Leaving Miri we got on a bus headed for Kota Kinabalu, in Sabah. What looked like a simple journey on paper turned out to be a quite arduous trip. Kota Kinabalu from Miri was only 300km (185 miles) away and yet the journey took us well over 12 hours, this was because Brunei was smack down in the middle it. Unfortunately Brunei was split into two states, being separated by Malaysia (Sarawak) in the middle. So despite Sabah being a part of East Malaysia, in order to get there, by land, we actually had to cross from Malaysia (Sarawak region) into Brunei, then back into Malaysia (Sarawak), then back into Brunei, then back into Malaysia (Sarawak) and finally into Malaysia (Sabah region – which requires it’s one visa, different from the Sarawak one) before reaching Kota Kinabalu. They really don’t make it easy do they?! However, we couldn’t complain too much as we learnt that Brunei’s current boarders were a byproduct of the British Colonial rule, for some reason they decided to cut Brunei in half. Thanks for that! Whilst we could have gotten a cheap direct flight that could have only taken half an hour, which many travellers do, we decided to do the slightly cheaper 12 hr (quoted to us as 10 hr’s) bus journey instead. Whilst this may seem crazy we thought it’d be it’s own kind of experience, with some supposedly beautiful scenery, and just thought it’d be fun to do, plus we got a few extra stamps in our passport. We had an unfortunate start, arriving at the bus station at 7am for our 7.30am bus only to be told that despite us buying the tickets yesterday, the 7.30 wasn’t running today and we’d be getting the 8.30am instead. Of course the bus didn’t end up leaving until 9 though, as the driver at the last minute decided that all non-malaysian’s needed to fill in some forms (its not as though we had been hanging around for an entire hour). Once on the road we had a half an hour journey to the Malaysian (Sarawak)-Brunei border, where the whole bus (some 15 Malay’s, 1 Canadian and us two) had to exit and get their passports stamped out of Malaysia and (after a 5 min bus journey) into Brunei, which being English we were each issued a free 90 day Visa despite telling them we were only travelling through. This would set the tone for the rest of the journey, driving 1 or 2 hours, then disembarking and crossing through border controls, with our passports filling up quickly. In order to prolong our food supplies we decided to make a game called new country, new sandwich. We had made up some jam sandwiches for the journey (one of the Malay’s living in our hostel had stolen our peanut butter the previous night, so we in turn stole the hostel’s jam for our sandwiches) and so we spread our four sandwiches over the four countries. This clearly highlighting how exciting the journey proved to be. Brunei’s main claim to fame is its Sultan, who is reported to be one of the richest monarchs in the world; for instance he spends whopping £1.26 million on badminton lessons of all things and he owns 5000 cars and two Boeing’s apparently!!! So we had been expecting Brunei to be glamorous and Singapore-esqe but it was disappointingly remarkably similar to Malaysia, with a bit more cars. After crossing through Brunei and back into Malaysia (Sarawak) we were rewarded with a 20 min food stop (the driver choosing to stop here rather than Brunei as it was cheaper). Back on the bus we crossed back into Brunei then a couple of hours later arrived at the Brunei-Malaysia (Sarawak) border. Here we not only had to clear the standard customs but also cross over a river. Had we been anywhere else in the world, crossing the 30m stream would have been accomplished via a simple bridge, however we were (technically) in Malaysia and had to use a large car ferry, almost half as long as the river itself. Back in Malaysia we drove for another hour or two before coming to our last checkpoint, the Sarawak-Sabah border. For reasons unknown to us, crossing into the Sabah region requires a different visa than our Sarawak ones (though apparently it’s the same visa as the one issued on mainland/peninsula Malaysia, so if you fly from mainland to Sabah you already have the visa, it’s just the Sarawak region that’s different). Having crossed our last border crossing we sat back and waited till we got to Kota Kinabalu, which due to being told it was only a 10hr journey leaving at 7.30am we had anticipated arriving at 6pm, however we didn’t end up arriving till 9pm, 3 hrs later than we intended. Needless to say we were tired, and finding our hostel we quickly retreated to bed, but not before enjoying our last can of shandy beer each, which we had bought with us from Miri.
As our time in Miri had been almost non-stop early mornings and exhausting days we decided to spend two days in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, just chilling and resting. Unfortunately our first morning was not that relaxing as we anticipated. We had to move hostels since our room had been booked by someone else in advance of us. We found a very nice room at Kinabalu backpackers around the corner and after a quick move headed out into town. We started with a standard for us – heading to the tourist information. We had decided to spend the afternoon watching a movie (Stark Trek Into Darkness) so headed to the mall and bought our tickets for later. We then spent some time talking to Scuba Junkie, a diving company with a branch in Semporna on the east coast where we would be heading next, and then had lunch at an Islamic hawker restaurant – noodles with beef for Joel, rice with chicken for Hannah. Over lunch we chatted with a nice local couple whose table we shared. Later we headed back to the mall for Star Trek Into Darkness, enjoying the chilly air con (we had to resort to wearing jumpers) and popcorn. The film was pretty good (Benedict Cumberbatch stole the show), but not nearly as good as Iron Man 3. That evening we had a cheap meal of instant noodles and more shandy beer, having restocked earlier in the day.
Our next day in Kota Kinabalu was even less exciting as the previous. After somewhat of a lay in (we got woken up at 7.30am by a digger doing some maintenance right outside), we had a chore day – we done laundry, we sorted our travel and accommodation for the following days, and I (Hannah) got my legs waxed. As there didn’t seem to be a wide variety of choice I had to resort to going to boutique waxing salon, an experience in itself. Not only did they wear a mask and gloves (why, i have no idea) but they also shone a bright dentist light on my legs, just to make sure they’d gotten every last hair! Since this was my first wax since my accident, they took care around my scar and in no time i was once again smooth. It was by far the best wax I’ve had out here, by a long way! That night we headed down to the night market for some cheap eats. Walking past various vendors Hannah spotted Nasi Parik Ayam (something I, Joel, had eaten previously in Kapit and after tasting a bit Hannah had become very envious). Sitting down we both ordered it only for it to turn out to be a completely different dish than the one I had eaten before, but none the less was still delicious.
The next morning we left Kota Kinabatu for Sandakan, on the east coast of Borneo, a 7hr bus ride away. It was a fairly easy and uneventful journey, taking us past mount Kinabalu high in the mountains before descending back to the coast. However we did at one point have to pass through a security check point; a soldier armed with a machine gun checking passports and identifications papers. This was the only evidence of the trouble that had happened a couple months previous on the eastern coast but after speaking with locals in Koto Kinabula we found that this had been blown out of proportion by the media anyway.
Sandakan itself is not a beautiful town and arriving we had a moment of “what the hell are we doing here”, however the journey straight through to Semporna would have been too long to do in one day. Thankfully after about half an hour wandering the dirty streets of Sandakan we finally found our hostel (May Fair Hotel) and our attitudes changes. This was undoubtedly the nicest and best value for money room we had stayed in during our travels (except from Singapore obviously). It was a clean modern room with a large double bed, en-suite bathroom, air con and WIFI. However the thing that set it apart from the rest was the 28″ HD flat screen TV and DVD player sitting in the corner. Accompanied by the insanely large (and categorised – they had everything from “English Comedy” and “Will Smith Films” through to “Gigantic Animal Movie”) DVD collection in the common area, this did not go to waste. As it was still too early to go out for dinner we borrowed a selection of films (Skyfall, The Dark Knight Rises, The Hunger Games and Star Trek) and put on Dark Knight on in the background as Hannah wrote her diary and Joel worked on the blog/read. It sad I know but it did feel a bit like being home. After the film we headed out for dinner on the riverfront, finding a cheap place where Joel had a spicy prawn curry, and Hannah had sweet and sour chicken with rice, which was sooo yummy! That night we indulged in more TV time and watched Star Trek (the 2009 one, not the one we had just seen) in bed whilst enjoying the cool air con – it was like we were back in the cinema.
The next day we headed to the tourist information (we have so many brochures now it’s getting a bit much) as their were a few things we wanted to do in Sandakan. At the top of this list was a visit to the Sun Bear sanctuary just outside town, which our guidebooks mentioned as hopefully opening in late 2012. Unfortunately talking to the assistant at the info shop soon dashed our hopes as she informed us that the opening had been delayed and would most likely not be open for a few more months. Instead we decided to see a bit of the town and headed to the free museum next door. If we had to describe this museum in one word it’d be “sparse”. While clearly well intentioned and intending to show some of the history around Sandakan and Sabah in general, many of the pictures had small descriptions with little explanation 15 minutes later we were done. Disappointed but not dejected we headed up to the nearby Agnes Keith House, an old colonial style house turned museum by Keith (an American author) now owned by the Sabah government which houses one of the best collections of documents and displays of life in Sandakan during the World War 2 invasion by the Japanese. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see it as they had a power cut and no electricity (we afterwards wondered why they didn’t just use petrol generators like the hostels did when they ran out of power, even if it was just whilst they had visitors). Instead we headed next door to the English Tea House where we had a lunch of English tea and freshly baked scones, complete with cream and jam, whilst overlooking Sandakan from their very pristine and very English mowed lawn (it even had a croquette set). At 20 ringgits (£4.37) this was a pricey lunch, twice as much as we usually spend on dinner. However, I (Hannah) don’t think we’ve enjoyed a meal as much, and were both quite sad when it ended. It did make us reminisce about having picnics in the park/garden on a sunny weekend or bank holiday (which we realised afterwards, was a rarity in England). With everything on our list either closed or done we headed back to our room where we spent the afternoon watching TV (they had the Amazing Race – an American reality program – on) and a film (Dredd this time, which we were both pleasantly surprised by). That evening we headed back to the riverfront, however being a Monday everything was closed early. We sat at the only open restaurant (within our budget) which unfortunately was right near a sewage outlet and we kept getting hit by wafts of raw sewage smell. Thankfully when our food arrived it did cover up the smell somewhat, Hannah choosing a chicken curry whilst Joel chose a rather disappointing Thai style fried rice with pineapple. It was Joel’s turn to be envious! That night we decided to watch Men In Black 3 in bed, an easy going film neither of us had seen, and whilst funny it wasn’t nearly as good as the original, and Joel had some issues with the science behind their take on time travel.
Two Muppets Abroad 