Sarawak, Day10-11- "RIP!"

Tuesday 10th August 2006:
We woke up early again to continue our journey back to Kuala Berar. Another 8 km walk into deep jungle. However, after the Pinnacles, walking 8 km on flat ground didn’t matter at all. Uncle Richard and family left the camp much earlier then us. We waived good by to Uncle Annad and continued our walk. The place was so muddy and wet; we slowed down to avoid our shoes from getting stuck in mud hole. But finally when the rain started pouring heavily, we ignored everything, and walked as fast as we could to Kuala Berar. Upon reaching the hut did we realize that leached had attacked us while we were running away from rain…the real rain! Yuck!

10 minutes later the boat arrived and we jumped in with our bags feeling exhausted. We were now going downstream with the current, with lesser people on the boat. It was suppose to be a smooth ride. But unfortunately, the water level was still low, thus the boat struggled again and we ended up jumping out of the boat to push it, again! This time I was really tired and could not keep with the group. Finally, after jumping in and out of the boat continuously, I just gave up and remained in. Mean, but I can’t help it. After sometime, the water level was high and it was only Bagio and the assistant that jumped in and out to push. Finally, for a bout 15 minutes upon reaching the park headquarters, the boat went really smooth and we just laid back enjoying the wind with tinny dropped of rains falling on our faces.

As soon as we reached the jetty we headed to our hostel, bathed, washed our muddy clothes and then went for our lunch at the cafeteria. Then we headed back to our room, applied deep heat once again and rested till 5 o’clock.

Since we had nothing planned today, we decided to take a walk outside the park even with our penguin/moon walk. Rain and Sara mentioned that there was a grocery shop outside the park selling things cheaper then the cafeteria. Hence, we decided to check out by our self. After walking up and down the road for 30 minutes, we soon discovered that Mulu town was just a long stretch of endless road with one airport, a restaurant, a church and police station and a grocery shop that hardly had anything but sold things very cheap. Everyone that by passes us was staring really hard. Probably it was the first time they encountered Indians.

After walking for sometime, we headed back to our park for dinner. Too tired, we actually skipped it and headed straight to bed with our deep heat applied all over us.

Our last day…..
The next day, for the first time in 10 days, we actually woke up late. Our leg and arm were aching really bad despites the help of deep heat. We officially became the penguin that was doing the moonwalk. We hardly could walk, sit, climb up stairr or down without a little cry.

Feeling too exhaust, we took our breakfast at the cafeteria. Unlike the rest of the group, our flight was only at 3 o’clock so we decide to go for another activity, Canopy Skywalk, which was supposed to be the world longest tree based structure. We waived good-bye to our dear friend and headed to park office. I really miss their company especially Elius!

We went to the park office to go for the canopy walk. First we need a guide to go there and ours happen to be Philip. Next, we have to pay RM60 to to walk on the hanging bridge! It’s awfully expensive, yet we took the tour anyway. Along with us was another couple from Mulu resort. We had to use the same path that Jenny took us two days a go. The canopy walk in Mulu is a bit different as walk way hang 20 meters above the forest that has been connected with 15 trees to form a circular route with separate exit. It was indeed scary as we doing the moonwalk.

The canopy walk:

The walk did not take very long. At about 12 we headed back to our dorm, bathed, packed and left to the airport. The flight was supposed to depart at 3 o’clock. It was the tinny Twin Otter plane again. But this time there were more passengers in it. The flight took off pretty good. However, just couple of minutes on the air, as our plane was heading towards Miri airport, the clouds turned dark, and followed by thunder and lighting. The moment the pilot bypassed the dark clouds, the plane started to shake. In few second, the shaking become harder and harder till everyone on the plane got panicked and was holding on tight to their seat. The stewardess informed us to remain seated and buckled up. Seconds later, there was another hard shake. A lady next to me went hysteria and started to scream on top of her lungs. At that point, almost everyone on the plane would have thought about the plane crashing.

ME at hostel, all packed to go home

Plane that almost killed us

The pilot was either brave or may be cuckoo to continue the journey on that weather. Upon reaching Miri airport, the pilot tried several time to land but the plane could not prolong with the strong wind and fierce clouds. It only made the plane to shake harder then before. After several attempt, the pilot gave up and headed to the sea. Sea means crash! And with the lady screaming next to me, I actually thought we were going to crash, for real. Instead, he took a long turn and then headed back to the opposite side of Miri’s runway. There were absolutely no changes in the weather but he tried his best to land anyway. Finally after several attempt, he took a sudden sharp dive, roughly landed on the runway and furiously braked till we could smell the rubber from the burning tyre from inside. The landing was really terrifying; we were deliberately clutching the seat for the fear of getting thrown out of the plane. The plane landed on the ground safely. The moment the pilot announced we have safely landed in Miri’s airport, everyone on the plane cheered for the pilot. He did a good job. Upon us getting out of the plane, almost everyone at the airport rushed to the plane.

This was indeed the most bizarre experience I have ever gone through in life. Feeling so bad, we had no mood to do anything, anymore. We only managed to go to the market to buy local fruits and walked around. An hour later, we called Pak Cik to take us back to the airport early. Our flight was only at 10.45 p.m. but due to bad weather, it was delayed till 11.45 p.m. Hence, we only reached LCCT at about 1 o’clock in the morning. Lucky us, the last bus to Sentral was actually waiting for our flight. We took the bus and headed straight to Sentral where Pa was waiting for us worriedly. We reached home at about 3 o’clock; indicating our trip to Sarawak finally came to an end.

It’s strange how something that begin well turnout to be such bad ending. Anyway, there is a saying, at the end of the journey, if there are no happiness, sadness, tears, separation, anger and so on, hence, we have not completed our journey well. Indeed we did and it was the most amazing one and could not have been done without the help of our guardian angels that stood by us all the way. God bless them.