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Ok! here we go! It's been another eventful week for me here in Malaysian Borneo. Since my last post, I had gone to Bako National Park, spotted some really cool animals, including a bearded pig and lots of different monkeys. Now I find myself in the small town of Kapit, 160KM down the river from the costal industrial town of Sibu.
So, since Bako, I have been hanging around with two girls called Louise and Lerina, from England and the USA. We return back to Kuching (the state capital that I flew in to from KL), and stayed at a much better guest house than the one mentioned in my previous blog entry. The place was called Trackers, and it was awesome. We had a full DVD day there in there cool laid back lounge, met loads of travellers, and drank lots of 50p beer :) We also had a pretty entertaining night, going out on the town and having some rather serious drunken debates until the whole bar was deserted and the staff were all packed ready to go home!
So, after 2 further days in Kuching, we grab the speed boat from Kuching to Sibu. A 4 1/2 hour journey, that would otherwise take 8 hours by bus. Man was this boat fast though, we were hauling ass, and I worked out in my head that we were doing rufely 40KM/h. After this journey, we decide to straight away grab a connecting speed boat to the place I am at now, Kapit. Which is inaccessible by road from any of the major towns.
So while we have been here, we have not been up to much. Kapit is so small, the population is 6000, and I even think I could walk from one end to the other in less time than it takes me at my home village of Somersham. But man, what an amazing town it is. In the 3 days we have been here, we have only seen one other tourist, but the crowd are missing out on such a cool, friendly town... and that is the way it should remain! Everyone here is curious about you, and walking even a few minutes from the centre, brings a celebraty feel, as people come out of there homes to say hello to you, kids run up to you and ask you were your from, and one person even comes to pose for a photograph with us! very very strange indeed!
Since we have been here, I have also experienced my first Asian Karokee bar experience, and man, what a bundle of laughs! very drunk and very bad singing along with the locals until 2, 3 in the morning. Although sadly, we did have abit of a drama on one of the nights, some guys turned up at the bar at like 1 in the morning and the atmosphere just changed. They were friendly, sure. But they were too friendly towards my friends, and one of them decided to touch my friend in the wrong way, who promptly slapped him around the face. This guy then went nuts, smacked her, and sadly a fight ensued. I come back from the toilet, and promptly held back by about 4 people, I am like "what the hell is going on?!". We knew it was time to leave, these new people were doing drugs only 10 minutes ago in the toilets. So my friends promptly leave the building, accompanied by an extreamly apologetic staff and punters. Ya see, confrontation is not what is acceptable here, as it makes people lose face by being aggressive, disagreements are usually resolved by just walking away. There was alot of embarrisment not just for the bar staff, but also the punters in there. They hated leaving a bad impression on visitors and were even telling me not to dislike this place because of what happened to my friend. But this did not stop this mad man who hit my friend telling me to punch him, which took some restraint on my part not to do. Whilst he was tugging me on my arm and trying to jusitfy his actions, I am reasoning (and agreeing) with him to try to keep the situation carm and give my friends time to talk with the staff outside the bar, as all i want is for all of us to get away as soon as possible. The other side of me, is the bar staff and random people trying to free my arm from him. In the end, I leave without getting a punch from this nut case, although even still I proberbly would not punch him back, as that would of aggrevated it even more by giving him what he wants (a fight). For sure this guy lost alot of friends that night. Although i have no idea what his background is or what he does.
However, it did not end there.
This karokee bar did turn out to be a little bit dodgy. There was drugs being done there, and we think some of the girls in there were illegal. This is the only reason we can think that the very mention of the police had us followed all the way back to our room, being begged to stay and not to call the police. This random guy just turns up and continues begging us not to call the police, telling me that the police are no good because we are tourist etc. We even had someone guarding outside our hotel for a while. Making sure that we did not leave. I leave about an hour later, to go to get some water. I am promptly met by someone in a car who was in the bar, asking me to please go back to my room. I of course do as I am told.
Messed up i know. So some drama there, I am glad we did not call the police and used our brain. We had no idea what we could of been getting ourselves into if we did call the police. I guess when you are travelling, you gotta try and stay out of what happens in the places you are at. The town is bloody amazing though, its just a couple of people who were out of hand at a dodgy Karokee bar that you would find anywhere. We had another Karokee night last night, and it was by far the friendliest, most amazing night ever. Just us and about 10-15 locals. All partying, no hassle for the girls, everyone left smiling and happy. This one experience at this dodgy bar has not changed our opinion on this peaceful, friendly town. But with every place you go to, there is always something dodgy going on somewhere. Ya just gotta be smart and stay out of things as much as possible and not threaten random people in a bar you are unfamiliar with with the police.
So, now. We plan on leaving tommorow morning to a even smaller town called Belaga, which also is only accessable by a 153km speed boat journey. From here, we plan to walk and hopefully get invited to someones long house. Then, we will take a 4x4 down a series of old logging tracks to a place called Bintulu, which is near the coast again and about a 6 hour bus drive if we went straight from Sibu to there. From here, I plan Miri. Then a one way flight to Mulu national park, to see the biggest caves in the world as featured on BBC's Planet Earth. Followed by hopefully chartering our own boat back for the 12 hour return journey to Miri. Then through the small country of Brunei (30km ride) to get to the other state of Malaysia (Sabah) by road. From here, who knows. I will be proberbly south east Borneo in a couple of weeks, and am thinking about going further east to the Indonesian island of Suluwesse. But this can all change of course :)
Anyway, if your still here. Thanks for reading, check out my further blogs in the coming days and weeks!
Chow for now!
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