Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Borneo: daughter for the return home.



There are many racial groups in Sarawak, Ibans, Bidayu, Kelabit, Malays, Melanau, Belawan, kayans, Knya, Belawan, and the nomadic Penans, and the Chinese.

Here is Sam greeted by the beautiful dancers at the Wildfower Restaurant, where a buffet dinner and show was part of our package. The Wildflower Restaurant is home to their own, well known dance group, the "Seri Melinau Dance Group", performing traditional dances from the region every evening at 8:00pm. I lalughed when the natives danced the traditional Chinese lion dance.

When we booked our tour, it was MR 859 for foreigners, and MR759 for Malaysians. It is luxurious with 24 hr power supply meaning air conditioning to cool your room. This is important if you want to feel comfortable especially when we have arrived from the middle of winter. Check up the web because today, I read the package is MR759 only.


This is one of the many limestone structures in the Lang cave. Lang was a local person who discovered the caves in the 1970s. More on this in future posts.

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I left Sarawak in 1975, and during these 34 years, I can count with my fingers the number of times I had returned for a visit.

This trip I made was to the Mulu caves. A birthday present to my son Sam. It was to be a Mum and Son's own amazing race. I have not been to these caves, a world heritage. The water engineer suggested we should do this as our last leg of our journey of our trip to Brunei, Singapore and West Malaysia.

It was the grand finale of our trip. The royal treatment given by the Royal Mulu Resort, a 3 star hotel in the jungle, the arduous tours to the caves by the Tropical Adventure, led by their guide, a local Iban, Antoli, and the magnificient greatest of the limestone and limestonecaves made me feel very proud to be born a Sarawakian. Completing the four tours including non stopping climbing of 200 steep steps gives me special sense of satisfaction and achievement as the oldest swinger in my group of fifteen..

I will be posting more on this trip when I have recovered from my jet lagged.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I told a traveling partner that I wanted to go to Mulu caves..she laughed at me, saying I could lift a leg after climbing and jungle trekking in Kuching and now I want to go to Mulu...wait, I will keep fit soon..dont know when. Happy weekend Ann :P