Hanging out with Harry

On wednesday I went to Bako National Park. It's just a short bus ride from Kuching and then a short boat ride from the river to the park HQ's which is on the ocean. Turned out to be one of the better parks I've been to in asia in terms of do it yourself. They had extremely well marked trails with color coding systems and signs telling distance every 100m's. So this meant you could actually go out and explore on your own without a guide. There was still the asian protectiveness present in which you had to write down in front of a ranger exactly where you were going and then sign back in, but that was no problem. I'd much rather do that than have to hire a guide that always assumes you are a lazy out of shape tourist. The park is famous for seeing wildlife like monkeys as well as for containing 14 of borneo's vegetation types. I wasn't too concerned with searching for wildlife or vegetation as I had seen plenty of the species they had there. Instead I wanted get out and get my feet moving as I had been rather sedentary in Kalimantan. The park listed all trails in hours, but thankfully also in km's as I am a better judge of distances by km's than whatever slow person decides on the timing. I had gotten up early to get the first boat to the area and headed off along the main trail. I hiked past the main wildlife trail and the popular beach and kept going to an alright viewpoint of the coast but then onto a nice little waterfall with beautiful refreshing water to swim in. From there I headed onto a beach further on. Had it all to myself, and hung out at the beach for a bit. It had taken me about an hour and 15 mins to get there (there guide said it would take 2.5-3 hours), so I got a good idea of how they measure the time. There was a beach further on, 10km from headquarters that they said could not be done in a out and back in 1 day--you'd have to camp or get a boat to take you back. This sounded perfect to me as I knew no one would be out there and 20km (12.5 miles) roundtrip is pretty easy, even in the high humidity and heat. The beach was pretty with some nice views of the islands off the shore. Of course jumped into the waterfall on the way back and then even had time to go to the viewpoint of a beach inaccessible by cliffs and then down to the popular beach for a quick look. It was a very pretty beach as well with jungle all around and cliffs surrounding it. It was quite busy as it is the main beach they send tourists to since it's close by. On the way back I did even see a couple long-nose monkeys in the mangrove forest. The tide was way out so the boat couldn't dock at the jetty and you had to walk about a km out onto the beach to get it. That was a pretty long walk as it was in the full sun and I was pretty darn exhausted from heat. I had expected to get to wait in the shade by the visitor center and get a cold drink.

Back in Kuching I downed a tasty thing of coconut milk to revive myself and then met Harry. The plan the night before had been to go to his sister's house for dinner, stay at his place, and then the next morning go check out a beach nearby. But when he picked me up, plans had changed. He had a neighbor who works at a fancy resort on dumai beach and had given Harry a good deal on it, so he had booked a room there for us. First we had a snack at an indian restaurant in kuching and then Harry took me to his house for a shower and to hang out for a bit. He had a very nice, modern house. It was full of common things from home like National geographics, western cd's, inspiraitonal calendars, etc. After freshening up there we went out for some beers, and then he took me to one of the most chic restaurants in kuching called the Junk. I ordered some pasta, but Harry changed my order to a big steak, which was very tasty, indeed. Then it was just a 1/2 hour drive to the dumai beach resort, a very nice and fancy place.
The next morning there was a spectacular buffet breakfast (though not as good as the american club brunch, except that it had teh tehrik and roti canai) and we just lounged around the ocean and the pool.
On the way back he called up malaysian airlines to see about a flight from kuching to miri. In kuching they speak a kind of malanglish (think spanglish or singlish) and I could tell that he was tryin to buy a flight for me so I wouldn't have to take the overnight bus, even though this late (the day of), flights are quite expensive. The flight left too early before we could get there, which I think was for the better b/c I would have felt bad about this simple malaysian man paying for a ticket like that. He drove me to the bus station to get my ticket and I went in ahead of him to make sure I could pay for my ticket, but he had already pre-paid for it or something b/c the cashier wouldn't take my money. So yes, Harry was an extremely generous man. I had a good time with him. He's older (late 50's) but very youthful. He sings along to all the new pop songs on the radio adn wanted to know about the clubbing scene in thailand. But just a really, really nice man. He invited me to come back anytime and he'd show me around more, which I appreciated, though I don't think I'll be back to kuching as it's not much of a transport hub and I've been there twice now. He's planning a trip with some friends to Hong Kong for Novemer where they already have a place to stay and he invited me to that. It's intriguing to go, but my travels have taken longer than expected and I don't think I'd want to give up a week of something I really want to do in indonesia or laos or something to go to a very crowded city, plus I'm hoping to have met up with the Conrad and Whitney at that point. But I will of course keep it in mind.

I took the 16 hour night bus from kuching to miri last night and arrived in Miri at 5am as I had hoped b/c I had a flight to mulu at 9:30 and I wanted to drop some of my excess baggage off at the tour company. But it turns out the tour company had not booked my plane ticket when I asked them to a couple weeks ago, so the flight this morning was full. The good news is they got me a ticket for the afternoon. I'll still get to do everything on the tour b/c if you had the morning flight you had what they call free and easy time at the hotel and then lunch before starting the real tour, but it's still a bit frustrating b/c I would have much rather been up at mulu national park which is in the mountains and rainforest then in the oil city of miri waiting around. But the good news is I will get there and Gunung Mulu national park is supposed to be one of the best national parks in all of SE asia, so I'm very excited about it.