Borneo – Part 2, Brunei & Sarawak

Brunei

Brunei is a very small and safe country in Borneo, bordered by Malaysia. It is a dry country and alcohol cannot be purchased, however tourists can bring alcohol in. Ironically many tourists come from the Labuan direction which is duty free. It is also said to be one the richest countries in the world. Apparently Brunei doesn’t have any homeless people as the sultan houses them. It’s actually quite a strange little country and I was keen to go there just for a night and scope it out.

So, the last you heard I was in Labuan, after the adventure on the Lego boat. The following morning myself and Georgina woke up early and boarded a ferry that looked like an aeroplane. Thankfully we didn’t fly, nobody fell off the roof like the Lego boat journey and everything went smoothly. Apart from the man clipping and flicking his toenails behind me. This caused a rage to build inside me and if the ferry hadn’t have stopped when it did I might have taken my own fungal clippings and shoved them down his throat.

Now, I’m not a massive mosque fan but I have to hand it to Brunei – it does have some impressive ones, and they are decorated in real gold. The other main tourist attractions this country has are its water villages. The one we walked around was like a maze, full of houses on stilts in the middle of the water. It was fascinating and between navigating the narrow wooden (and sometimes extremely wobbly) walkways and avoiding the mounds of cat poo it took everything I had not to end up in the water. I was also a bit concerned about the wildlife. Does Brunei have jumping crocodiles? And if so do they jump onto the village walkways and take out whole communities? Or just a couple of cats?  We didn’t see any crocs so it was all good.

 

The best thing about Brunei was the night market. The food was fab, especially the chocolate, Oreo, peanut, condensed milk and cheese pancake. I know, I know, it’s an unfathomable combination but somehow it absolutely worked. Mind blowing actually. It’s a good job nothing happens after dark in Brunei because I was in a sugar induced coma for the rest of the evening. And my heart debated cardiac arrest several times.

One thing we did notice was that people of Brunei just leave their car running. And then abandon them. The amount of running cars we found on the street with no one in them was bizarre. Thinking about it we could have probably nicked one and used it to continue our travels, but we didn’t, obvs. Instead we decided to get the bus. The next step was heading to the south of the Malaysian part of Borneo to the state of Sarawak and a place called Miri. But the bus had a faulty timing belt. So we sat for hours in the blistering heat waiting for it to be fixed. Eventually the conductor waved us over to a different bus.
“You can get on this one”
“Ok. Where’s it going?” I asked, confused.
“Indonesia”
Indonesia?! That is most definitely not Malaysia. It doesn’t even sound the same. And the bus takes two days to get to Indonesia. We want to go to Miri which is two hours away!!! Why on earth would we get on that bus?

We got on the bus.

We occupied the last two seats and figured heading to Indonesia was better than burning to death in the Brunei heat or committing a sugar overdose related suicide. In the end it was ok, the bus actually dropped us off close to Miri so we didn’t actually make it to Indonesia. That was a relief.
I sat next to the window with Georgina next to me. I looked across and lost sight of all six foot of her. Because she was horizontal.
“Why are you lying down?” I asked, “You’ve got your head in the crotch of the woman behind you.”
“My chair is broken!”
So Georgina spent the entire three hours lying down in a woman’s crotch. I found this quite amusing until ten minutes into the journey I realised I had also adopted a recumbent position (I hadn’t noticed the slow motion reclining due to a thoroughly stimulating Sudoku). I obviously had a bit of a slow burner of a chair. Somewhat deceptive. So, the two of use lay like we were in some sort of moving massage parlour on route to Indonesia while everyone around us was noticeably vertical. That was weird.

Sarawak
Miri

The excitement was real when we found the equivalent of a Pound Shop. I was so excited I treated myself to a disgusting belt, just because. I also purchased some more shampoo which I’m pretty sure is hair dye as it is jet black. FYI my hair is blonde. Now I know why it says ‘Black Shine’ on the label. In Miri we also got a Grab (Asian equivalent of Uber) with two guys at our hostel to a ‘really nice’ beach which was thirty kilometres away. Georgina and I were getting a night bus to Kuching and so had a whole day to fill – the beach sounded like a good way to pass some time. It wasn’t a particularly nice beach, which wasn’t helped by the fear of crocs and the fact it started raining. But the main issue transpired when we tried to get home. There were no Grabs in the area, we were at a beach four miles from a main road and thirty kilometres from our hostel. We were stuck. It was hot, drinking water was running low and the options were limited.
So we started walking towards the main road.
We kept walking.
And a bit more.
Then we started hallucinating. I had condensed milk, cheese and Oreo pancakes chasing me.
Just kidding – there were no hallucinations but a sugar related cardiac arrest now seemed like a preferable option.
Eventually, after what seemed like lightyears of trying to hitch a ride a family in a truck stopped so we could hop into the back. They took us to the main road. Great – only another thirty kilometres to go.

And then a lovely Malaysian man pulled over and gave us a ride. And that is how we hitch hiked back to Miri – just in time for a power shower and ready for our seventeen hour bus journey to Kuching…

Kuching

The bus journey wasn’t actually too bad. It was pretty ok if I’m being honest. We only had two small hiccups. The first was when I reclined my chair back (by choice this time) to go to sleep and accidently trapped the woman behind me. Turns out I was so reclined she was wedged into her own seat with me on top of her snoozing away. What is with these reclining bus chairs?

The second happened at about eleven o’clock. We were cruising along in the dark when all of a sudden the bus stopped and reversed back fifty metres. Just started reversing down a main road. As you do. Then the ticket conductor jumped off the bus and reappeared in the middle of the road holding what appeared to be a baseball bat. God only knows where he retrieved this bat from. And that’s when we noticed the python. It was big. And yellow and white, slithering across the road. And then ticket conductor man just started whacking it with his bat. He was really going for it and didn’t stop until the poor python was dead as a doornail. By the time we’d taken in what was happening bat man had picked the snake up and disappeared behind the bus. What the hell had just happened? I was so shocked I brought my seat upright and the woman behind me breathed a sigh of relief. Or maybe she just finally breathed. Then bat man jumped back on the bus and we continued on into the night. I decided I didn’t like this ticket conductor bat man guy.

The first adventure of Kuching was hiking in Bako National Park. This is where I finally learned the art of sweating profusely. I have perspired a lot in my time but this was something else. I would have come out drier if I’d have spent half an hour deep sea diving. But, that’s what you get for hiking in a rainforest. I also saw a Borneo bearded pig. A very interesting creature I must say (see pic below).

Bako had lots of croc signs, lots of warnings about going near the sea and on the beaches. Only venture onto the sand if necessary. Ok, point taken. However, these signs were completely ignored when it was time to leave. The tide was out and to get the boat back we had to prance along the sand and wade into the water. Yes, you heard me -wade into the crocodile infested water. We were formally informed to ignore the formal warning signs. Great. Once again I think I was very close to cardiac arrest as I cautiously dipped my extremely sweaty (and now only semi fungal) toe into the water. And then waded like billy-o to the boat and threw myself in with the agility of a Borneo orangutan (forward roll included). The great news is I came out of Bako National Park with ten toes intact.

The achievement of the full foot of toes caused for a celebratory shower followed by an actual corn dog from the night market and Fast and Furious movie. It was delightful.

The second adventure was climbing Mount Santabong. And climbing it most definitely was. I would be inclined not call this a hike. Anything that involves climbing actual ladders attached to vertical rocks is not hiking. Nor is using ropes to pull yourself up the side of various edges and terrains. This was possibly a more sweaty affair than Bako. A few times I wondered if I’d wandered through a waterfall only to find it was actually sweat pouring from my eyebrows onto my face.

This ‘hike’ was a lot of fun though – hard work but we really enjoyed it. I felt a bit disadvantaged next to Georgina sometimes as her six foot legs vaulted rocks like they were mere pebbles, however that soon dissolved when she nearly rendered herself unconscious on branches that my hobbit form casually meandered underneath.

As mentioned in a previous blog, the problem with having lived in Australia is that everything and anything can and will kill you. Especially in a rainforest. So, it is less than ideal when you have to clamber up roots that look exactly like snakes. I spent over four hours with an elevated heart rate (that for once wasn’t sugar induced) through the fear I’d meet my death by accidentally touching up a snake. It was a worrying time. And then I shook fire ants down my arm in an attempt to dodge an oncoming pretend snake root. I sort of wished bat man from the bus was with us – not so he could murder innocent creatures but just in case an actual python got upset at me accidentally molesting it and decided to eat me whole.
When we finally reached the top we were relieved but also shit scared at the vertical descent and assault course going back down. Especially gripping onto the snakey roots with ridiculously sweaty palms. I sprayed some of my newly acquired Tiger Balm mosquito repellent which also acted as a deep heat on my legs (Lyvette loves the old Tiger Balm so I’m thinking of posting her some) and I was ready for the journey back.  Apart from the Tiger Balm spray I had wiped on my already sweaty eyelids.

After much scrambling and numerous near death experiences we reached the waterfall at the bottom (looked like urine) and threw ourselves into it (me wearing an inside out and very unfashionable sports bra). We got out of the waterfall drier than before we’d ventured in.

And that was another exciting day in Kuching. This day was celebrated by soaking the Grab drivers taxi with our saturated selves, eating three donuts (we simply had not eaten enough sugar in the previous days), watching another Fast and Furious movie and wondering if it was possible for my teeth to rot and fall out from too many Borneo treats.
On a different note though – how does Brian O’Conner simply waltz in and out of the police as and when he wants in the Fast and Furious movies? And Vin Diesel – was he taught to manoeuvre a car by a crew of Indian tuk tuk drivers?

And that was Kuching done and dusted. In fact, that was Borneo done and dusted. I really enjoyed my Borneo experience, loved the wildlife, hikes, rainforest and people. But most of all loved causing my arteries to pack up and die. I’d highly recommend especially if you fancy a break from the usual chaos of Asia.

Kuala Lumpur

From Kuching I flew to Kuala Lumpur where I stayed for two nights. On the first night myself and Georgina hit ladies night which was an entire evening of free drinks. Even the feminist in me didn’t complain. Although I’m pretty sure I was served ladies night laxatives and my toenail fell off. Again. This night ended with me sitting outside my hostel force feeding my Grab driver, Joe, to eat crisps.
“Joe – have some crisps.”
“No thanks, ma’am. I’m not hungry”
“Eat. Them.” The crisp eating wasn’t optional.
“Ok, thank you. I’ve never experienced this before…” said Joe with a mouthful of cheesy puffs.
After that I said my goodbyes and shut the door with my cheesy fingers leaving Joe content with his crisp consumption and fond memories of the best customer he’d ever had. But most definitely not impressed with the cheesy finger smears she’d left across his door handle.

 

Next Stop…

And that’s the Malaysian part of my trip over. Next step – off to India to meet my family. The last time I saw them was a year ago and they willingly accepted the challenge to embrace India as myself and Lyvette have done twice before. With Big Dave (my dad) leading the charge they want to know what all the fuss is about. And soon they will. Although it’s not looking good when the Jackson family India expert and tour guide such as myself has already got the shits and missing toenails before she’s even entered the country…