Borneo

Singapore has never really been on the radar for a full blown visit – the couple of times I have spent here have been due to long lay-overs. And the reason for our visit this time was due to connections from Kota Kinabalu back to NZ as flights from KK are only every 36 hrs so it meant either a 36 hour stop or a 3 night stop hence we opted for the latter – and are enjoying every minute of it.

We spent some time yesterday talking to a Indian local – who we both thought would have been about mid 60’s until he said he was 55. He works 66 hrs a week and travels nearly an hour to work. While he had a great sense of humour (and a great salesman) the pace of life in Singapore and the long hours, high taxes and high cost of living certainly has aged him. His comparison of life was that in Australia you earned $22 hr working at McDonalds compared to $5 hr in Singapore.

We are staying in Clarke Quay area – just a couple kms along the river from Marina Sands – quite a restaurant/nighclub area. There is a river that runs though the city with a walkway both sides – it’s a fantastic way to get around as there are bridges across the river every couple of hundred metres and under passes under the roads so you don’t have to stop and cross roads.

It wasn’t until this morning that I actually realised that Singapore was an island. I always thought that it was connected to Malaysia. While it is 730km2, 23% is reclaimed land. Singapore joined Malaysia in 1963 along with Sabah and Sarawak (the two states we visited in Borneo) however separated 2 years later. The population is 5.5 million – and the fact I remember from childhood was that it is similar size as Lake Taupo but with the population of NZ.

Last night we went to the light show at the ‘Gardens by the Bay”. Very pretty and just like a fireworks show other than it was artificial trees lit up. We walked back via the Marina Sands Hotel – the one that has the “ship” spanning over three towers – it seemed to take us an age to walk through the shopping mall which is over several levels – top end of shopping and a little out of our price range.

Today we visited Orchard Road – once the high end of shopping in Singapore – still some huge high end shops but mixed with a wide range of other budgets as well.

Well the holiday is nearly over and this time tomorrow we will be at the airport. While it will be nice to leave the high humidity, I am not too sure about the cold …..

Well we are now at the airport waiting for our first leg home. It has been a great holiday, plenty of new adventures and lots of sun and swimming. As we had a late check-out we did a last minute visit to the Garden of ………, and then back for our final swim before checkout. I hear it is going to 17 degrees at home tomorrow so maybe it won’t be too much of a shock this year.

and Neville keeps saying how wonderful it is – does this mean that he didn’t like Borneo????

I have enjoyed the last few days back in Kota Kinabalu as I have been for pre-breakfast walks which has normalized the holiday as some places we have stayed, it has been difficult to walk anywhere due to terrain. This morning I walked back through the city to places we visited when we arrived along with the waterfront markets where people were busy setting up stalls etc.

The fish market was busy with lots of tuna and crabs on sale. Even just after 6am on a Tuesday people are out buying their fresh vegetables and fish while the bars along the waterfront still had tables not cleared from the night before.

The people here are very friendly – even the cleaning staff at the hotel all said goodbye with a huge smile as we left – they all seem happy in their work.

We arrived in Singapore just after 2pm so have had the afternoon to get to know our neighbourhood – Clarke Quay which seems to a foodie area – yay!! Today doesn’t appear to be as hot as we have been experiencing although YR has the low being 27 and the high as 29 – also I don’t think the humidity is as high but I shouldn’t speak too soon as the next few days might be hot.

and I now have reliable internet …….. finally!!

Today was our last full day in Borneo – a wonderful relaxing holiday with some wildlife, jungle, sun and sea all thrown in.

Today we just mucked around in the city, which has become very familiar and we visited several places that we had been before ie coffee shop, malls etc.

We also had our first “hot stone massage” – 2 hours which went really fast but a great way to end our time here. The massage finished with “ear candling” – where a cone shape candle is placed into the ear, lit and then burns until near the end. It is supposed to cause suction which pulls earwax and other impurities out of the ear – we will wait and see … however a strange sensation and I was pleased to be able to watch Neville having it done so I knew what was happening as it is a bit scary knowing that there are flames beside your face (which was covered with a towel). We have enjoyed the massages we have had over the past four weeks – one of the perks of travelling in Asia – cheap massages however they do find all the knots in the muscles and not the sort you fall asleep with.

While it started off warm, we had rain this afternoon – probably the first mid day rain all holidays. We have been lucky with the rain, with it happening at night mainly and never been an issue with our plans however I remember that our last night here first time around, we were going to visit the laundromat however it poured with rain so maybe that is how Kota Kinabalu treats us – with a downpour on our final nights.

Off to Singapore tomorrow for 3 nights and then homewards bound.

as it seems the draft I wrote the other day has disappeared – probably because there was no internet connection. I am a slow learner, I need to write the blog in word and then copy but sometimes I am too trusting on the limited wifi.

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So we spent 4 nights on Gaya Island – just a short 10 minutes speed boat ride from Kota Kinabalu yet a world away. Sandy beaches and island time. We snorkelled most days – well I did anyway- and it was like swimming in a tropical fish tank. I do think the sea water was warmer than the resort swimming pool. We went on a couple of guided walks around the resort – and now I understand why you aren’t allowed to wander at will – there are verminous snakes about – of which we saw one and very well camouflaged.

We did walk (with the guide) to the private beach – it took 45 minutes to walk in high humidity and then only took 5 minutes to return by speed boat. We took the boat there the next day (they only walk 3x a week) as the water level stays deeper than round at the resort (I skinned my knees on coral the first day as it got really shallow) and not so many kids around – gosh I am starting to identify us with that older couple in the Aussie travel programme – if you aren’t travelling with kids, then prefer not to holiday with kids. The second day at the beach around the corner, the currents must have been different as there was a lot of plastic and rubbish in the water – which we hadn’t really noticed a lot of.

There is plastic awareness with some shop doing plastic bag free days, no straws with drinks etc however I did watch a school of fish go for a plastic lolly wrapper in the sea thinking it was food as did the wild bearded pigs go down to the shoreline sniffing around the rubbish being washed up.

At the private beach, as mentioned, the wild bearded pigs came out after the small restaurant finished up for the day – I think all the scraps are feed to these pigs as well as the large land/water (not sure which it was) monitor that showed up at 2pm as well.

The pigs got a swish of it’s tail if they got to close to it. There were a few monkeys around but the staff kept them away as they got a bit to close to people’s gear that was left on the deck chairs.

We enjoyed our time on Gaya Island and I hate to admit it but island holidays could get addictive. We spent a lot of time swimming, both in the pool and the sea, and reading – bliss.

We are now back in Kota Kinabalu – for 3 nights. Our friendly bar waiter up at the club lounge remembered us and welcome us back. It is not often we visit a place twice but that was how flights worked out and as the place has a familiar feeling, it feels easy. With spending at least 3 nights in most places, we have enjoyed the pace of life – getting to know the people who have all been so friendly and eager to please.

Being Sunday today, I let Neville have a lie in – and my pre-breakfast walk took me pass the Sunday markets – selling fresh fruit and veges, plants, pets, and the normal clothes, bags etc. Was really busy with mainly locals and the roads were surprising busy for a Sunday. Later we visited the state museum – of which we are getting quite familiar with the history – again the headhunters and the WW2 took a lot of display space.

to find time to update the blog and books and swimming seems to be getting in the way.

After Kuching, we spent 3 nights in Mulu – which is basically Gunung Mulu National Park and world heritage area of approx. 52,000+ hectares with a hotel and a few lodges.  The special thing here is the caves along with the limestone rock formations called the Pinnacles amongst a mountainous rainforest.  The only way in to Mulu is either by plane or by boat.  The flight from Kuching was 90 minutes in a prop plane – as the airfield is small.  I think it is about 7 hours by river but not sure whether there are regular boat sailings.

Again, I think we have been lucky to have time on our side and I gather that we are staying longer than normal – nice for us not having to rush to see everything in a short period of time.  However in saying that, we were probably unfortunate to have arrived with a large group of 71 people here on a team bonding exercise though our guide Philpi recognised this and made sure we were always one step ahead of this group.

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This cave system is one of the biggest in the world, discovered in the 1970’s.  While this might not seem not that long ago, it is not until you get inside and see how big it is and the terrain that you would need to conquer – so easy with walkways and steps but take these away and you would need ropes to climb/abseil as well take in food and sleeping gear to camp for days etc so without modern ways ie touches etc they would have been limited in the old days on how far they could go. 

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The first cave we went to was called Deer Cave (largest cave passage in the world) – as deer used to come into this cave to lick the bat droppings – for the salt content.  This was a huge cave and we walked approx. 800 metres in.  Very smelly as this is were the bats live during the day.  We then visited Lang Cave – named after the guy that discovered it – we walked in about 280 metres.  We then went and sat outside Deer Cave to wait for the bats to emerge just on dusk – timing can vary around between 5.30 and 6.20pm though on wet or windy days they sometimes don’t appear.  It was just after 6 when the first ones came out – very tiny bats, not like the big fruit bats we saw in Sri Lanka last year.  They come out in groups – supposedly there is safety in numbers against the big birds.  The high number of bats is also one of the reasons there doesn’t appear to be many mosquitos in the area which makes it pleasant to be outside until the humidity gets too much.

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While we did the “standard’ visits to these caves and areas, there is the opportunity to adventure walk these caves if you have time and also do a three day hike up Mt Mulu or follow the headhunters trail however you need to provide all gear and food and the track is pretty rugged. 

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The next morning we got into a long boat and went up the river into the park to another couple of caves. Wind Cave – due to feeling wind at times and Clearwater Cave which has 227km of explored passages and due to the clear river that runs though it.  Our lunch spot was were the water came out underground from the cave – making it a very refreshing swimming spot.  The calm water looked very deceiving as as you got closer to the outlet, there was a strong current which you could nearly swim on the spot.

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 Before visiting the caves we stopped off and visitied a local village with the obligatory local market selling baskets and beads.  There was a government long house here where locals can live free of charge.   Our guide for two days was Philipi who was brought up in a local village.  At the age of 7 he left home to go to a primary boarding school which took 4 hrs by boat meaning that basically he only had a day at home as on Sundays he went to church and then back to school by boat.  This meant that he never really had the opportunity to learn from his parents as before he went to school he wasn’t interested and then there was always homework or very little time.  His father and grandparents were from a nomadic tribe, where they moved as food sources ran out etc.  As money became a part of life it stopped this way of living, hence the government building these long houses in the 1970’s where a family would occupy one dorm in the long rectangle building.  When Philipi went to secondary school, he had to travel 7 hours by boat hence only came home during school holidays.  When his mother died when he was 15, it took 3 days for the news to reach him.  Today he is off to Miri with friends – his friend and he will travel for 4 hours by boat and then another friend is flying to Miri, pick up a car and will travel for 1.5 hrs and pick them up.  Philipi has a wife and 2 young children who all live in the hotel complex. 

We had another guide yesterday morning who took us down the river – visited another longhouse village – again built by the government to house the once nomadic people. 

Many of the males in the village earn their living by owing and driving the boats for the tourists. The boats are really long – one seat wide where you sit in the middle, and the heaviest to the front.  The person in the front will have a stick to gauge how deep the water is when going through rapids.While there are roads around the resort and up to the park, these vehicles arrive by the river barge – between 10 – 30,000 ringgits. 

Judging by the state of many of the vehicles, there is no warrant of fitness requirements however the pace of life here is very slow and no one is in a hurry.  After visiting the village – again it seems that once a building is finished, then there is no upkeep – many old buildings just left to fall down – the same with broken boats in the river, we went up a small river/creek – hopped out and went walked up river – sometimes waist deep to a small waterfall.  Was lovely and refreshing.  Our guide today also has two small children – 4 and 2 yrs but as his wife also works at the hotel, the children live with his in-laws in Miri therefore they only see their children once every two months.

We flew out of Mulu yesterday, back to Kota Kinabalu to spend 4 nights on Gaya Island – a 10 minute speed boat ride from the city.  Gaya Island is an island covered in ancient rainforest within a protected marine park and we are limited to where we can go however they do have activities during the day which gives us the opportunity to explore and as it is  quite a big resort, there are quite a few families around – quite different to what we are used to.

This morning we went snorkelling – about a 20 minute speed boat ride to another island in the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park.  We went past a lot of stilt houses of which we hadn’t really heard much of however upon looking up google once back it is an illegal settlement of Filipino-Moro refugees from the 1970’s who escaped from the war in the southern Philippines.  The State and Federal governments do not officially recognise the settlement and they are known as illegal immigrants.  The village has a floating population of over 6000 and while it has been partially destroyed by fire three times, the government is trying to relocate these people due to the high crime rate, terrorism and drug trafficking esp in Kota Kinabalu.  The stilt houses are linked by walkways of weathered planks, have no sanitation and the people are responsible for the plastic rubbish we saw in the sea close by.  Not a great look.

The water for snorkelling was so warm that it makes getting in so easy.  While we didn’t see any sea turtles or sharks, we saw plenty of other fish.   Now it is back to an afternoon of reading by the pool ………..

Well, I as I am still waiting for the photos to upload – same old story, slow slow internet – probably 3 – 4 minutes per photo, observations of this afternoon – it was like swimming in a tropical fish tank down at the beach in front of the resort. While it is high tide around 8am, by mid afternoon, it is getting low with the water further from the shoreline and with the coral on the sea floor now in shallow water – I skinned my knees a few times just floating on top. The water is clear therefore you can see all the beautiful fish swimming around you with the occasional one wanting to nibble you as you pass.

The problem with spending too much time in one place is that you relax too much and can’t be bother with updating the blog.

Yesterday we went on a 4 hour cycling heritage tour – again just the two of us. We started at 9am however I am sure we finished in the heat of the day and certainly missed not having a pool to cool down in. Luckily Kuching doesn’t have too many hills. The cycles we had were little since we travelled across the river by river taxi hence they had to fold up but great to navigate the narrow roads.

Cycling was a great way to see the city and we only saw one other cyclist and that was a police women. Traffic goes slow, mainly late model cars and a few motor motorcycles.

We are learning about the city all the time – which is reasonably young – probably the same age as NZ. Before James Brook who was the first white Rajah from India (invited by the Bruni King) it was mainly locals living near rivers and farmlands. The early buildings here are mid 1800’s. Unfortunately the museum is being re-built so we could see only a few exhibits but we have slowly got the gist of the city. Kuching means cat and so one theory goes that when James Brook first came here – he had never seen a cat before and when asking a local what this small animal was, and told that it was a “cat” hence the name of the city became “Kutching” – better than the alternative “pussycat” .

There is a “cat museum” however we didn’t get time to visit but we did view several cat monuments around the city.

We visited museums which we saw different type of wild life, the best bread shop in Kuching, the layered cake shop, the park, old forts. We walked over the bridge but came back by river taxi which costs less than 50 cents. The river taxi’s are serviced by river village people – who work on a two week roster – living, sleeping and eating on these small boats and then taking about 7 hours to return to their village at the end of their two week shift.

Before the bridge was built, they would earn about 80 riggits a day, now it about half that.

We are staying over the road from the river front hence we have great views of the nightly light show that takes place in front of Parliament buildings. however last night a thunder/lighting storm arrived about 5 minutes before it was due to start so felt sorry for all those people lined up to watch it. I think it would be safe to say that the majority of tourist would be either local or Malaysian.

Another observation would be that once a building has been finished, then there is no upkeep.

Everything looks rather run down however the standard of vehicles are really high – no old or damaged cars at all.

It was an early start this morning – well for Neville anyway as we had booked into a kayaking trip plus a trip to an orangutan nature reserve as Neville had yet to view one hence it was breakfast at 7 and meet with the guide before 8am.

First off was to the Semenggoh Nature Reserve (30 minute drive from Kuching), roundly around 650 hectares and has been a reserve for around 80 years. It is now the biggest rehabilitation centre for orangutans in the Sarawak – with family trees displayed in the foyer. These made interesting reading as some orangutans just disappear and they have yet to find their remains. While they do feed them at set times in a designated feeding area, it is up to the orangutan whether they come or not.

Charts show when each organutan appears and often some don’t appear for months – often depends on the fruits and food available in the wild. As it is not fruiting season, we were lucky to see 4 adults plus one baby.

It was them off to the river – about another half hour drive away, where we meet another family – with 3 small children which made me feel as though the kayak wasn’t going to be too difficult.

The trip was about 10km, stopping a couple of times – once to walk up to a small waterfall – a welcome break to get wet as it was pretty hot, and another time for a snack and also to feed the fish – which ate out of our hands – it took a little getting used to. While the river was also a reserve, a fine of 500 riggets if you get caught fishing – the poor people of the village do have fishing rights. The village people farm the countryside – bananas, peppercorn, shimps etc.

We have visited during the dry season hence the river was low but understand if could be another 10 metres higher during monsoon period. We were also lucky that we were the only people on the river – so peaceful and quiet where next month they could have 3 different companies on the river and up to 40 people on a trip. We finished with lunch of rice, chicken, long beans made into short beans (their joke) and mixed veges.

Tonight we went back to the bar we visited last night for a drink. I think we will visit this bar each night and make it our local. We talked to barman and he as he lives a way a way (very close to where we went kayaking) , he doesn’t go home each night. as they don’ finish up until around 2am. Hence he doesn’t see his wife or daughter (6 yrs) for several weeks unless it is the school holidays, long weekends etc. As we are not night owls, we don’t see this side of Borneo life.

For tea we found a little restaurant called “The Junk” – which had old bikes and other memorabilia hanging around the walls etc. While we have been away for a couple of weeks, it is really only the last two nights that we have gone out to eat as either the dinner has been included or we have been in isolated areas and eaten in the onsite restaurants.

I went down to the infinity pool for my morning swim as I thought I would catch the sunrise – and it was beautiful – such a large red sun however I couldn’t get a photo of it as for some reason, when I turn the camera’s on in the mornings – they go all foggy for about 5 minutes before clearing hence I missed it – I am a slow learner as I have missed several good shots because of this.

We are staying in another little boutique hotel – The Ranee which is in the old part of Kuching and Chinatown. Lots of little alleyways full of gold shops, souvenirs shops and empty shops with the foot paths changing levels outside each shop. As it is so hot outside, sadly no pool for the next four days, we will go for a walk along the waterfront once it cools down.

I thought we had 3 nights here again after “The Culvert but while talking to the lady in reception this morning she queried what time we were leaving tomorrow so I did a quick check and …. yep we are leaving tomorrow – bugger as we were really enjoying doing nothing. This holiday is so different to others – very laid back with a lot of reading and swimming. The Cove doesn’t have TV and we haven’t really missed it however we will the people here and the food!!

I went for a walk back to the fishing this morning – and talked to a few of the people selling the fresh fish. It appears the fishermen go out at night, back by 8am and then onto the roadside stalls. So much for fish going off quickly as very few of the stalls had ice and the flies on the fish …………..

As it was so hot, I thought I would buy some fruit on the way home and thinking that bananas would be the safest option went to buy some from a roadside stall – $1 for a large bunch however the bunch was covered in ants so I took a photo of the lady and gave her the money instead – I didn’t think Neville would be too impressed if I brought an army of ants back with me. On my way I passed a guy on a scooter and he was picking up rubbish alongside the road – I must admit the roadsides are very clean however you can’t say the same for inside the villages – rubbish and lots of it (houses vary – some are very clean, brightly coloured and pot plants and weedeater surrounds while others are shacks with paint peeling off and surrounded by rubbish). I also passed a couple of guys in the back of a truck holding a large sickle – and then realised that they were also council workers and cutting the climbing weed off the power poles and lines.

This evening we went on a wetland cruise – again just the two of us however there was another couple of boats out but certainly not teeming with tourists. We enjoy these boat trips as it is so mild and just nice to be out on the water. We saw dolphins (just their tails as they dived), crocodiles (about 24 people a year are killed by crocodiles), monkeys and a large jelly fish (about the size of a basketball). We learnt that the little fish we have observed jumping from rocks to rocks, have legs are called mudskippers and as guide said – they live in two worlds – both the sea and the land. We had tea (chicken and rice) sitting out on the water quite close to a fishing village that was on an island. The village has a population of 400 – no roads so boats are the only transportation. Schooling is from Primary 1 to 6 and then if further education is had, it is off to boarding school. Ben, our guide, has 5 children ranging 23yrs to 2 months. He was one of 12 children and most families are still large – around 5 – 6 children. The population is growing rapidly but he didn’t think it was a problem. Ben left school early as he was from a large family and his family could not afford further education, however he taught himself English from reading papers, listening to TV and the radio and has been a tour guide for 18 years. After dropping us off, he drove back to Kuching (30 mins) dropped the van off and then another 40 minutes on his scooter before he gets home. I did query about Palm Oil but he said that tourist guides are forbidden to talk about it. Our driver from the Cove said that Ben was his tutor when he was a guide but his mother didn’t like him being a guide as it was too dangerous therefore he stopped being a guide and now is a driver for the hotel – a lot more mundane I imagine.

Alcohol is very expensive here (except for Tiger beer) – even a NZ$10 Aussie wine here is about $40 here and the 3 shots of Baileys that we each had tonight probably would have brought the whole bottle at home – no wonder they had a tennis ball size of ice in the glass.

Thursday 20^th June

While I love visiting these countries, I get so frustrated when writing blogs only to find the internet is crap and I lose it all.  I think I spent an hour this morning updating my blog only to find that it would save and then it all disappeared – once again.

Well today we saw a little too much sun.  We thought we had it covered – sunscreen and insect repellent but the sun was pretty harsh in/beside the pool.  While we are next to the sea, the sea is un-swimmable  due to the salt water crocodiles that live in the mangroves (yet we saw a local fishman walk out with a throw net , supposedly locals know how to hand the crocodiles) hence the hotel has two pools – the outside lap pool is open 24hrs which while it seems a great idea to go for a late night swim, it now seems too much trouble however as my foot is still sore, I have been having pre-breakfast swims – which I have enjoyed as the water is so warm as well as watching the sun come up.  The other pool is an infinity pool that is built out over the South China Sea – a beautiful place to spend our days.

It took us about 40 minutes to get here last night – it is quite a distance from Kuching and is in the middle of nowhere.  A small hotel that has been converted from an Iban holiday home and is slowly being turned into a function venue – with beautiful views and settings over the sea.  We love Grab (so quick and easy – no haggling over the fare, cheap, quick and prompt)  – it cost us 38 ringgits from the airport and tonight we overheard the wedding planner telling clients that they charge 160 ringgits for a car and driver – so fingers crossed we can get a Grab to get back to Kuching.

Saturday 22^nd June

Well today we leave here to go the Culvert for a night – which is only about 5km from here for the night and then we are back here tomorrow for another 3 nights.  We had to break our booking as the Cove was all booked out tonight for a post-wedding function (we found out they were the group in the restaurant on Thursday evening – a young couple who work in Kuching.  They were married this morning and then having a small family get together of around 100 people today at the Cove and then are planning a bigger wedding later in KL with over 1000 people. And now that we are back, we heard that the bride passed out before the formal part of the evening – too much red wine hence instead of starting at 7.30 the evening started at 9 with the function finishing at 4am – so everyone was feeling a little wary this afternoon) The good thing is that we don’t need to check out until mid-day so we have just been down for a swim and now will chill out until it is time to go.  It is a nice feeling to know that we are coming back here – very quiet and peaceful, beautiful surrounds and lovely people.

The Culvert is a surprise stay for Neville – as it is literally what it says – we are staying in a concrete culvert – maybe a new farm venture??

Yesterday morning we visited the Sarawak Cultural Village – a living museum with several examples of different styles of longhouses (different ethnic tribes had their own styles) along with a cultural show of dance and music.  A longhouse is basically a big building – normally long where each family had a room – a row of dwellings and a village street under one roof.

Each were quite different as some were built to last only weeks, some 10 – 15 years as they used up farmland while others who practiced more substantially agriculture would build for 50 years plus. Some were quite high off the ground (40 foot), some would have been built by the sea while others deep in the jungle.  The steps up was a log of wood with steps carved into them – steep and narrow with floors being bamboo sliced in half – presumably to let cool air up through the floors.

In the early 1900’s the Rajah invited the Chinese to come and farm as he wanted to build up a solid farming middle class and now a third of Sarawak’s population is Chinese as they continue to be market gardeners – the Chinese build their houses at ground level.  The Melanau people (who live in the high houses) prefer sago to rice and lived near the coast as the sago palms grew wild near the coastal swamps.  At each longhouse, the locals would sell products and here at the Melanau we brought some sago biscuits and had a sago pancake filled with what I imagined was palm syrup – really nice.

In one building we came across had a small fire going in the middle with a couple of skulls hanging high up.  This is how they used to shrinkage the heads when they beheaded the enemy.  Our driver told us on the way that his grandfather beheaded 7 Japanese soldiers back in 1945 – around the last of the beheadings.  He had learnt Japanese therefore managed to entrap them and then beheaded them.  He used a blowpipe with poisonous arrows (from the blue frog) and then shoot these quiet arrows into the enemy which would them paralysed their bodies for 10 minutes hence allowing the beheading to be undertaken.  We saw the blowpipe in action at the show – the shooter blowing thru a hollow wooden pipe and popping balloons at the end of the stage – no wonder the Japanese were very scared of the Borneo bush.

We also had a good talk to the day manager here and learnt that when he was working at the Hard Rock Café back in late 1900’s he served Jonah Lomu – who ordered and ate 5 servings of  ½ chicken and chips.  He then went on and said that Jonah was here as an ambassador for rugby and introducing the sport to the local people including himself.  He acknowledged that rugby taught him to manage his anger on and off the field and to acknowledge the change it made to his life, he showed us his Maori tattoo he has on one of his lower legs – in honor of Jonah.  This is the second person we have met (the other was the South African policeman in Durban who assisted us when I got mugged) who Jonah has made an impact on their lives.

Well, we have checked into our “concrete culvert” and even after a couple of hours I think I can safely say I don’t think we will be introducing these as a side line to the Parkfields enterprise.  Unfortunately, the internet here is worst than at the Cove so you will need to wait to see the photos.  The culvert is fine, it is going to be cosy and luckily, we had downsized to one bag as there isn’t a lot of room in the “culvert”. 

Thinking there was only one pool and a few loungers – a few hours before we left I went exploring and found the “adults only area” which is a bit of a shame as it was really nice hence I think our overall impressions would have been slightly different if we had discovered this earlier. Nicer decks and loungers however the pool wasn’t that much bigger.

Well we are back at the Cove – it nearly feels like coming home as the people here are so lovely. It seems we are the only guests in tonight so we had the pool to ourselves and no doubt the restaurant will be ours tonight as well. For some funny reason I can post a couple of pictures until it plays up so I will post this and hopefully be able to add photos when we get to Kuching on Wednesday.