Miri, Sarawak, Borneo

Upon our arrival in Miri we spent the first day hiring Simon, a local taxi driver for $13 from 9am till 1pm—oh how will we ever adapt to western prices again!! We needed to pick up a package Kristen had sent us—the pickup place is waaaay out of town. Then to play the never ending game of renewing our internet stick—Maxis the local provider which has great internet is not user friendly and most of us have spent many hours in the Maxis shop as some undereducated person tries to unravel the complicated system to get everything working. Security is tight here and for some inexplicable reason you need a passport so if you forget that you are in for another trip!! We checked out the well-stocked big supermarket but alas no yoghurt and no cheddar cheese—we did find UHT sour cream which was a new find—never seen it before but the NZers have grabbed an opportunity to provide it. The following morning we went to the airport for our 1 hour flight to Mulu National Park to visit the largest caves in the world. We arrived in the pouring rain—after all it is in the tropical rain forest but true to rumour it cleared within an hour and we were able to look around this lovely park. The ranger station is a well maintained facility which has great accommodation, restaurant and offers a wide range of tours. You need a guide for most as they are able to employ local young people and provide employment. We were too late to join a formal group that day but took an evening walk and were amazed at the loud noises of the jungle. There were various insects humming and many species of frogs croaking—quite a crescendo. The following morning we were taken up the river in a long canoe which would seat up to 8 people with a 15hp engine. The driver was at the rear and his helper at the front ready to fend off any trees in the water and push away from the banks as we were swept along in the current. There had been significant rain so the water was high. We stopped at a local village where the villagers displayed their handicrafts. These people were often nomadic or semi nomadic and did not develop a high level of inventive art. They had traded for many years for Venetian beads—in exchange for heads????? One of the most intriguing and lovely traditional beaded items was a baby back pack which was a half cylinder which they strapped on their back to carry the baby. Of course the blowgun was the one thing we all wanted to see and cleverly they had a target which you could shoot at for a small fee. It was amazingly easy to be accurate as the darts are very fine and in bygone days would have been poisoned from the poison tree. I would imagine that the animals or people who were the traditional targets would not have been as accommodating. Several old ladies played a traditional flute by blowing out of their noses—strange sight—they had the holes in their ears which had been a tradition in past times. Older men were heavily tattooed with very significant designs. The importance of the deed would dictate where on the body the tattoo would be with the throat being the highest honour for a warrior. We arrived at the two caves we were to visit in the morning. They were huge with stalactites and stalagmites subtly lit. One of the caves even has a river running through it. The overwhelming smell was from the bats and their guano and we were careful not to step off the well maintained paths. Our next trip was the treetop canopy walk where they have erected a 450m set of bridges and ladders up into the canopy which you traverse and get a different perspective of the jungle. We had an excellent guide who not only spotted many spiders, bugs and huge stick insects—how do you spot them on so many sticks!!! –but a viper which is highly venomous—luckily he did not appear to worry about us. Two more caves in the afternoon took us to the largest cave in the world with an image of Abraham Lincoln as you look back at the opening. The other cave which we explored in the afternoon was the Lang cave which actually was my favourite as it looked like a fairyland with all of the stalactites and stalagmites. As we left to walk the hour back to the ranger station the skies opened and we were drenched with a true rainforest downpour!!! Unfortunately it meant that the evening display of bats leaving the caves to feed which is meant to be truly impressive was not to be—the bats will wait another day. The following morning we were to hike the headhunter trail. This was an original trail which raiding parties would use to take the heads from other villages. We were taken on our own up the river for 45 minutes to the start of the trail to camp 5 which we were told would take us 3-4 hours and a guide would be waiting for us there. Unfortunately we had been able to secure accommodation at camp 5, necessary to be able to hike the pinnacle trail so would have to walk the 22km in one day—oh well rather than not do it at all. It was magical to be alone walking the easy trail through the jungle marveling at the size of the forest as we walked through. Tarzan vines wound their way through and around the trees and various fungi’s growing everywhere. We were shaded by the trees so it was relatively cool, this also account for the lack of undergrowth we had expected. After 2 1/2 hours we arrived at camp 5 where we ate lunch with our guide and his wife who were waiting to escort the rest of the trail and to the river where their canoe was waiting. They had been caught in the downpour the day before and the wife was anxiously scanning the skies walking quickly and we felt a little as we were on a race to the finish. It almost was her undoing as we turned a corner to come across a huge cobra on the path. It was easily 2-3 inches in diameter and 5-6 feet long. Luckily for us he was more interested in flight rather than fight and quickly slid off into the forest. She had reacted with speed running back where we had come from—these people are very afraid of snakes—with good reason as they all have “snake stories”. After several hours we arrived where they had brought the canoe up the day before, further up than usual due to the high water level. We now had an interesting river trip for several hours. This was a highlight for us as the river was now higher then when they had come up and the boat had less room to go under the huge trees which had fallen across the river. Several times we had to lie down in the canoe as he worked us under them and then struggle to get the motor under. He needed to go in the water and clear branches and constantly raised and lowered the motor to clear debris from it. At one stage a smaller log was across the river and as I was wondering how he would manage that he gunned the engine and we slid right across it. I asked what he would have done if it was a few inches higher as we never would have got under the fallen trees and he said he would have emptied the boat, walked everything around including the motor and then filled the boat with water and swum it under the logs and bailed it on the other side—I felt grateful as I surveyed the root covered muddy steep banks envisaging myself clambering up and down them!!! He definitely was a master of the river!!!—these people have few roads and in that past all travel was by boat or foot. The villages are always on a river. We arrived at the end of the National Park in time to eat the rice and curried chicken they had brought for us and we then travelled another hour and a half to stay at their longhouse. The concept of the longhouses was very hard for us to understand. Each member of the village; mostly related in one way or another live in one long building called a longhouse. This is the original condo complex as each family within it has their own self-contained house—a bedroom, living room, kitchen where the family spends its family time and a toilet with a barrel of water to flush and bucket water over yourself to shower. Along the front of each joined house there is a huge communal covered veranda where they congregate and socialize together. Beyond this there is an uncovered porch area. There were thirty families living in the one we stayed at so it was enormously long. The government has provided running water to the health clinic and school nearby so they have tapped into that. They do not have electricity provided so each family has its own generator out the back. Nearby there is a school which for $100 a year the children can go, boarding Monday to Friday and home for weekends. The children start school at 7 years and will go to a high school a little further away, also boarding Monday to Friday. It seemed odd to be so close to the school and not come home but they get a $60 subsidy for each child if they are poor so it is cheaper to send them off for the week. They have large families—our host had 7 children from 3 to 23 years. The older children often will go on to leave the village and find a job in one of the towns. The veranda was full of small children and people visiting and generally just hanging out—the houses are poorly ventilated and the veranda was the coolest place. They have a true democracy where they vote for a head man every 4 years—we heard the universal complaint that during elections they would be promised everything but it often would not come to fruition!! They all seem to live together happily and when children come home everyone will sleep wherever there is space—including the veranda. We slept on a mattress on the floor of the living room. This particular longhouse was Catholic and as they do not have a priest they have prayer meetings in the veranda on Sundays. At Christmas or for their Gawa festival in May—their harvest festival---all of the family will return to the longhouse where apparently the rice wine will flow for days and people are sleeping wherever they find a spot. They weave rattan mats which they all sit on—a friend dropped in for tea and automatically dropped to the floor in the kitchen to sit and visit. Sadly for us—not for them—they have managed to amass enough money to build a new longhouse which they will move into in December. This will be a far cry from the rickety sad building we were in, made from concrete and twice the size of the old one. . Although the front of the building will have the adjoining veranda the bedroom part will have a separation from each other allowing light and air to come the windows. As a testament to the individuality of each family they will be decorated differently depending on money available. Some are having carved moldings around the ceiling; some have glass blocks inserted to provide light Our family no doubt hoping for tourists will have 4 bedrooms in their new house as opposed to one now. I am sure tourists of the future will be disappointed!! We took a walk and visited the well-equipped school with all of the children in uniform all speaking Malay, English and Iban—their local language—once again third world people put us to shame. We were taken into Limbang the town 1 hour away in a rickety truck and spent the night before flying back to Miri. We arrived back at the marina to find most of our friends had now arrived. Many of them had stayed in Kutching for the Rainforest Music Festival which they loved but we had opted for our headhunter trail—once again time constraints do not allow for everything. Now everyone was preparing for the Borneo Yacht Race which we had all entered. This has a racing division and then a division for cruising boats. There will be a race close to the marina around a buoyed course on the first day. Then they will give us a fancy dinner and a room in the fancy hotel for the night. The next day we leave for the overnight passage to Labuan—107 miles away. A day or so there and then a race to Kota Kinabalu another overnight and some harbor races there. The racing division is very competitive with 2 new participants made up with boys who are in the Malaysian Navy—dream job!! The cruisers are of course not competitive—of course until it comes to it when everyone is!! We all entered for the party and hotel accommodation as true cruisers always will. Two days before the race Ken who had been suffering a strained shoulder went with Alex—our cruiser kid—to play cricket and threw a ball ripping a tendon in his shoulder to the extent it brought him to his knees!!! A visit to a doctor and an MRI later he was told we are not going anywhere for 4-6 weeks!!!!!!---ahhhh!!! Sadly we accepted the inevitable and started making new plans. Peregrina decided to enter the harbor race and invited us to be crew as Ken was wandering around looking decidedly dejected and sad. This turned out to be quite an entertainment—Peter on Peregrina was a racer back before his cruising days but now owns a heavy 46 foot Tayana—definitely not a racing boat!!!! With 6 knots of apparent wind we got lined up to the start buoy only to collect the buoy as we slid into it—not an auspicious start!! When the race officials reported that one of the cruising boats had got tied to the buoy you could hear the collective sigh!! After disentangling ourselves we deciding not to do the obligatory 360degree around the buoy, a disqualification at this stage would not matter as we were so far behind. We proceeded to make about 3 knots as we made our way down the course. We felt better when we saw another cruising boat collect one of the other buoys. We were now bearing slowly down on the large maritime boat which was the race control boat waiting on it to move out of our way when we realized it was anchored—woops!! We quickly made a successful tack—luckily— we missed it by a few feet. They did not realize how close they came to being rammed given the inexperience and handicap of the crew of Peregrina!! Finally we made it through the finish line grateful to be done. The race officials had a job dealing with all of us novices—they did have to delay the start of the second racing boat race as there were too many cruising boats in around the start line—we only had one race hmm not surprising!! We felt better now that we had at least been part of the races and enjoyed our lovely dinner and luxurious hotel room. The following morning we went out on Atlantia who is not leaving yet and several other cruisers also not leaving to watch the start of the passage race. We are now ensconced in city life in Miri while Ken’s shoulder heals grateful that we are in a secure nice marina and are able to get good medical treatment and enjoy the city amenities of this pleasant place. There are a number of boats here coming and going so we have people to socialize as we await Ken’s shoulder to heal. We are hoping to find crew so we will feel more comfortable leaving. This area is prone to squalls and we do not want to be in a difficult situation where Ken wrecks his shoulder forever. We have been invited to stay with a couple in Brunei which we will do next week and if we feel comfortable with them may see if they can come with us. Meanwhile if anyone has a yen for an exotic vacation in this exotic part of the world we would love to have you join us!!!