Yesterday was an afternoon-transition day, and for people using public transport, these are always a bit trying. We were due to catch the 1400 bus to Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), the capital of Brunei. We'd booked the tickets in advance via Easybook. The route is operated by Sipitang Express.

We started well. Breakfast at the Purnama, as usual. Then a quick trip to the laundry to deal with the dirties that had accumulated since we lost access to our trusty washing-machine in Labuan. Then a bit of chilling back at base, because you don't want to end up hot and sweaty before you even get on the bus. Then back to the dining-room for the hotel's set lunch, which was really pretty nice (and very good value).

We'd decided we needed to be waiting for the bus by 1330. You never know with buses... In various parts of the world, we have known them to arrive in places early, and just bash on, unheeding of the folks who have trusted the timetable. Better early than sorry, we thought.

Now, you need to know that Limbang -- which in all other respects has been a very fine place to stay -- is not blessed with the bus station it deserves. The buses that run between KK and Brunei -- as we had ascertained the previous day, by means of a little mapwork and a quick conversation with the lady operating the adjacent nasi katok stall (this is a rice dish of Bruneian origins, but I won't digress) -- go from here:



Anyway, we waited. The scheduled time came and went. It's warm and humid and airless. Remember that thing about not getting hot and sweaty before you even get on the bus? Well, that boat had sailed about 20 minutes into the wait...

By the time we get to 1430, still busless, we feel some action needs to be taken. We can't initially raise the Sipitang Express contact in Limbang, so we try the KK office, and explain what's going on (or rather not going on). The first lady says she doesn't know, but will find out and call us back.

Your heart always sinks a bit when someone at the other end of a phone line promises that. We start researching private transfers to Brunei, but come up with disconcertingly little. It's that border that's the problem...

But the Sipitang lady is as good as her word. After 10 minutes or so, her colleague phones back: The bus has been caught up in very heavy traffic on the Sabah-Sarawak border, and it won't arrive until 1515.

It's Sarawak Day, you see. It seems half the state went to celebrate in Sabah, and they're all now coming back. And yes, there is a "border". It's all Malaysia, but Sabah and Sarawak are different jurisdictions. You don't just cruise from one into the other.

Hmmm, not good, we thought. Because Limbang, you'll remember from my brief geography lesson in the previous post, is located between two bits of Brunei (a country in its own right). So our border-battling bus, having got into Sarawak the first time, will then have to cross into Little Brunei and out again, in order to reach us here in Limbang. So many borders, we thought. So much opportunity for delay...

The lady at the nasi katok stall is very sympathetic. And it seems a good moment, despite our more than adequate lunch, to try her pandan rolls... We've just chomped our way through these when Mr Sipitang rings back. I've got more recent information, he says. You can't expect the bus until 1630...

OK, so that's not good news. But how nice of him to phone. And at least we know we can abandon our roadside position for a little while, and go and get something to drink. We explain it all to the stall-lady (who must do the most fantastic nasi katok, because she's been busy the whole time we've been there). Aduh, she says... I'm sure she's seen it all before, positioned as she is.

We've already spotted a cafe across the road. So we shoulder our bags, and head on over:



So that's a gloriously comfortable interlude, but come 1600 we feel we ought to be resuming our pozzies at the bus-stop. Just in case the bus has magically made up time...

We're back again, we say brightly to the nasi katok lady. We buy a few more of her snacks to take with us on the bus (kuih pinjaram, aka penyaram, to be precise). It's going to be well past our eating hour by the time we get to Brunei...

A bit later, the lady who actually makes the snacks turns up on her motorbike. She saw us out walking yesterday, she says. Story of our lives... She says we speak good Malay (we don't). Our little quartet (us, plus stall-holder, plus snack-maker) discuss our plight. There's one pack of kuih pinjaram left, and their creator insists on gifting them to us. Awww...

Still waiting, as 1630 comes and then goes...

At 1650, Mr Sipitang calls again. Bless this man. It's so kind of him to keep an eye on us like this. Another 20-25 minutes, he says. But he sounds kind of confident this time. We feel the end might be in sight.

And it is. At 1710 the bus is there! It rapidly disgorges its one alighting passenger, and sucks us up into its chilly insides. The staff are remarkably chipper, considering they must have had one hell of a journey... And we're off. Just over three hours behind schedule.



It's a pleasant ride to the Malaysia/Brunei border (the picture at the top shows us crossing the Sungai Limbang).

In terms of timing, the journey from Limbang to BSB would normally take about an hour and 45 minutes, taking into account the double border crossing (out of Sarawak, into Brunei).

There are no problems on the Sarawak side of the border, and we're all off the bus and back on again in two shakes of a lamb's tail.

When we reach the Brunei side of the crossing, however, it turns out that fewer than 50 per cent of the bus passengers have completed Brunei's mandatory pre-registration... (It's available here, in case you're heading this way yourself.)

So those of us who've pre-registered are through in minutes, but then it takes nearly an hour to process the rest... I hesitate to be too scathing, because you never know when you're going to be in the same boat, arriving at a border, and finding out you've missed something, or done the wrong thing. But heck -- this is a pretty easy one. And you ALWAYS have to check the rules and regs for international borders...

We've both shoved our earphones in by now. I'm deep into Elizabeth Hand's Generation Loss, and Nigel is already through the selection of music he thought would take him right to BSB, and is loading up some more.

But finally we're under way again. And by 1945 we're pulling into Sipitang's terminus, which is Gadong Night Market. Tempting though the aromas are, we're fit only for bed at this point. Brunei has a Grab equivalent called Dart. We'd downloaded it in advance, and armed ourselves with some Brunei currency back in Limbang. So getting to our accommodation was easy. A brief ride through the burbs, and we're at Al-Afiah Hotel. It's 2000; it's 6.5 hours since we left the hotel in Limbang...


We definitely still bounce back, which is good. A nice long shower, several gallons of water to drink, and a good night's sleep, and we're pretty much back in the bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed category.

I wouldn't want too many journeys like yesterday's. But along with the hot, hot wait (at the roadside) and the cold, cold wait (on the bus at the border), you remember the lovely people: The nasi katok lady, the kuih lady, the cafe folks, and -- particularly -- the heroic guy at Sipitang Express in KK, who really went well beyond the call of duty on our behalf.

And this morning brought excellent news: Al-Afiah provides the most amazing breakfast (always a good way to make us love the world again).


And then you wander down to their nearby jetty, to check on the shuttle boat into town:




And you're all excited again... The power of travel.