Saturday, June 20, 2015

Quick stops in Sarawak….Miri and Sibu, Borneo, Malaysia


Our border crossing from Brunei into Sarawak, Malaysia was as breezy as could be.

Besides stopping us to ask if we had been to Korea, we were barely questioned and our luggage never even had to leave the bus.

Presumably, this is because Brunei is so strict about what comes into its borders (ie our customs form for a bottle of rum) and Malaysia must assume we couldn’t possibly have gotten anything past Brunei security on the way in.

Our next two stops in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia were Miri and Sibu – stopovers on the journey across the island to the much larger Kuching, and our final stop in Asia.

Yes, that’s it. At this point we had just two weeks left.

Our plan was to slowly make our way to Kuching, but this was not to be for a few reasons.

One, these towns had little to offer in the way of attractions and two, well, we’re just plain tired of moving around.

And three, it just rained and rained and rained.

So our first stop, Miri was supposed to be a party city, so we booked two nights ahead of time.

We probably didn’t need both.

We did find some interesting handicraft stores and a bookstore with bargain books in English.

Otherwise, we avoided our hostel room, which was the size of a queen bed plus three feet on one side so the door could open (not exagerating – too small to even photograph how small it was).

The bed hit three walls and there was no window.

We decided the party reference we had heard must refer to the two or three bars along one of the main roads that serve up expensive imported beer.

We did find a “historic” area that was run down and covered in advertisements and banners.

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