Lost in translation

Another case of waiting around at hotels and in airport departure lounges was to be had this morning before I finally arrived in Miri to start my adventures in Borneo. I arrived fairly late so I decided to head out and find some dinner, more difficult than first imagined I eventually found what looked like a nice Chinese restaurant and commited myself to eating there only to find that no one really spoke English and that the menu was all in Chinese! not the best start when you're hungry, anyway between 4 of us we managed to have some form of communication via hand signals, broken English and Malay with some Chinese thrown in for goodluck and decided on Rice and some beef kebab things as well as a Mango juice. All in all after feeling very lost in translation I managed to achieve a very nice meal and gave the staff their great amusement that I had obviously wondered in to a local restaurant!

Next day I had a good sleep in, in preperation for a lot of roughing it for a few days, then went in search of some breakfast/lunch and being a fool thought I would be safe with a french cafe chain but no I got some very odd pastry thing and some cold chips, so far food success in Borneo is very low!

Then after shopping for much needed supplies like Shampoo and insect repelent (I had to throw away the 100% deet as it ate through plastic bags and was having a go at my bag, didn't like to think what it was doing to me!) I headed back to the hotel and relaxed in the aircon for a bit as the temperature here is incredible. After a while my room mate arrived, Tania a New Zealander originally from South Africa who has already done the Sabah trip with some of the other people who are on our Sarawak tour. She needed to pick up some bits so bored of the terrible TV i headed out with her and another group member Pete, an English guy who teaches geography in Cairo, to explore all that Miri had to offer!

We ended up wondering round and round looking for the cash point in a shopping centre and eventually gave up and headed back to the hotel to for the group meeting. After the usual briefing we introduced ourselves, so we have 2 Belgian guys Thomas and Robin who have travelled a lot together 22 and 25 I believe could be wrong though! They also have already done Sabah with Tania who says they are 2 of the most hilarious people she has ever met, then we have Angie who is 50 something and decided to go off travelling for 9months, shes been going since March and has seen a big chunk of the world already including Sabah, a couple from Aus Michael and Sarah who are 19 and 23 and both at Uni, an English couple Catherine and Richard who are both teachers (all 4 have already done Sabah) and finally Bill who is 50 something travelling alone and has been going since April who has not done Sabah yet but is doing it independantly after. So I don't know if you gathered but i'm the only one on the trip going on to do the North of Malaysian Borneo which means even more names to learn! my head may soon explode! Finally we have Ryan our leader an Aussie who was born in South Africa and has been leading in Borneo for 18mnths and will be my leader in Sabah so I do take someone with me!

After the meeting we headed to an open air food market and had a fantastic meal before having to pack a small bag for the next 4 days of roughing it in Mulu national Park.