I arrived last night after a lengthy journey from The Netherlands. Miri was as expected warm and damp but then at about 11PM the heavens opened and it started to rain. By the time I got to sleep at 4:30 AM it was still raining, not that the rain kept me awake, just the time zone difference.
By the time I woke at 9AM the rain had stopped. After breakfast today I wondered around the Marriott hotel grounds. The hotel is fairly modern and has everything that you would expect of a 4 star hotel including the high staff ratio typical of Asian hotels. Although from the photo 
alongside it looks as though the hotel sits on the beach there is actually a sea wall behind the position where I took the shot with substantial waves crashing onto the shore, thus no swimming in the sea here !!!
The bedroom wings are two storey affairs looking onto gardens. I have a ground floor room and from my balcony I look onto some typically luxuriant gardens while beyond the foliage there is just a glimpse of the 
sea. A walk to the end of my wi
ng leads to this wider view of the bay and a manmade headland. Very brown surf at the moment, I assume that this is caused by silt outflow from the river following the rains.
Lots of sports facilities here although the hard tennis courts have numerous pools of water on the surface and look unplayable to a European eye. There are what appear to be giant squeegees at the fence so it may be possible to push off the water. .
However the small football pitch looks another matter altogether ;-)
