Day 658: The Battle of Brunei I

20.10.10: Although when seven o’clock wheeled around with alarming speed I thought sod it and hit the snooze button.  Today I needed to fight my way through Brunei to the other half of Malaysian Borneo and a place known as Kota Kinabalu or KK.  I already knew what a frustrating and expensive experience this would be, but the 8am bus to the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), would be just as good as the 9am bus and damn I was tired. By 8.20am I was at the bus station, bright and eager to get the next bus to BSB. Which wasn’t until 4pm. What? 4pm. WHAT? Two buses a day.  One at 8am and one at 4pm. For. Heaven’s. Sake. Taxi it is then.  Miri is just a few km from the border, but the taxi driver managed to rip me off to the tune of…

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Day 665: The Battle of Brunei II

27.10.10: Urgh, I thought as my mobile blipped my alarm: not again.  Today’s mission – very much like last Wednesday’s, was to make it through bloody great boring Brunei.  By 7.30am I was down at the port for the ferry to Palau Labuan.  By 11.30am it had arrived.  The next boat to Brunei was at 12 noon, so I just had time to rush out, fill my boots with Nasi Goreng (spicy fried rice with chicken and eggs – it’s the best food around these parts). By 1.30pm I was back in Brunei getting stamped back in.  A taxi driver outside the port told me that the last bus for Miri in Sarawak, Malaysia left at 2.30pm, which gave me an hour to get from port Muara to the capital. Ha! The bus to BSB took AGES to get there: it was 2.50pm before I arrived. …

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