Driving Tour to Miri, Sarawak

We decided to spend the Hari Raya holidays by doing a driving tour to Miri in Sarawak. We drove altogether 997 Km inclusive of all detours. This is just 3 Km short of 1,000 Km.

The driving tour would have been so much more pleasant if the 5 border Customs/Immigration Checkpoints could be avoided. Altogether, 10 passport checks/chops were required. Here is how the figure 10 comes about:

• 1st: Exit Sabah at Sindumin
• 2nd: Entry to Sarawak
• 3rd: Exit Sarawak
• 4th: Entry to Brunei
• 5th: Exit Brunei
• 6th: Entry to Sarawak
• 7th: Exit Sarawak
• 8th: Entry to Brunei
• 9th: Exit Brunei
• 10th: Entry to Sarawak (to Miri)

3 to 4 pages of the passports were used up just for one driving tour from KK to Miri and back! Since I was driving a car, there were another 5 rounds of vehicle registration check at each entry and exit of Brunei!

If the Proposed Pan-Borneo Highway which is currently being built is to follow the existing road alignment, that would make driving to Kuching both frustrating and annoying.

The Sabah/Sarawak immigration building is the most people-friendly Customs/ Immigration check point. The cubicle has no internal partition. Two officers sit side by side. One officer just passes the passport to his immediate neighbour after his checking. This is hassle-free and the process is so much more efficient and fast!

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Limbang, a small Sarawakian town situated by the River Limbang is trapped in between two halves of Brunei. Unless one chooses to fly in by air, anyone who wants to travel on land to visit this place must go through Brunei!

Old wooden shop houses are still aplenty in Limbang. The mode of transport for people from both sides of the river banks has not changed. Water taxi is still the most convenient mean.

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Quite to my surprise, Miri is so much more developed and bigger than what I originally imagined. There are many hotels of different star rating, the most prominent one is the Marriot.

Life here seems more relaxed and the city is more laid-back compared to KK. There is no sign of "illegal immigrants" in town and people in the service sectors are either Chinese or the indigenous Ibans and Dayaks. 

One can still savour RM2.50 per plate of char sou / minced pork mee at the market in Miri town.

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I was surprised to find out that the first drilling rig in Miri is on top of a hill in the city of Miri - the Canada Hill. The hill has a good bird eye view of the city of Miri. There is also a Petroleum Museum built next to the old oil rig.

Food enthusiasts will not be disappointed in Miri. We did try to eat as much as our stomach could handle. We found out that Lutong Cafe in Lutong serves good roast pork knuckles and asam fish.

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Many of the engineers we employ are graduates of the Curtin University Sarawak. We drove intentionally to Curtin campus just to have a look and get a feel of this campus ambience. In fact, one of my nieces is also a graduate from this campus. This campus which is tucked in a no-man-land is ideal for “isolating” the students from urban distraction and to “force” them to concentrate in their studies.

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Bandar Seri Bagawan, Brunei
Taking advantage of the open house of Istana Nurul Iman in conjunction with the Hari Raya festival, it was our intention to reach the palace on 19 July 2015 just in time for a free lunch. Alas, to our great disappointment, the crowd was just extraordinarily huge. It would take us may be another hour just to queue up for the food. We decided to forego this attempt and move on.

Istana Nurul Iman is recognized in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest living residence of a head of state. Here is a bit of the statistics:

• Total area of 200,000 sq. m. (2,153,000 sq. ft) of floor space.
• 1,500 capacity mosque.
• 1,788 rooms.
• 257 bathrooms.
• 5 swimming pools.
• 153 most expensive cars in the underground car park.
• 4,000 capacity banquet hall.
• Stables for 200 horses.
• Huge collection of art pieces including the $70 million Renoir painting.

Of the massive crowd who thronged the palace, it was not difficult to tell just who they were. The bulk were foreign nationals mainly from the Indian Sub-Continent employed in the construction and service sectors.

Together with our travelling companions, Donald Soh and his wife Rose, we posed in front of the entrance of the huge banquet hall of Istana Nurul Iman or Nurul Iman Palace.

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Lawas is a small little town in the north of Sarawak. By the time we reached this place on our way back to KK, it was already 6 pm. Nothing much can be said about this place except the Lawas River. The tranquility and serenity that one feel just by looking at the river is just perfect in soothing and relaxing a tired body and an over-worked mind. I wish I could have stayed there much longer!