Ramadan in Malaysia, part 2 : One way ticket to Paradise

July 2016
continuation of part 1

Miri

Ready to board the Eva bus

After two nights in Bintulu, it was time to move on. According to (once again) Google map, a town called Miri seemed like a good idea. It is a second largest city in Sarawak and a major transport hub and (potentially) interesting to explore but above all; it is near Brunei border – so very convenient.

We took a long distance bus run by a local company – Eva. It was the name that made me choose this company. Bintulu – Mira route is run by three or four different operators so there is no shortage of competition with a coach leaving every half hour. The trip took four hours and was partially bumpy but nothing we couldn’t manage. The scenery was (hmm…) monotonous.. mile after mile of palm oil tree plantations.

Monotonous scenery? Good excuse for coach selfies

Once in town – I don’t have so much to say about Miri, other than – we didn’t click … after only half an hour of explorations we found nothing interesting to explore and gave up looking for excitement spending the rest of the afternoon and evening in a mall getting well deserved pampering. We wanted to leave first thing in the morning. But where to?

The alternatives were to get on a bus and continue to Brunei or jump on a plane and fly to a duty-free paradise island Labuan and then take a ferry from there to Brunei. We chose the latter.

Labuan

Swedish beer anyone?

Labuan is being promoted as a duty-free paradise but turned out to be a huge disappointment. Yes, you can get any alcohol your fancy may desire but this is pretty much it. There is nothing else to buy, duty-free or otherwise. Hoping for a new camera body at a bargain price I wanted to check photo equipment. Nothing. One teeny tiny shop selling old stuff for the same price as in Dubai. Luckily I didn’t make the trip especially for that for it would have been a total waste of time.

The island itself gave an impression of a recent prime time but that prime time is over now. Lovely resorts but no one cares for them anymore. Outdated facilities and equipment. No new investments. Hardly any tourists. Too many taxis. Most visitors were Bruneians that came to the island to spend Hari Raya with their families … and taste some of that duty-free booze.

Tankers off Labuan’s coast. Dirty Beaches

Perhaps the reason for Labuan’s decline are hundreds and hundreds of vessels only a couple of hundred meters off its coast.

Ironically, from the photographic viewpoint the seen is absolutely amazing but unfortunately cannot be conveyed in one shot only. I tried many times and failed every single one of them. To understand the magnitude of the ongoing operation an aerial shot is needed from a chopper or even a drone.

Two (or was it three?) days later I left Labuan and Borneo with somewhat knotted stomach … of an unaccomplished mission and somewhat saddened … by the feeling that something was amiss and that I may never be back to mend it. I felt the need to go back .. but I didn’t.

Malaysian Borneo

We all associate Borneo with adventure and jungle. I didn’t experience either but instead spend my time touring cities that were of little interest to me. How could that happen?

Jungle telegraph.

Apparently, there isn’t much of Malaysian Borneo jungle left. The jungle is now replaced by palm oil tree plantations. I saw them from the bus. Kilometer after kilometer. Small patches of the jungle that are still there are turned into high-end resorts for tourists with deep pockets to … enjoy the jungle – artificial jungle.

At the same time solo travelers are discouraged and at times not even allowed to take trips on their own but forced to join organized and super expensive jungle tours. The jungle is no longer the jungle. ‘The Jungle’ is very commercialized business now.

To experience real jungle, you need to go to Brunei .. or so they say.