Hotel Sentosa Kuala Belait

Our first and only switch-off day! Lazy breakfast, interrupted by the arrival of a group of macaques marauding around Vanessa's compound. They vandalise rubbish bins and anything left outside. It sounds exciting to outsiders; apparently quite frightening to some residents.
And then it's off to the Panaga Club for a bit of r & r or slobbing to be precise. Cloudy ...

Our second and final day in the jungle. A longboat ride upriver to a new, developing tourist centre, to experience a canopy walk. The trek up the riverside was very steep and the same mixture of hundreds of short wooden steps and slippy trails. In the jungle heat though it was a bit of a challenge - great exercise and a good way to lose lots of fluid. We reached the aluminium tower eventually. A complicated structure, a bit like climbing stepped sections of scafolding with walkways in ...

A hot night in the jungle. The toilets had a unique flushing system, but at least it wasn't one of those squat thingies that need Barnes Wallis trajectory skills! A unique breakfast of fried (sort of) egg and boiled frankfurter sausage and weak tea, then into a longboat to visit another longhouse for the Penan people. The Penans used to be nomadic and still don't want to live in prefabricated settlements. A depressing visit to a people who have lost their identity ...

We said civilised farewells to most of our fellow travellers, though we missed the Twitchers. Mr Binoculars had doubtless dragged his missus off to spot something or another.
Tony drove us to the airport for our flight to Miri, second city of Sarawak. An uneventful 1-hour flight to Miri, and then the reality of our situation - we weren't too sure how we were going to get to the Brunei border from Miri. There are coaches, but they take an eternity and stop ...

... this room so it was lacking any natural light (this made the morning very surreal). The weirdest part about it though, had to be the bathroom. It was very small, which is fine, a western toilet, which is good, and a sink. The odd thing was the shower, it hung slightly to the side of the toilet, so should you want a shower you complete soak the entire bathroom, and the water runs off the toilet and onto the floor. As you can imagine we declined the opportunity to ...

... taking their own sweet time in journeying back to the Headquarters in the now dark forest. Although I had the luxury of being protected by Argi´s very nice orange-coloured reflective raincoat (hahaha!!), he was soaking wet from the rain. So, we ran and that was an experience that I will never forget for the rest of my life, I mean, how often do one get to run in the rain in a vast rainforest?? I loved every moment ...

... to see if there were any other good hotel options and to stop in at the guesthouse we hadn't been able to stay at (The Highlands). As soon as I found The Highlands (which was no easy feat, let me assure you), I could see why it was booked up - the place was gorgeous! The guesthouse was on the third or fourth floor of a building along the water, and had huge windows that looked out onto the ocean. I sat down with Joanne, the quirky live-in receptionist/maid/travel agent ...

... Jill was waiting at Bandar airport (patiently as we were 40 minutes late) and we drove the hour and a half along the coast to her house just outside the Army garrison at Kuala Belait. We were welcomed by Rod (her husband) and Milo and Dom their children (who are now grown up teenagers and I hadn't met them before!). Milo had given up his room for us so we have a fab room with a really comfy double bed with cotton sheets and duvet and air con and we were able to fully unpack ...

... a couple of times. We didn't even need to get out of the car to present our passports! Easiest border crossing ever! Once across onto Malaysian soil again we zipped along the road to Miri where we had intended to stay the night. Instead we decided to skip the visit to Mulu, unfortunately, and just go straight to Kuching and enjoy a few days before our flight. It was only midday when we arrived in Miri so we booked on the 1pm bus to Kuching and went in search of lunch. Some ...

... the other is to visit the War Cemetry. Labuan played a major role in the Borneo arena during WWII. The Japanese forces in North Borneo surrendered here at the end of the war, and the Japanese officers responsible for the 'death marches' from Sandakan were tried here by an Australian War Crimes Court. Labuan is a federal territory governed directly from Kuala Lumpur, and today the main industry is petroleum gas installations. Our flip flops are sticking to the ground ...