On Sunday we arrived in Dalat.



Then, yesterday morning, we caught the 0700 bus to Mukah (our third visit, but the previous two were by car). By bus, the journey takes about 1.25 hours.

There's a little cafe at Mukah bus station that'll sell you a reviving Sarawak latte (with gula apong). And if you're really lucky -- we were -- the Kingwood will let you check in, despite the earliness of the hour.

We had a pretty lazy day in Mukah, I have to admit. We were aware that we had a long journey coming up today, and didn't want to end up too exhausted.

But there was time for some wildlife photography:



And time for a morning walk and an evening walk:




Having added an extra night in Sibu on the grounds that the Saturday boat didn't run, and having then added a night in Dalat and a night in Mukah, we decided to bite the bullet, and do the whole trip back to Kuching in one day.


I was keen to travel by Kapit Express again (having had good experiences with them on the way out). But they don't go from Mukah (or at least not when we wanted them to). So we decided to get someone else's 0930 to Sibu, break for coffee (another opportunity for The Coffee Code!!), and then use the 1345 Kapit Express to cover the rest of the distance.

This turned out to be a good move. I would not have wanted to spend too long on anything resembling that first bus...

True, Kapit's bigger buses don't give you quite the generous legroom you get on the smaller ones. But the seats are comfortable (and, as an added bonus, they're covered with fabric, not plastic); the aircon is effective; and they keep to time (we stopped just once, at Midsar again, for dinner and toilets, and were pulling into Kuching Sentral exactly on schedule, ie, six hours after we'd started).


So, it has been a good trip. At the end of the day, I like rolling along from place to place. There's a freedom to it that sedentarism never quite matches.

But now we're back, and I hope -- so hope -- things are going to be a bit less noisy round here...