Back To The Jungles – Borneo Sarawak

Posted On Thursday, January 31, 2008 at at 1:58 AM by Alvin  

The Grand Old Lady Of Miri !

Along the Northern coast of Borneo lie the riches left behind by Time – Oil. Miri benefited from this natural resource and grew into a sizable town. We visited the Oil and Petroleum Museum and met The Grand Old Lady – the first oil-drilling platform in Miri. She had served her time and is now having a peaceful retirement on top of Canada Hill that overlooks Miri.

The Niah Caves

About an hour’s bus journey West of Miri lie the Niah caves where ancient burial sites and pre-historic wall paintings had been found. We reached the caves after 2 hours’ walking through beautiful jungles where we spotted woodpeckers, millipedes, flying squirrels, giant ferns and a tiny frog the size of a shirt button (bless the frog as Mandy almost squashed it in her strides). The caves were pitch black and it took us almost half an hour to walk (slowly) through to the other side, passing a few guano-collectors on our way. Guano is a substance made up of bat and swiftlet droppings and can be used as fertilizers. The shafts of light coming through the different cave openings during our passage through the darkness were inspiring.

We came across a real funky hotel lift in Niah and I felt that I was taking in a walk-in part in the "Twin Peaks" series. Spooky !

Meeting Richie in Semengogh - Hi Richie, be nice !
Outside the pleasant city of Kuching lies the Semengogh Rehabilitation Centre for Orangutans and Richie is the Alpha Male of the group – a giant heaving and bouncing reddish mop. Richie and his group are now living independently in the wild but they still come back to the Centre for an occasional visit when they cannot find food during the non-fruiting months. These creatures may look friendly and hilarious but they can be aggressive, simply even if you just stand in their way; so no fighting over the bananas with Richie.

Kuching was a very pleasant city with a nice long promenade by the river and we settled here for a few days over the Chinese New Year. Part of the fun during this time of the year was to find somewhere to eat - almost ALL the Chinese shops were deserted and we were lucky to find a vegetarian restaurant open and yep, we even resorted to Pizza Hut !

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