs is too much for a taxi and Jan managed to get us the ride
for 8RMs - which is £1,6 instead of £2 - yup, watch us getting cheaper and cheaper). It was a nice trip, we saw the flower (67 cm in diameter), which was a sight to see, and Jan had a bit of a bath at one of the smaller waterfalls.
We splurged for dinner that night - taking a tip from one of the guys at our hostel, we went to eat at the Top spot - you guessed it, another local foodcourt, but this time, it was all about sea food. As there was no menus, we had no idea how to order. A nice lady took Jan and Kieran around and helped them with the order. There were loads of huge fish swimming in the tanks, for you to choose from. But as the boys didn't have the heart, they just asked the lady to pick a fish for them. Jan then said it might be a little hypocritical, as he was eating the fish (he did name it Jack), but he just couldn't make himself to point a finger at what fish looks the most yummy.
We decided we were done with the sights around
Kuching, so we planned to leave on Friday - taking the night bus from Kuching to Miri (supposedly leaving at 21 and arriving at Miri at 10 am on Saturday). So we packed our bags, and decided to minimize our activities for the day - our first goal was to see what is on at the cinema, as it was really cheap, and a good way to waste some time. We had been going to that for the last three days as we were tempted to see a movie, and we finally decided we want to see Thor. Unfortunately the schedule got changed on that day and there was nothing on that we would like to see, so we turned around to leave and bumped into Kay and Chris
again, at a cinema of all places. 😊 We went to have a drink and we realised we were all leaving for Miri - only they were flying.
We agreed to catch up in Miri and Jan and I went on, what ended up to be, another shopping spree. Jan got a new pair of shorts, and I got a T-shirt, that Jan chose for me. Just to say, it's
not black.
By the way, apparently Jan has an issue with small plastic boxes. He managed to lose both our boxes for soap in less than a month. His idea was, that we could shop around for 2 new ones, his and hers. I explained it wouldn't make a difference as he would only lose his again, then ask to use mine, and lose that one as well. So I now have to carry the wet bar of soap in my back pack, with soap dripping on all my clothes. Oh, and to top that he managed to break our toothbrush box today - saying it is not his fault that it was placed on a table full of our stuff. Arrrrrgh - well at least the rubber hair bands come in handy, holding the box together.
Arriving at the bus station at around 7.45 pm, we were in for a surprise: we expected only a few people to be there, boy were we wrong - it was packed. We hardly managed to get our tickets, and we were told, we will need to change the bus in between as the direct bus to Miri was totally sold
out. We thought we were being clever, taking the night bus - saving money, as it was cheaper than flying, and saving money, as we didn't have to pay for another night at the hostel. After 16 hours of what I would mildly call a "bumpy" ride, we both agreed that we would probably kick someone's ass, if Chris and Kay beat us to the hostel. They didn't, pha! Oh, well, they did come 30 minutes after we already checked in.
Miri I will now take over from Wilhelmina Shakespeare. First of all I need to add a bit about the bus ride to Miri. As Polona said it lasted around 15 hours (from 9pm - 12pm the next day), but calling it "bumpy" is such an understatement. It was a 830 km roller-coaster ride. The road was so bumpy we were getting thrown out of our seats every couple of minutes. Once we finally managed to fall asleep we were being woken up all the time, as we almost fell off our seats. After one of the stops the bus got quite empty, so I laid down across two seats and at one point I honestly think
I flew about 40 cm up from my seats before landing back on them. Ouch! At the end of it all it was worth it. Just another experience, we got to Miri, we saw a few traditional longhouses along the road and we saved a bit of money taking the bus, not flying.
Before continuing I need to give you my take on the
"soap box scandal". Yes, it is true, I keep forgetting them in the bathroom after taking a shower, but come on, who would steal a soap box? A 1£ soap box? I have hired the best detectives Malaysia can offer to figure this out, but I suspect Polona is stealing them, just so that she can then tell me off. Pretty sure that is it.
Right, back to Miri. After a month of travelling we slowed down the tempo a bit and figured out we don't have to do everything and not all at once. So we decided just to relax at the hostel on our first day. But that quickly changed as we learned that the weekend market is on, and that Saturday (the day we arrived) was the last day it
was open. So we picked ourselves up and went to the market, joined by Chris and Kay.
The market is supposed to be huge. Well, it wasn't. It was all right as most of the stalls were selling food. We ended up walking around and getting a bbq fish, which was really good. They do pack the food in two plastic shopping bags, but you don't get any cutlery or even a napkin. There were no tables to seat down at, so all four of us sat on the floor, eating our food with our hands, straight out of the plastic bags. Oh, we rounded it all up with the pancakes filled with crushed peanuts. yummy!
We bought a bottle of Gin (at least that is what the label said), shared it between the four of us and spent the evening on the hostel terrace. I got to bed at around 1am, just to be woken up an by an alarm an hour and a half later. It was Championship league final time! A big majority of Malaysians support Man U, as the PL is the most popular football competition in the country! I am happy to say,
Top Spot
If you are ever in Kuching, try it out I enjoyed seeing them lose and being wiped by Barcelona. Even if I hate Barca almost as much. But Man U have that c@@t Evra that I just can't stand. Somebody should staple his mouth together! It was funny watching the game with the locals (while Polona slept!), it's impossible to describe the way they cheer. Its a really high pitched "iiiiiiii", every time that something happens. It doesn't sound like cheering of football fans, more like a bunch of teenage girls seeing their favorite movie star. While on the topic of football: Richard, maybe Lpool have one the most trophies in England, but Man U still won more titles! But I do know you will find any reason to claim Lpool are better. Here is one about Arsenal: no other English team finished the league without a defeat! 😉
On our second day we decided to rest! The only thing we had to do is to go to the bus stop and book our tickets to Brunei. We failed! We did get to the station, but just couldn't buy tickets. You could only buy them on the bus...more about the ride to Brunei in our next blog! It
was quite an experience.
On our last day in Miri we visited the
Niah national park. A park, about 100 km from Miri, is famous for its vast caves swarming with bats and swiftlets birds. Both of these animals have an important contribution to the local economy and it has been like this for years. Bats provide the city with guano (bat shit) which is use for fertilizer, while swiftets nets are used to make soup, which is a delicacy in China. A kilo of nest can cost up to
2.000 USD!
Niah caves also have an important historical value as 40.000 years old human remains were found in the cave in 1957. Later on, it was proved that
homo sapiens has been living around this area ever since.
To get to the caves you first pass the trader's cave (which is not really a cave, just a room under a very big rock) where guano and nests have been sold in the past. A few minutes later you reach the great cave, which is impressive. The entrance into the cave is over 60m tall and 250m wide, making it one of the world's largest. In the cave you can
see loads of wooden poles hanging from the ceiling of the cave. This are used by nest collectors to climb all the way up to the ceiling to collect the nests. We haven't seen anybody climbing up and I am happy we didn't as it just looks crazy! It's extremely dangerous and people die every year doing it. I can see why they do it at the price offered for this nests, but is it really worth risking your life for? I know people back home working on extreme heights (painting buildings etc) and getting good money for it. But they use all the safety precautions they can. People here just climb up wooden poles!
We continued our way through the caves where you need to use your own flash light, as it's completely dark. On one of the signs it said not to litter as the "cave spirits" are watching. I found this as a great opportunity to tease Polona (who always falls for things like this). So while walking through the dark caves I was making weird noises and whispering things like "cave spirits", Gollum's ""precious". Needless to say I found it very funny, Polona not so
Dinner
Can I get a fork please? NO much 😊 .
We got to the Painted caves where "death ships" were discovered years ago. You can no longer see them, but you can still see the cave paintings.
We walked back to the park entrance and headed back to Miri (this time we rented a mini van for the day) where we grabbed some dinner and then packed our things for a very early start (5:40 AM) to Brunei!
More, next time!
Ohh by the way: our dear friends, feel free to email us sometimes. We do miss you a bit. Just a bit!
+++More pictures+++
Advertisement
Tot: 0.182s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 19; qc: 65; dbt: 0.0742s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1.3mb
Polona
non-member comment
Super..
je tole brat... Oba pišeta res doživeto in z zanimanjem prebiram. Hkrati pa zasipata s polno koristnimi informacijami, ki nama bodo prišle prav že čez teden dni.. Komaj čakam nadaljevanje.. :D Pozdrave.. POlona