Away We Go!

BKK-->Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)-->Miri (Malaysian BORNEO!)
Oct 2, 2010

The morning found Josie, Emily and I a bit tired and groggy. Not only had we just been uprooted from our homes for the past year, but we'd just had quite a late night. We met up with our friends Jade, Pok, Panda, Tony, Alex, Sam and company and went for some dinner at a cool outdoor restaurant at the Suwanlua Night Bazaar. It was really fun to listen to some live music and unwind after all the goodbyes. After some delicious Thai food we made our way to BarBar where we watched Panda do what he does best, DJ. Next stop was our favorite club, Narz for some more tunes and we found ourselves dancing our way to Wong's which was a new place for all of us. It was a small little hole in the wall that you could easily walk right past, but when you walked in (and your eyes adjusted to the smoke) you found yourself in a seemingly war-era pub with photos and paraphanalia covering the walls and surrounded by a crowd of eclectic people who may or may not have come from said era as well!

Anyway we got ourselves in a cab and made our way to the airport to begin our journey to Borneo. You're thinking...Borneo?! What? Where? Why? Don't worry we were thinking the same thing. It's amazing how a cheap flight promotion can take you to a jungle island in middle of nowhere. I have to admit though I was pretty excited--gotta take advantage of the opportunities as they arise! We arrived to KL safe and sound and met up with our friends Josh and Neil who were teachers with some of our friends in NE Thailand and who were also heading on a Bornean journey. It was nice to have some more recognizable faces to hang out with as we waited for our next flight.

After a short flight delay we ended up in Miri in the Sarawak province of Borneo which, even though is a part of Malaysia, we still had to go through customs at. It's okay though--it just means more stamps for us! We were able to find some cabs to the city center and found some beds at Minda Guesthouse. The city of Miri was definitely more built up than I had expected, which wasn't much as I'd envisioned Borneo as only containing jungle. Famished, we made our way to get some street food: greasy, saucy sandwiches hot off the grill. We gorged ourselves and then headed to bed for Emily, Josie and I had a morning flight to the part of the trip I was most excited for: Mulu National Park. Yes, I think we were going to like Borneo.