Life is pretty much the same as ever in Kuala Belait. Most of the house problems have been sorted out. We had to buy a new modem, which we now always disconnect after use so it won't be fried. We had a two week holiday in Sabah during the term break. Sabah is one of two parts of Malaysia in Borneo, the other being Sarawak, where we spent the "Christmas" holidays. People come from all over the world to Sabah to climb Mount Kinabula. We stayed in the National Park, and did a lot of the walking trails through the jungle, but did not feel quite fit enough to climb the mountain, which normally takes two or three days up and down. We met a lot of CfBT teachers there, some of whom were climbing and others who were just staying in the chalets with their families.
It is possible to drive to Kota Kinabalu (capital of Sabah) but it takes about nine hours. We were much happier to take the ferries. We spent a night in Bandar Seri Begawan with Don's family and he dropped us off at the ferry the next morning. The ferry goes to the island of Labuan (about an hour) where you can get another ferry straight to KK (about three hours) or do as we did and take a slow car ferry across to Menumbok (two hours) and then a bus to the town of Beaufort. One of the main touristy things to do in Sabah, apart from climbing the mountain, is to take an ancient train from Beaufort to Tenom on Borneo's only railway line. The whole trip goes along a river where more adventurous travellers do white-water rafting. Observing the rapids from the train dispelled any notion that we might take part in such activities. We stayed in Beaufort and Tenom as well as Keningau, another town on the way to the big city. We always enjoy staying in little towns like these, going for walks and trying the local food. But when we got to Kota Kinabalu, we stayed put for much of the remaining holiday, apart from two nights in the National Park. We stayed in a popular Backpackers place called Trekkers' Lodge. Very clean and friendly, and we could have a fan room, which we prefer to air-conditioning. For about A$18 they included a simple breakfast, free flow of tea and coffee and they had a little library where we could swap our books. Books are very precious things in this part of the world - very hard to find enough good reading material. As usual with such places there were a lot of interesting travellers from all parts of the world. We met a photo-journalist who had been staying there for months. He told us about some of the things to do and see, including a festival in a Sikh temple which was worth taking part in.
We had a couple of wonderful buffet meals at the popular Magellan Beach Resort and a not so wonderful buffet at the Shangrila Hotel in town. We also ate in a little stall at the night market where you get a plate of rice and serve yourself with delicious curries and vegetable dishes from a wide selection for just over a dollar.
One of the nicest things about Kota Kinabalu is the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park which is made up of a group of islands a short boat ride away from the city. We spent a day at the biggest island, Pulau Gaya, with some friends from Bandar, Sandy and Peter and their teenage daughter, who were staying at an "eco-resort" there for several days. We took them to lunch at one of the two restaurants in the resort. They commented on how cheap the restaurants were, but they were obviously comparing with prices at the Yacht Club in Bandar. We thought it was over-priced and not particularly good quality by Malaysian standards. Another day we went to Pulau Manukan, where the park headquarters are.
On the way home we stayed a couple of nights in Labuan, where Yoong has an old school friend who has been practising as a doctor on the island for about thirty years. She took us to dinner in the best Chinese restaurant in town, at the Pulau Labuan Dua hotel. (We had tried to stay there but couldn't get in, so stayed at the Pulau Labuan Satu, an older branch of the same hotel.) The meal was so good that we decided to get a later ferry home the next day and take our friend, and her mother, to lunch at the same place before leaving. An earlier meal in Labuan was not so successful, and I wrote a kind of restaurant review based on the experience. I am enclosing it as an attachment. It's the sort of thing that happens all too often in supposedly high-class restaurants that try to do western-style food.
When we got home we found that the phones were giving us a loud crackling noise and the internet was not working at all. Apparently there had been a huge storm while we were away with lightning striking very close to the house. The man from Telekom fixed it up without any fuss (unlike most of the workmen we have to contend with). Unfortunately the storm also wrecked our booster box for the television so that now the TV works perfectly half the time and not at all the rest of the time. We tend to watch a lot of films on HBO, etc., so it's a bit annoying when the box decides not to operate.
This month we are having our food catered, by our favourite Malay restaurant at the tamu (market place). Actually we asked them to cater for one person, and Yoong supplements it with odds and ends appropriate to her diet. Lunch is delivered at 11 a.m. (I leave for school at 11.45). It is normally rice with a curry of some kind - fish, chicken or egg, always with a vegetable side-dish. We had a delicious chicken biryani last Friday. Then the evening meal comes at 7 p.m. and is simpler - either dosai, rotis, chappattis or other Indian variations on bread, with the appropriate soups or sauces. Total cost for this luxury is $100 for the month. Of course it ties us down a bit, but if we do want to go out to eat, we can always put the food in the fridge and keep it for later.
At the beginning of each month we have to pay bills - for water, gas, electricity, telephone and internet. Some of these are only a few dollars, but you can't pay them by mail. You have to physically go to each office and stand in a queue to pay them. This takes up two or three mornings each month. The other problem is that, although bills are sent by mail, they never arrive on time. If you wait until you actually receive your bills there will be interest to pay, so we always have to ask them to check their computers and print out the current bill for us. We have never yet had a correct electricity bill given to us. We read our own meter and calculate what we owe before we go there, get the bill from them, work out what errors it contains and explain to them why the amount is wrong. They then change the printed amount by hand and we go to another counter to pay. For example, the first time we went to pay electricity we were owed a credit because they had been estimating our usage until then. But they told us we had to pay that amount. We eventually got through to them that they owed the amount to us and it was to be deducted from our next bill. Other people we meet there paying bills seem to have the same problem so it's nothing unusual.
There is a thing going around by e-mail called "You know you have been in Asia too long if ..." I enclose it as an attachment. I don't understand all of the references but some of them are just so true. You will probably understand a lot less but it may give you some idea of what it's like to live in Asia. I must say a lot of it is not true of Singapore - but then who wants to live in Singapore?
We are expecting a visit from our old friends, John and Enid Becroft, in July. Our niece, Stella, visited us from Singapore this year. Well, really she was visiting her boyfriend's family who live in Brunei. And last year the Tanizaki family visited us. So we do get some guests. There is quite a lively expatriate community here so there are things to do, but we miss the kind of cultural activities you can get in Melbourne or Europe, or even Singapore. But it's an easy life here, and the best accommodation we've ever had, so we should have no trouble sticking it out until the end of next year.