Miri & Brunei– General Impressions:
The city of Miri is a bit dreary. There isn’t much to see in town and the streets are not laid out for walkers. The city is trying to market itself as a resort destination and they have begun massive construction near the waterfront with very nice apartment and shops in various states of completion, but it doesn’t seem that they will be filled anytime soon as there are any number of large high rises that were recently built that are completely empty. The waterfront is also not at all tempting as the beaches are filled with trash and the water is filled with pulp from the timber factories and oil residue from the oil fields. The marina is tucked away and while there were boats in it, when we were there we didn’t see any people and the one restaurant was all boarded up and looked like it had been abandoned awhile ago. Miri is and at present remains an oil city, regardless of the resort hype they are trying to promote.
That said, Miri is a good base for getting to places in the northern reaches of Sarawak and to Brunei. It is much cheaper to fly to Miri than into Brunei, even from within Borneo. The taxi for two of us on an all day excursion to Brunei’s capital cost about $140. Brunei is a fascinating country and definitely worth visiting.
The Sultan of Brunei was once the ruler of most of northern Borneo, but through a series of events involving the Dutch and the English and then the results of WWII, he lost most of his territory. The current Sultan rules only about 1 % of Borneo’s landmass, but it is a very rich 1% as it has oil, with Shell Brunei oil drilling happening directly off a beautiful white sandy beach, timber in abundance that they seem to be wisely managing in order to keep their forests healthy, and lots of sand that is the kind needed for computer chips, which they are currently not using but are keeping in reserve for when the oil runs out. This tiny country is very rich and the Sultan’s palace dwarfs Westminster or the Belvedere. Our driver stopped at a very posh resort to show us how 1% of the top 1% vacation. The swimming pool was the size of a small lake, champagne was ready to be poured into flutes for Sunday brunch (& this in a very Muslim country!), and the three storied open floor plan lobby was in beautifully crafted marble. It was stunning, but more than a tad ostentatious.
Much simpler and nicer was the jungle walk at the Archeological Park that winds through the tombs of some of the former sultans. A couple of silver-faced langurs greeted us as we made our way down a set of stairs into the dense brush. The path curves around taking in a variety of habitats, from hillside to mangrove swamp near the Maritime Museum, then back up to more stable terrain for the most important Sultans’ tombs. The museums, which are supposed to be wonderful, were unfortunately closed for renovations, so we didn’t get to see any historical artifacts, but we did stop by the Royal Regalia Museum, which is an amazing display of personal propaganda. The Sultan is made out to be super-human and semi-divine with his huge entourage accompanying him on state ceremonies. Even Queen Elizabeth doesn’t have this much personal propaganda going for her. The Sultan was always shown as the benevolent ruler of his people. He was not shown as a family man, and his children were left to one display hidden in the back of the museum along with their mother, the Sultan’s wife, who was in perhaps one photo with him in the front, but that was it. He was portrayed as larger than life and I found it odd that there was no mention of the crown prince, who by all rights should be the next ruler as the current Sultan is soon to be 68. As much of the country’s wealth is in the Sultan’s hands, it would seem reasonable to expect a public succession plan. Meanwhile, however, the country appears to be doing well. They are maintaining their primary forests within new national parks and are looking at creating more. Their beaches are in much better shape than those in Miri, and the clear-cutting for palm oil did not appear to have destroyed their forests along the Pan-Borneo Highway.
In the opposite direction from Brunei, lie the Niah Caves. While they are not the largest caves on earth, that honor goes to some in Vietnam, they are huge, both in distance across as well as in height.
The Great Cave & Painted Cave: when Barbara Harrisson found it in 1958, the Great Cave was littered with boat coffin containing human skeletons accompanied by shell ornaments, glass beads and imported ceramics. The interior wall of the Painted Cave was drawn with paintings stretching over 50 linear meters. The wood coffins have been dated between 0-780 AD.
To get to the caves one has to take a small boat for less than a minute across a crocodile invested river. It seems that all rivers in Sarawak are filled with crocodiles and we were told that about a month ago a villager had been attacked by one, had been pulled under water and was killed. When the sign states, “Watch out for crocodiles” the authors aren’t joking. Once across the river, the adventure begins with about a 3 km walk on a raised platform through the jungle underbrush. Along the way we saw all kinds of fascinating insects including six inch red millipedes, two inch pale centipedes, a tiny lace-white triangle flying creature that jumped when touched, three different kinds of tree bark insects, one of which was iridescent green and another creamy white, and lots and lots of yellow, white, black and white and tan butterflies. It was difficult to see the birds through the foliage, but they were quite audible as they complemented the cicadas’ tunes. The path wove through a limestone forest where the rock, trees and moss intertwined into one syncretic organic mass rather than three separate forms. Towards the end of the path there is a small hut where local villagers sell their products as well as Sprite and Coke. The Coca-Cola company is truly everywhere! After the rest stop, there are a series of stairs leading to the first cave, the Trader’s Cave where Chinese Merchants would come to collect swallow’s nests and eggs from the local people who had harvested them. The great cave is filled with swallows, bats and butterflies, but only the swallows produce the nests and eggs that supposedly have medicinal qualities for Chinese medicine. The locals climb up on 30-40ft. bamboo stalks to scrape the nests off the underside of the cave ceiling. This is incredibly dangerous and many people are hurt or killed in the process, but as the money is good, upwards of $300 for a large load of the nests, people with limited means will do what they can to earn it. The bat guano is also collected and used as fertilizer, and while this is less dangerous, it also pays less.
The Niah Caves do not have a particular endemic species the way the Dark Cave in Kuala Lumpur did, but it does have the largest grasshoppers and beetles I’d ever seen. The grasshopper was the size of a large man’s fist and the beetle was larger than mine.
The great cave is traversed via a set of staircases that go up and down through the rocks. Bat guano gets stuck on the treads and as the caves are normally moist, the stairs are quite slippery. I had visions of landing on my butt amid the stinking mess, but luckily that didn’t happen. The guidebooks say to bring a torch, a flashlight, and this time I actually followed directions and was glad to have done so. It was pitch black in the cave for about three-quarters of a kilometer until the path opens out to a couple of places where the sun can shine in from above before reaching the opening at the end of the Great Cave. At the back of this cave there is another set of stairs leading down, across the jungle floor, then up again to the Painted Cave. This cave has a fresco that is almost now gone, which depicts what I think is a shipwreck. There were some fragments of wooden coffins left in the cave, but most of the artifacts were removed from the site and taken to the Sarawak Museum in Kuching. The painted cave coffins are supposed to be from sometime between the beginning of the Common Era to the 8th C. and the fresco is dated at about the same period. The fresco was a bit of a disappointment, but the setting is beautiful as the cave opens out to a cliff that looks over to another lush green covered mesa on the other side. The way back is the way in, through the slippery slidey dark stairs to the forest filtered light at the end of the cave tunnels. The Niah Caves alone would make the trip to Miri worthwhile.
