Well, that one day, turned out to be the 29th of November, 2008. Actually, Rosli, my offshore friend from Lawas invited me to explore Mulu Caves together with him. I was quite excited about it! So, I invited Amelia and Adam along. We planned all we could: such as how many cans of sardines to pack into our bags, how many boxes of chocolates to bring to the Longhouse, how many ‘special drinks’ should we bring to our gracious hosts, or whether we should bring torchlights, slippers, gloves etcetra.
So, at 3am on the 29th of November, 2008, we started off from Wangsa Maju to KL Sentral. From there, we took a bus to the LCCT and flew to Miri. We arrived after 2 hours. By 10.30am, we had already reached Miri airport. At 12pm,when Rosli arrived, I was only too happy to see him! Along with him, was Asrin, Rosli’s cousin, who drove all the way from Lawas to Miri. They drove all the way down from Lawas at 6am and only arrived after 6 hours! What a long journey!
So, after lunch, we set off for Brunei. Because it was such a long journey, I fell asleep in the car. I missed the Jelutong Park, which used to offer free admission fees and free rides to all visitors. However, due to the economic slump, it no longer offers free entertainment.
By 3pm, we arrived at Bandar Seri Bagawan, the capital of Brunei. The town looked sleepy. I felt as if I was in the land of Sleeping Beauty, where everyone was asleep, waiting for the Princess to wake up; as if it was still the wee hours of the morning, the hour before the sun rises. It was dead quiet. There were only a few cars on the road, only a few shops were opened. The most surprising thing was, the whole town looked void of human beings! It was such a far cry from our everyday life in Kuala Lumpur. The constant hustle and bustle in the heart of Malaysia has not prepared me for this at all! Where are all the people? Where have they gone?
Surprisingly, it was a Saturday, on a weekend. Perhaps, everybody was having a Sabbath on a Saturday; a day to rest after a week of hard work. That was the only reason I could come up with. It sounded most feasible to me. When I voiced out my thoughts, Asrin told us that in fact, in Brunei, weekends were on Friday and Sunday. People here worked from Monday to Thursday, and rested on Friday, the Holy Day for Muslims, went back to work on Saturday, and rested on Sunday again, the Holy Day for Christians! Well, this kind of working week may sound heavenly for some, but to me, it would absolutely disrupt my workflow! I can’t work for 4 days, rest 1 day, and continue working. My nicely built up momentum for work would be utterly fluctuate to high ups and downs, never reaching its optimum rate.
As Asrin drove us around town, I was excited to spot the famous Gold-Dome of the Mosque in Brunei! We stopped at the Brunei Waterfront, snapped pictures and stepped into the compounds of Masjid Omar Ali Saifuddin for a short visit! The ‘lake’ was so big and it even had a mini spraying fountain at both ends of it! Surprisingly, the mosque has been around for 54 years and it still looks so clean, white and new! Bruneians really take good care of their heritage!
We wanted to visit the museum, but we had no time. No sooner had we found a nice spot to park Asrin’s car, which was right in front of the market, we received a summon from the local authorities. We spent about half an hour searching for the police station, looking for any dark blue buildings. When we finally found one, we stomped into the police station, demanding an explanation from them. It took 1 hour for them to search for their comrade who issued us the ticket. We found out that the reason that we were issued a ticket was only because we had park at a spot designated for taxis, instead of private cars! The police constable, who was probably in his mid-30s, came up to us, and gave us a long lecture, “Didn’t you see the sign? Only taxis allowed? Next time, don’t park there!” barked the police constable.
“Duh!” In our hearts, we silently rebuked him. If we had seen the sign, we wouldn’t have parked there! Besides, there were several cars with Brunei number plate on it, and we didn’t see any summon tickets on them. For a moment, we felt that we were unjustly discriminated.
“Fine!” we thought. “Let’s just pay the ticket and scram out of here, quick!”
We told the inspector that we would gladly pay the fine. That, too, took them several more phone calls, and another hour before we could pay the 50 Brunei Dollars to the police. Then, we had to wait another hour for them to issue the receipt. When everything was settled, all of us scrambled into the car and sped out of this country!
Dealing with civil servants in this country is really not a very pleasant business. Things crawled at snail’s pace as if we had all the time in the world. By the time we reached the border between Limbang and Brunei, it was already 8pm! In fact, the number of cars waiting in line to go through the border exceeded a hundred that we decided to walk through the border instead. Our poor friend, Asrin, had to wait in the car and drove through. Meantime, we savoured our first taste of Limbang food at a local hawker centre.
The moment I arrived at the hawker centre, I noticed there were several Malay and Chinese stalls, selling food side by side. I was impressed! So, this is Sarawak! One would never have seen this scene back in Peninsular Malaysia! Imagine that! In our local universities, we fought for years to have a Chinese restaurant in the premises of the university and our requests were always rejected, on the basis that the authorities could never trust that the food that the Chinese operator would sell would be halal and came from a reliable halal source. The matter was never settled and we continued to have halal food until we graduated. Talk about being open-minded. True harmony exists right in the towns of Sarawak, far away from Peninsular.
As we sat there, Rosli informed us that alcoholic drinks in Limbang was dirt cheap. One could get 4 bottles for a mere RM 12! We had a wide range of choices from Tiger Beer to Carlsberg. Some places even add in another bottle for the same amount! Adam welcomed the news with open arms and broke his rule of not drinking whilst with his girlfriend. He ordered a bottle of the bitter drink, clanked bottles with Rosli and gulped down a whole bottle of Tiger Beer. When Asrin finally arrived at 9pm, we waited for him to finish his dish of nasi daging merah, and headed for Rosli’s Dad’s house.
In the dark of the night, we arrived at his dad’s house amidst the loud conversation between the frogs and crickets, hiding in between the bushes and trees. We were served delicious banana cakes, Milo cakes, mangosteens, langsat and rambutan! Ever since the durian season in July, I haven’t touched these fruits! Thus, I eagerly reached out for them, one by one.
That night, we stayed at one of the inns in Limbang, which cost only RM 60 per night. The moment I hit the bed, I slept like a log. All of us had been travelling the whole day. We were knocked out. We didn’t care where we slept. If worse came to worst, we could even have spent the night in the car.
1 comment:
nice stories tp pictures x banyak...hey...jom pegi sumwhere tugede2...
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