I got up at 07:30 like a good little trooper. I was instructed to be ready for a tour into the national park by 08:00 and ready I was. Actually we were on the waterfront before 08:00 waiting for the travel shop, Borneo Interland Travel, to open. We found a bench across the road in the shade and in the morning heat we found it a pleasant respite. The shop was due to open at 08:00. The tour was due to depart at 08:30. While we waited for the shop to open I dozed on the park bench, resting my head on Ian's lap. Curiously we attracted some attention whilst waiting and some people said 'hello' and enquired as to what we were doing. The police didn't seem to object to our lounging presence 'though. At 09:30 enough was enough. We had waited in anticipation for over an hour and a half. We recalled seeing an alternative address and telephone number for the travel shop and walked to the Merdeka Palace, a hotel complex, in the hope of finding someone to speak to. This time we striked it lucky and found a man who explained to us that Tuesday 4 March is a public holiday this year in Kuching and the shop wouldn't be opening because of it. Anyway we were consequently too late to go on a tour today but would be able to go tomorrow. Our outbound flights to Kuala Lumpur were scheduled for 12:30 tomorrow so we departed the tour desk in Merdeka Palace in an effort to rearrange our flights.
We made it back to the hotel after a hot chocolate and muffin, where we stayed for approximately 4 hours reading our books. Then, as the power to the building had gone a while earlier and we had grown hotter and stickier in the hotel room without the comfort of the air conditioning, we took our flight tickets to the Malaysian Airlines office, some distance away, in the heat, to find that their office was also closed due to the public holiday. We tried to contact the freephone number by public telephone but the telephones weren't playing our game in dialling the number. There was a rat running around in the gutters nearby. We walked back to the waterfront and made the mistake of having some food and drink at the Holiday Inn. The service was very sour and my MRN 8 coke was barely half a 330ml serving and was served to me warm and flat. We were also directed to a dirty table which still had a former customers glass on it, still containing some drink. I expect a lot better from Holiday Inn restaurants, certainly more for MRN 47, than a grubby service station cafe. Ian took the opportunity to contact Malaysian Airlines from his mobile telephone and rearranged our flights tomorrow to early evening instead of noon. So then we walked back to Merdeka Palace to book our tour to Bako National Park tomorrow. The guy wasn't around but Ian managed to make arrangements via the hotel telephone.
Finding the Merdeka Palace to our liking, especially its cool temperature, we stayed there for the next 3 or 4 or 5 hours, flitting between the coffee shop, the Queen Victoria pub and the italian restaurant. While drinking expensive beer in the pub I put together a plan for the next two weeks in Malaysia. Concentrating on something constructive also helped me divert my attention from the horrendously repetitive live band that were rehearsing very loudly in the pub.
We splashed out on dinner finding ourselves being very frivilous spending MRN 100 on one meal, without alcohol too! That's almost twice the cost of our accommodation!
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.