Mulu National Park

We decided to go to Mulu National Park, which has the most famous caves in Borneo. A David Attenborough affair apparently.

Getting there requires a trip in a small propellor plane. It seemed very Indiana Jones landing on the small strip at the park headquarters. All we needed was Short-Stop to come up and drive a car with blocks on his feet.





We stayed at a family owned guest house. That evening they invited us to their local Christmas feast at the house. All of the locals came, the head man said a speech, and then we had to bow our heads while prayer was said. Bats would fly in through the open doors, circle to eat bugs, and then quickly fly out again. No one even blinked; a nightly occurance.

But the best was the food. A huge spread of chicken, fish, noodles, vegetables and cakes. We loved it. At the end of the feast we thanked the head man and his lovely wife and later gave them some small gifts to say thanks. They were so lovely.

The park is filled with huge butterflies of all colours. At night fireflies light up the surrounds like fairy lights while frogs call to each other with 'Wat' sounds.





We went with a guide to the caves in the park. The biggest cave chamber in the world apparently. They weren't joking. It was big. It looked like it could fit a twenty story building inside of it. It stank of guano and the droppings formed huge piles under the larger bat colonies on the ceilings. About three million bats lived in the one cave. Stalactites and 'mites hung and squatted everywhere.







Outside of the caves we waited for the sun to go down outside of the caves and then watched as millions of bats flew out to feed. They would form huge ribbons and circling doughnuts of bats in the sky. It was wonderful to be there to see it.

Our accommodation included a tap for a shower. At one point it rained so much the river burst its banks and the water got into our tanks meaning we had to wash in mud. Heh. We would crush the bugs and cockroaches each night before bed. This place was great!

Come again?

While in Miri we also noticed that the council were getting a bit excited over parking...



...Okay, this one is grammatically correct, but still an unfortunate choice of words.

Miri - Goodbye to Rob

We headed further along Borneo to Miri, staying there for a couple of days to relax. Unfortunately it was also time to say goodbye to Rob. Apparently the Aussie Rules season is starting, so Rob had to speed himself to Melbourne. Man hugs all round. See you soon mate.

Niah Caves

Heading east, we left Kuching out in a small ferry boat to Sibu. The thing with this is that the boat has to go out to sea to get to the river mouth about two hours north-east. The ferry captain had great faith in his little passenger ferry because he went full steam despite the rolling waves. This caused the sides of the ferry to slam into the waves on the downward part of the corkscrew. Instead of backing off the throttle like he should have to even it out, he just held on to his stool which he tied to the helm with packing tape. We all held on for dear life while trying to watch a b-grade French movie about drug gangsters who dress badly and fight a baldy man.

After a couple of days travelling, we made it up to Niah caves. A few hours hiking and then these caves. They were incredible. You wander around these massive cave chambers, with millions of bats hanging above you, chirping away. It is pitch black and you have to use a torch to follow the path. Further on there was a cave with neolithic cave paintings showing men and canoes. It was one of those wow experiences that everyone hunts for.









\

One of the long-house communities here...

Borneo - Wet. Hot and wet. Hot, sticky and wet.

We flew from KL into Borneo for some jungle fun. So it was surprising to land in Kuching and land at such a pretty and modern little town. Kuching is cool. We stayed in a dirt cheap hostel with the only down side that I had to go around and fill in all the peepholes everyone put in the flimsy walls, heh.

One thing though, Borneo sure knows about rain. The houses here are raised on stilts, and for good reason. It rains each afternoon, but not in a normal rain cloud style. It pours with ferocious fat drops that are more like a waterfall than a shower. This happened every day here and thankfully takes away the sticky heat of the day. If you get caught in it though, you can kiss your spiral mullet perm goodbye.

We went to Bako National Park for the day. To get there you have to hire a longboat to take you into the park and to the park headquarters. Cruising along the river, passing dense jungle and monitor lizards sliding in the mud, it felt rather like a Joseph Conrad novel.









The hike was in torrential rain which made it quite exciting, including fording small streams that have overflowed and turned into rivers. We encountered a baby turtle in the rain, making a dash across the path. The weird thing was that we were near the top of a mountain. Not really sure what he was doing up there, but I guess he had his reasons.





Back at the park headquarters these little guys tried to steal my coke. Cheeky monkeys...

Kuala Lumpur

We caught a bus down to Kuala Lumpur. The driver was driving like a loon as is standard in Asia. He was texting, writing down the schedules for his next trip and driving the bus all at the same time, and in that order of importance. There must be a special time portal here, because he drove like an absolute madman, complained when we wanted to stop at toilet stops, and yet it still took about five hours to go only three hundred kilometres.

Finally we reached Kuala Lumpur. Rob and I had been here before about three years ago during one of his "last" trips home to live in Melbourne. It was fitting that here we were again, and here he was saying, again, that this is definitely the last trip home.

We stayed in exactly the same hotel in the middle of China Town, surrounded by all of the market stalls, fakes, hustlers, copy DVDs and ear waxers. A good place to escape the city's choking traffic fumes. I read in their tourist pamphlets that Kuala Lumpur is supposedly called 'The Garden City'. Someone must have built the garden round the back somewhere, because this is the last title I would choose to give it. Don't get me wrong, it is still a great city, bustling with noodle stands and friendly, honest people; just no gardens to speak of that I've ever seen, well, unless garden is a Malay word for sucking on an exhaust pipe.

Crossing into Malaysia

We crossed the border through to Malaysia, stopping in Pulau Penang, an island just off the Malaysian coast. This is an ex-British-owned island and is now a big resort island. Unfortunately after coming from the southern Thai beaches, it seems like a bit of a poor cousin. The beaches weren't very nice and we couldn't work out why it was such a big resort draw. The Langkawi islands are only a little further north and so is Thailand. Oh well, the people were lovely and we took the chance to treat ourselves at a cheesy pirate ship themed restaurant.

Phuket to Songkhla

It was time to say goodbye to Keely and Kev. It was great having good company to hang out with during the trip.







After only four hours sleep due to a goodbye party in Patong that overstepped the bounds of decency, we headed out of Phuket on an eight hour bus journey to Hat Yai. After a gruelling bus trip we got off, said "That was horrible; never again!", only to hop onto the Hat Yai to Songkhla bus which was ten times worse. This bus had a sub-woofer in the back and they played bad Thai karaoke videos at full volume all the way to Songkhla. I can assure you that Thai Karaoke is an entirely passable experience.

The Thais helped us again with their friendly ways. A family helped us get to our guest house and went out of their way to make sure we got there safely. No wonder everyone loves this country.

We shared the room with two cockroaches the size of my fist, but we couldn't have been happier to see that bed. Sixteen hours of travelling and that bed was ours. Happy days.

The next day was spent in Songkhla recovering with nice coffees and a visit to the lucky mermaid statue. Local myth says that stroking her boobs brings you good luck. I figure that if I'm stroking some boobs I've already had some good luck!

Tongue-Thaied

This was on a menu in Southern Thailand. ???

Beach slap

Patong can only be tolerated for so long, so we headed out to Kata beach for a while, relaxing on the beach there. After Kata beach got a little boring, we headed out to Kamala beach to stay in bungalows just near the water. Strangely the pool here was just as wonderful as the white sand beaches.







We hired a few scooters and wandered around the island a bit, bumping into elephants, seeing waterfalls and visiting gibbon rehabilitation centres.







At night we would eat at restaurants on the beach and watch people light small hot-air balloons made of rice paper that floated out into the night.



Sometimes being on the same beach can wear you down, so we switched again to Laem Singh beach and then switched a fourth time to Nai Thon beach. Since getting bored of beaches was our biggest problem, we felt fairly happy with ourselves here in Phuket.












Nai Thon had a little island out in the bay, so we hired a long boat and went snorkelling until sunset. Happy days.







We heard there is a recession going on which sounds scary. Luckily we don't have to deal with that right now. The only thing destroying my economy right now is Singha and Chang beer.

Thai Kick-boxing

Blood sports are the only ones I find interesting. If a man is willing to get knocked unconscious for his honour, then that deserves respect. And so we went to Thai kick-boxing, one of the hardest of the boxing sports. We couldn't resist going to watch a match live and there was a European line up that I was hoping to see get a pasting by the professional Thai boxers.



We saw a few knock-outs and one really unprofessional knee to the crotch which made the Thai boxer drop to the floor, and worse, the English 16 year old opponent almost cry because of the poor form and the booing. It was fabulous!

Phuket and Patong

We took the train & bus down to Phuket from Bangkok, avoiding the protests at the airport.

I forgot about the old Thai comission scams until now. In Surat Thani, a switch-point between the train and bus, there were touts-a-plenty, full of lies and ready for business. After the third comission scam was being played on us late at night in the mini-van to Phuket I had had enough. I got the entire van of tourists so het up that everyone refused to move out of the van until the driver did what we wanted. A small victory against the backhander.

Phuket is where we met up with some good mates; Keely, Rob and a friend of Keely's, Kev. We went to the usual haunts of Phuket. Patong was a favourite for looking at whores, strippers, go-go dancers, lady-boys and iguana pushers. A good thing about this tourist sweat-hole is that you can usually go to a bar and they will let you play any music you like - so we rocked out to our own (slightly dated) tastes.