Maggie's Visit and Mulu

Maggie came for a 2 week visit in early October and we managed to do a fair bit of exploring together. We did all the usual Miri haunts (all detailed here in previous blogs), but the highlight of her visit was our trip to Mulu.(Howard was away in the Netherlands)

First our flight - 30 minutes from Miri into the interior.....

You can see the oil palm plantations and their destruction of the jungle. Every inch of ground has been squared off

Here's the hotel we were staying at seen from the air as we landed. Our baggage arrival...

And what did we find? A lovely resort in the jungle, with a pool..

amd very nice rooms.


This is our breakfast spot....and the bridge over the river to get to the hotel.

Lovely staff and entertainment

The canopy walk - 60 metres up.....

The caves....complete with Ab Lincoln..

...and a few million bats. We had 2 attempts to see the bats. They won't come out when it is raining, which was the case the first night we were there. So second night, second attempt. Long walk in but well worth it.

You need to be fit to visit all the caves...this is to Clearwater cave, from Wind cave. The 200 steps up was a bit of a hike.

Lots of opportuity to get on the water. The river the hotel was on was a very nice quet flowing river, but the main river was a different story. Can you see the meeting point between the smooth and the muddy, rough water here? - this is the intersection of the 2 rivers. From the boat you could smell the mud in the water. Touch hairy actually...

Our destination was a longhouse, where they were busy making rattan strips for weaving


The baby is asleep.....

No school age children around, sadly, as they all have to weekly board at another village.

Another boat journey took us to a longhouse with a little craft market and this lady selling nose flutes..I bought one but my nose is not flat enough...!

.....this is a video of said lady...note the pieced ears.

And finally some of the creatures we came across..

Sights on Bikes in Vietnam

We were constantly amazed by the ingenuity of the people in getting as much as possible loaded onto their bikes and motor bikes. Here is just a selection of what we saw...

Day Out from Phan Thiet

We took a trip from the hotel with a driver and guide to explore what the coast around Phan Thiet had to offer. First up was a series of Champa temples on the headland....

..followed by this amazing river, called the Fairy Stream by the locals. It is a warm shallow sandy stream running down through the fields to the sea, constantly eroding the sandy cliff it runs past. It was quite magically walking upstream, wading in the warm water and looking at the amazing colours around you. Fresh water crabs too.

Howard was persuaded to take a dip in the waterfall at the end (for luck we think!)

Finally a walk back through the paddi fields.

These coconut husks were being collected for firewood.

There was a local fish sauce factory at the entrance to the stream where we were invited to wash our feet and have a drink. I went and had a good look and smell at the jars.....fermenting fish...lovely!

On then to another fishing village and a walk on the beach to view the fleet. These coracles are used by the fishermen to get to their boats.

And finally onto the dunes...could have been Oman! But no, they are close to the coast and moving all the time. The local kids make an extra dong or two by renting plastci sledges to slide down the dunes.