Miri's oil history is charted at the Petroleum Museum at the top of Canada Hill (which also affords bright and breezy views of a big swathe of Sarawak).

Right out front is the "Grand Old Lady", Miri's (and Malaysia's) first oil well, which started producing in 1910, and miraculously survived World War II intact. Shell, the company that did the original surveying and drilling, built the country's first oil refinery in Miri in 1914.





Piasau Camp was established in the 1950s to house Shell's oil and gas workers. When the company was due to relinquish the site to the Sarawak government in 2013, it seemed as though it would become another development of shophouses and condos.

But naturalists had already taken an interest in the area's population of oriental pied hornbills, and particularly in a patriarch named Jimmy and his mate, Faridah. Together, these two produced no fewer than 56 offspring. In a story worthy of Greek tragedy, Faridah was killed by poachers in 2013. But her death (mourned in a ceremony attended by more than 1,000 locals) turned out to be redemptive. It catalysed the community to press for Piasau to be properly gazetted as a nature reserve.

Hornbills mate for life, and Jimmy, by all accounts, was visibly shaken by Faridah's demise, but eventually he found a new mate, Juliet.

Piasau is a wonderful place. It's green and quiet: all you hear are the cicadas, the birds, and the rustle of various kinds of leaves in the breeze. We headed off to the hornbill nesting site marked on the signboard, and there we came across Soo Ping Ting, who may well know more about Jimmy and the park's other hornbills than any other human being. Whenever he can, he spends two or three hours documenting the behaviour of the hornbills and other fauna. His videos and photos are absolutely fantastic.

We talked for a while -- and then Jimmy arrived... He was bringing food for Juliet, who, for the purposes of incubating the next lot of baby hornbills, has walled herself into a crack in a tree, leaving just a small space for her food to come in and her waste to go out.








After you've walked, and watched, and popped into the interpretation centre, you can have lunch at the Hornbill Cafe. Really nice nasi goreng...

Just as we were leaving, we saw another hornbill, and felt very privileged.



Of course, oil made Miri strategically vulnerable during World War II. There are a few vestiges of this tough era, including the World War II Memorial Park, which marks the resting place of 28 people killed by Japanese forces in the closing months of the conflict.

Next door is a cemetery, with some graves dating back to colonial times.




It's a pity Miri doesn't have a city museum. There'd be plenty of stories to tell.