Boats, busses, and bad karaoke (Jan. 3/09 - Sibu, Borneo, Malaysia)

We were a little skeptical as to whether or not a boat would show up at 8am to pick us up this morning like we requested, as it seems that things easily get lost in translation here. Sure enough, a guy came in a little powerboat around 8:30am to take us back to the park entrance. The ride was completely opposite to our trip in at ultra low tide, as this morning the rollers coming in off the South China Sea were at least 6 feet high and they were breaking all the way up the mouth of the river. Not much makes me more nervous than big waves in a small boat, but luckily the driver quickly proved that he knew what he was doing. We rode the trough between two waves on a diagonal until we were far enough out from the beach, and then he gunned it so that we were going the same speed as the waves, dodging in between crests when it looked like one was going to break on top of us. It was a relief to get far enough up the river that the water was flat again, and the look on an outgoing boat load of visitors' faces was priceless when our driver shouted at theirs to be very careful of the big waves, making big hand gestures with it.

Back on solid ground, we ended up waiting almost 2 hours for a bus to come (supposedly running hourly?) and it was so full that we had to stand for the whole 45 minute ride while locals pushed into us and the driver kept alternating between counting his received fare money and sleeping rather than looking at the road. In Kuching, we caught another local bus that took us out to the long distance bus terminal, located on the edge of town. Our timing was perfect, as a Greyhound-type bus to Sibu was leaving in 20 minutes, so we bought two tickets and wolfed down a plate of noodles before climbing aboard.

The bus ride to Sibu was about 7 hours long, connecting a couple of towns in the southern corner of Borneo that skirted the Indonesian border, one degree north of the equator, and then veering west to the ocean at Sibu. Most of the scenery we passed was hilly jungle with rural farm houses and a couple mid sized towns. We passed palm oil plantations and rice paddies, and drove through a couple monsoons that turned the road into a river. Our lack of sleep last night (thanks to a relentless monkey gnawing on our roof) caught up with us, and we both dozed off for a big chunk of the trip. We pulled into Sibu just after dark and met a nice local guy named Luke at the bus terminal who offered to drive us to our hostel for the same price as a taxi. He lives here with his family and spends four months at a time working out on the oil platforms 16 hours by boat from Sibu. Ugh, and I thought the ferry to Zanzibar was bad! He not only waited for us to make sure that the hostel had room, but he gave us his phone number in case we needed another ride or some help in any way. Everyone is so friendly here - always eager to help and do their best to speak english and get you pointed in the right direction.

Tonight's hostel was the cheapest one yet - $11, and it has an ensuite washroom! Ahhh, luxury. From the outside, we never even would have considered going inside, but the good old Lonely Planet named it as the best choice in town, and luckily they were right. We found a cafe nearby for some dinner and noticed that around every corner you could hear really bad karaoke emanating from a club or an open window. Then when we flipped on the tv in our room (see - luxury!), the sole channel was showing a Malaysian version of a show like American Idol, where each person was singing an American song and acting in the most cheesy home made music videos you could imagine. Maybe we're better off without a tv after all!