Road trip! The first since our epic journey to Bintulu in December 2020.

This time the intention is to push on past Bintulu to Miri. We haven't been to Miri since March/April 2019, and we've never travelled there under our own steam. So that's the goal. But we're taking it very slowly. There's no point in rushing a road trip.

For the sake of clarity, I'm going to organize these posts into days.

Day 1: Monday 4 July

The hire car (the self-same one we used for that Bintulu trip!) arrived promptly, and we were off by 10.15.

Kilometres on the clock: 72,199; today's target: Sarikei.

There were quite a few sets of roadworks to negotiate on the coastal roads. Also notable was the construction of water towers, in jolly colours. The number of swiftlet houses does not seem to have diminished...


We couldn't have lunch in the spot we found last time, but we just pulled off the road a bit further on. Cheese bread and Brie, cinnamon apples and coconut chia pudding -- pretty good.


By 1250 we were on the Batang Lupar ferry. These ferries still only cost MYR 1 per trip (less than GBP 0.20); and they have handy little toilets (MYR 0.20 extra).





I drove for a stretch after this (and why does it always start raining when I get behind the wheel?), but we swapped over before it was time to board the Saribas ferry (even when I was driving regularly, I had a horror of getting cars onto boats). We were rolling off again just before 1500.


After this our route diverged from last time. Rather than taking the third ferry, we headed for Sarikei via the Pan Borneo Highway (PBH). What, you're wondering, that route we love to hate? Yes, and frankly, this stretch -- which we'd not done before -- didn't change our opinion. There's still no dual carriageway (miles and miles of the other two lanes seem to be complete, but you can't use them); and there are still masses of "lencongan" (those chicanes that take you round something not yet completed), where the surface can be quite rough.



So why did we inflict more of this on ourselves than we absolutely had to? Because we wanted to pop into Sebangkoi Park for a walk and a little break.

Excellent idea -- except we drove straight past it...

Yep, you read that right. If there was a sign, we didn't see it, and we hadn't even bothered seeking directions from Google Maps because we thought it was going to be so straightforward.

Never mind... There's always the way back. And it was a bit rainy today anyway.

So we bowled straight on (although "bowled" is perhaps not the most appropriate word when the PBH is involved), which meant that we arrived in Sarikei a little earlier than our scheduled accommodation check-in time. But we whiled away the spare hour very pleasantly with a visit to The Coffee Code, which we'd liked on our last trip. Good coffee, excellent cheesecake: what more could you want?



We overnighted at Primaces Avenue. Don't be put off by the fact that the middle floor of the building is occupied by a "confinement centre" (that's the babies type of confinement, not the incarceration type).


The accommodation part is very pleasant. There's plenty of space; everything functions; there's a communal kitchen for making cups of tea and the like; and our room did a good line in sunsets:



We covered about 250 km today, so we were glad to have an early night.

Day 2: Tuesday 5 July, aka Tynwald Day

Tea and a nicely garlicky mee pok for breakfast. As we ate, the cafe staff were adjusting the prices of the dishes (upwards, of course). Inflation is hitting us in Sarawak too. Still, our meal cost us just MYR 9 (GBP 1.70), so you can't really complain...



It's about 0715 by now. And it's about a three-hour drive to Belawai beach (another deviation from our 2020 route).

If you look at the map, it seems to be no distance at all, but as I explained last time, you have to do a massive dogleg round Sibu, because there are just no roads to take you more directly. We shared the driving, but I had the easy bit. Once you're through the jams of Sibu, there's little traffic, and it's rarely in a rush.

It was definitely worth doing this detour, as Belawai is really lovely.



The old guys at the next table engaged us in a bit of conversation. Around here the people are mostly Melanau, they told us. And they're a bit disappointed that the international tourist trade doesn't seem to have recovered yet. We've heard others saying that.

After which, beach-walk time:












We headed off next to take a look at Tanjong Manis.

Puzzling... What happened here, I wonder... The sign at the jetty says "Welcome to Tanjung Manis New Town", and it looks as though it was once supposed to be very grand, with broad avenues, beautiful gardens, and concentric semi-circles of quite elegant commercial properties. Well, the gardens are still lovely, and the small number of available eateries are humming, but the avenues are all but deserted, and the elegant buildings have become swiftlet houses (indeed, this had already happened by 2011...). There's a general air -- in this part, at least, of what is a very extensive project -- of things gone south.

This source was already suggesting in 2009 that the future of the boat wharf would be in doubt once the road from Sibu to Tanjung Manis had been built. By 2013, the Borneo Post was claiming: "Tanjung Manis, long a favourite hobby horse, has begun to run out of steam. The oft touted 77,000-hectare swathe of coastal land earmarked to turn Sarawak into the home of a hub for all things halal has slid off the developmental agenda... Tanjung Manis isn’t a goner yet, but it will be worth it to watch what happens to this sinking ship."

In 2021, Urban Planning, Land Administration, and Environment Assistant Minister Datuk Len Talif Salleh noted that more needed "to be done to ensure that the Tanjung Manis Economic Growth Area (T-Mega) would continue to develop not only economically but also to improve the livelihood of the local community". His assessment continued like this: "If you ask me, of course I'm not satisfied (yet) with the development process for the last 31 years but I am still happy. This is because I understand that we had encountered various difficulties and challenges which contributed to the hiccups of the progress."

Positive notes are still being struck. There's this report from earlier this year, and this came out just this week. But we're still using the future tense, and talking about plans...

Time will tell... In the meantime, it's all quite photogenic, in a dystopian sort of way:









Anyway, we journeyed on, heading for the ferry that crosses Batang Paloh:


And so we found ourselves, as last time, on Pulau Bruit. This is actually Malaysia's second-biggest island, and although it's not exactly a tourist hub, we had originally located a place to stay overnight. This would have been very interesting, but unfortunately, its actual availability turned out not to reflect its listing on Bookings, so we had to cancel (this was quite hassly, but I'll skip over all that).

We did do a quick detour down the road towards the would-have-been accommodation, with a view to reconnoitring it for next time. But it was all taking too long, so we gave up the attempt, and headed for the ferry that would take us off the island.

Pulau Bruit, therefore, with its wide swathes of secondary growth, remains a mystery (although you can easily read about its development controversies on the internet).


Getting off the island requires another ferry, across the Muara Lassa:


We were on the road again by 1550, heading for Daro, where we stayed the night at the Long Heng Inn. Again, don't be put off by the fact that its frontage is taken up by a giant "mini market". This is a fine place to stay, with plenty of space, and better amenities than you sometimes get in more expensive places.


We headed out for a bit of an evening walk. We think some of the old wooden houses must have gone, and some new edifice is rising in the central area. But the township still has plenty of pretty houses, with neat, colourful gardens. We were slightly surprised to find ourselves the centre of attention. This didn't happen last time... Anyway, after a few photos and conversations, we were back at the inn, pretty exhausted after the 280-km journey and the hot day. I'll close with a couple of pictures of early-evening Daro: