Monday, May 18, 2009

Sarawak trip- Miri & Mulu National Park

Day 5
Another bad experience for us to travel for 8 hours by bus to Miri. There's no highway, so the bus was moving in those bumpy road, some times even the sandy or road with rocks. I don't really remember how many times the bus had stopped for each small town, what my advice to you is that, don't drink too much water before you board the bus! There 's no resthouse along the way, all I could see was the forest, trees , the only place you can get rid of the urine is the small bus station the bus stopped every 2-3 hours.
It was difficult for us to sleep, so we ended up chatting, talking nonsense for the last 3 hours before we could finally reached. In Sarawak, it is dark around 6 something in the evening, so can you imagine all those people kept going down the bus in the middle of the journey, in place i could only see darkness, trees, forests, I wonder where they stayed at ? some where in the middle of the jungle?
We spent our last 3 days in Mulu National Park. We board the Maswing to Mulu since there are only two means to reach there, either by plane or by 10 hours boat.It was the most expensive part of our trip I guess due to the airplane ticket. It just took us 25minutes to the Mulu airport, a very small one without air-conditioner.


Taken at the balcony of our hostel. Since it was really an 'ulu' place, our hostel only had electricity supply from 6.30pm-11.30pm, meaning that we can't have nap during noon time, have to be in bed before 11.30pm.
Here we are at the entrance of the headquarter and the hanging bridge. During the 1st day, we went to the Deer Cave and the Lang Cave. We had to trek around an hour to reach the caves. We saw a lots of creatures and unique plants along the way.

Guess what's this? A ball? It's actually a flat insect which will roll itself when being touched.


Deer Cave is the largest cave in the world- it got it's name as there were lotz deer staying in the cave in the ancient time. There lived by feeding the guano-bat's feces mixed with mineral. It was an amzing cave, so sad that we din have a good camera to capture all the pictures , so the pictures I posted was not really looked like the actual scene


Do you see the Abraham Lincoln in the picture?


This is known as the Garden of Eden

Lang Cave

In the late evening after our visit of both caves, the rain poured down. We didn't get the chance to the bats flying out the caves due to the bad weather, so we had to walked in the heavy rain back to the headquarter. We got totally drenched after an hour walk although we bought along the umbrellas.
At night, our guide Khairul brought us to the opposite Royal Mulu Resort to sing karaoke upon request by us. The sampan was so scary as it seemed it will turn over easily, so we had to walk so carefully and sit in good balance,haha...
The next day, we went to the Penan settlement before headed to the Wind Cave and Clearwater Cave.

The wind cave was really windy, while the clearwater cave is one of the longest underwater tunnel in Asia. We had our picnic lunch after climbing 200 steps to the Clearwater Cave.

We dipped ourselves in the ice-cooled water after the lunch. It was really chilling and I experienced 1st time how difficult it was to swim against the tide!




In the evening, we climbed up one of the small hill opposite our hostel
The next day before we left for Miri in the afternoon, we went kayaking, some of friends even went fishing under the hot sun!We wished to come back here again next year to climb the pinnacle, a nice view to behold =)

Miri

We didn't have much time to spend in Miri, so we just visited the place with the symbol of Miri-the Seahorse and tour around in the car.


Sarawak trip-Sibu

Day 4
Early in the morning we caught a ferry to Sibu. The journey tooked us 5 hours ,stopping at different station like Sarikei before we reached our destination. It was really a tiring journey, the ferry was just the one we board to Pangkor, 90 degree seat, narrow space, super cold air-conditioner. I guess bus is even more comfortable that this.

There is nothing much in Sibu actually, a typical small town. The icon for Sibu is the Swan.



This is the Tua Peh Kong temple in Sibu, quite a nice building with the colorful tower. We were lucky to view part of its celebration of Wesak Day, nice lighting at night, they even flied the 'kong min deng' to sky (a old time traditional custom of Chinese . Kong min deng is actually like a big white tanglung,lighted with candle inside.But it has been banned in M'sia as it will disrupt the flying plane)

See how they sold their chickens and ducks in the morning market ...

We had spent less than 24 hours in Sibu as we took the noon bus to Miri on the other day noon time. Although there's not much tourist spot here, but the food here is quite different from Kuching as there's lotz of 'Fook Chow' people here. I like the 'ding bian hu'-like slice of pan mee with soup, the soup is made of from the grounded rice . And Kampua-a type of mee in Sibu like Colok mee.

Thanks to my friend's Chung Eng for entertaining us, providing the stay for us at his house, and not to forget the super abundant of food that his whole family had prepared for us. We really got shocked to see whole table of food, big big fish, vege etc,haha..

Sarawak trip- Cultural Village

Day 3
After we got out from Bako around 11am, we checked in our inn-Mr. D Inn, a very new, nice ,comfortable inn with cheap price. After the lunch , we visited the Cultural Village which is 40km from the town. A reminder to you guys, next time remember to bring student card before you come here as it only costs RM15 compared to normal price RM60, a big different right,haha ...

Rumah Melayu




Rumah Cina



I;m not sure this is which Rumah already,maybe Rumah Bidayuh



Sieving the Sago


Rumah Orang-Ulu




Rumah Penan

We watched the cultural performance for 45minutes. My friend was being 'tarik' on stage by a fierce-looking Iban guy to try the blow pipe to burst the balloon. The staring of that guy was really so terrifying,I din dare to look into his eye also!



Rumah Iban, the hut above i dunno what it is for also,paiseh =p




This I also dunno what is it coz after our show, the houses were all closed and the person incharged has gesa home.

Oh ya, the 6th person in the picture (2nd from left) is my Su ee's friend-Mr. Handsome.

We really have a gala time in Kuching as all of us really 'siao' wan, talking nonsenses and rubbishes so much, acting so well some more, make us laughed whole day from Day 1 till Day 3, till my stomach was so painful, and get hungry so fast although almost 5-6 meals per day,haha...

Sarawak trip-Bako National Park

Day 2
Early in the morning we had a strolled nearby the city street to buy some souvenirs. Here is the symbol of Kuching-the cat city.



After the breakfast in inn, we headed to the jetty to catch a boat to Bako National Park
















On the boat to Bako National Park
Luckily it was edd tide the time we arrived, if not we would have to walk in the sea to the shore. Behind the picture above was all flooded with sea water during rising tide,almost 100-200m distance.


The main activities in this conservation island is trekking. More than 10 treks are available ,depending on the distance and duration you would like to trek, some even last for days. We just chose a few, the Paku trek, Delima trek, etc for the rest of the day activities.



The above are one of the treks we walked , reached a small sea side at the end of the path.




We boarded boat to view this famous sign of Bako-the rock that looks like python(told by the boatman), what do you guys think?
Actually there are lotz more pictures on the beautiful rocks and seaside, but spaces limited here,hehe...So just visit there one day!
Top hill view from another trek.

Sunset view of seaside in Bako.



The opposite hill far away is the Santubong hill, which we does not have enough time to climb up there.
We saw a lot of funny animals in Bako: crab with 1 hand (i'm not sure the spesies name), probiscious monkey,snake,and the Babi hutan

The nose of the pig is like a vacuum cleaner with 2 holes (look nearer and clearer on the pic oh), especially when you look at it at night. They are not afraid of human, even sleep in front of our hostel while we are playing cards whole night at the balcony,haha...My notty friends even feed them with wasabi twisties!The hostel we stayed for 1 night.


Last picture before we fade goodbye to Bako