Army Memories and The Boat Ride

Day 3: Tuesday, 23 April 2013 – Lawas to Bandar Seri Begawan - 54km (plus a boat ride)

Team RAB Day 3 Route

Rahim woke up in quite a bit of pain. Yesterday he’d pulled his neck and the situation seemed to worsen through the night. He conceded to allow me to carry the excess baggage. We decided to carry on at an easy pace, hoping his neck would loosen up as we rode. Before beginning we had fruit and coffee with a plan to travel 27km to the Brunei border for our first stop. As soon as I loaded up my bicycle, a woman walking past on her way to work gave a thumbs up. I took it as a good sign, but as the day unfolded it turned out to be quite stressful.

By 8am it was quite hot. The highway was surrounded by lush green wild plants, but none of them provided shade. This section is well developed and modernized. There was very little happening along the highway and I began to wonder when the ‘adventure’ aspect of the ride would actually begin. Kalimantan...still a few weeks away.

Our base camp manager had been concerned about us making all the check points along the route. There are four checkpoints as we cut across the winding border between Sarawak and Brunei. He was here on a four wheeled adventure a few years back when things were less developed. So far, thankfully, the checkpoints have been too obvious. Due to the relaxed attitude, the staff might be off to a tea break, so it would be easy to pass through without a stamp. It is really the traveler’s problem because without the stamp they’d be turned back.

Base Camp Manager’s / Editor’s note: was more than a few years back. Even the road from Sindumin, Sabah to almost the border of Sarawak was just a dirt road back then. I remember it was a 12 hour drive from KK to Miri.

Before passing out of Sarawak we had a meal and took some time to study the maps. Having read that Brunei is a very conservative country, I opted to put on a sarong before entering. I appreciate people who enjoy fashion, but I’m not one of them. Even so I knew this outfit was a bit ridiculous, it fulfilled a function: keeping as much of me covered as possible. And it brought my temperature up a few degrees.
The first indication that we were in a new place was the signage. The main lettering is in Jawi a script adapted from Arabic to fit the Malay sounds. It came over with trade and religion a while back. Some signs include a transliteration, while others include other scripts like Chinese.

Over lunch Rahim told me about his time serving in the military. Singaporean men are required to serve for 2.5 years, or spend that same amount of time in jail. Ra did some special training in the jungles near by and remembered his boat trip in many years ago. He wanted to retrace his steps and take a boat to Bandar Seri Begawan. I was unenthusiastic, irritated even, because I wanted to cycle. I tried suggesting that we split and meet up the next day, but that isn’t what a team does. It took a while for me to come around. Ra was willing to ride on. After watching him wince every time he moved his arm or neck, I accepted that the best decision would be to get off the road.

Heather at the jetty waiting for boat to

Bandar Seri Begawan

On the boat, to distract myself from the disappointment, I enjoyed watching a family play with their daughter who was just learning to walk. I was a bit surprised to see her mom with hair exposed, in a t-shirt, and wearing shorts the same length as my cycling shorts. In the city I saw women dress more casually and some school girls in uniform without their hair covered. (On Peninsular Malaysia it is usually covered.) I can’t take my shirt off to cool down the way Rahim does, but I think it’ll be safe and not too disrespectful to carry on in my cycling attire.

The boat to Bandar Seri Begawan

A former student of Rahim’s helped us find a youth hostel which provided comfortable rest for the night. Brunei is the fifth wealthiest country in the world due to an abundance of oil and natural gas. The economy is linked to Singapore’s with an exact 1 to 1 exchange. Each country has their own printed money, but Brunei accepts Sing Dollars. We knew it would be expensive, so it was a great help to have a contact to point us in the right direction. It was easy to find, but we arrived just after the receptionist had stepped out for a few hours. Ra sweet talked the office into allowing us to shower, do laundry, make coffee and use wifi until he returned.

A communication break down with a group of Brunei cyclists meant to meet us and ride with us led to our meeting being prematurely cancelled. There was a lot of frustration around this which meant we needed to reorganize meetings with everyone who ordered t-shirts. Instead of enjoying the architecture and life in a new city we were tied to mobiles and computers unsure if we would be able to continue riding, or if we’d be stuck waiting to deliver t-shirts.

I’m sorry we will not have a chance to meet the Brunei group. It seems there are some superb athletes in the group. It would have enhanced our visit to experience Brunei hospitality and spend time with people who share our love of cycling.

We didn’t make our distance, we missed our chance to experience local culture and possibly make friends, we stayed in hotel again instead of camping, we went beyond triple our daily budget, and both lost our calm: failure on all counts, so early on. We are lucky to be here and have time to make up for the losses. Hope for a better day tomorrow.

Editor’s note: Be positive guys, it will always be better tomorrow…. chins up guys!



Ra:

Other than the stiff neck, we started the morning in a bit of a rush to avoid the morning heat. To save sometime, we had cut papaya and coffee in the room. The morning suddenly looked promising until I smashed the phone screen. Small matter, I can get it change along the way.

We got all gear our loaded and left sometime around 8 in the morning. First check point, Trusan about 20km out of  Lawas. Sounds straight forward? Not exactly. I was still struggling with the slopes throughout the entire 20km. Though it was a lighter load today as Heather took the duffle bag with the RAB t-shirts on her rear rack, but I still needed to get use to the heat.  My biggest enemy of all, continuous slopes and I really hope that after my first week in Borneo, I my fitness level will be back and I can get stuck into enjoying the ride and taking pictures again. One thing that made me smile this morning was that even with those slopes, I managed to pedal continuously the 20km until the border town of Mengkalap.

Heather at the immigration check point

We had a reasonable rest before crossing the border and by now the sun was scorching. I can either chose to stay until sunset and get nowhere or go on out and get on with it slowly. We rode towards the immigration post slowly and after clearing the Brunei checkpoint, the going got slow again for me. I wasn’t in form at all. Everything seemed to be going wrong. My stiff neck didn’t help at all. About 6km out of the Brunei checkpoint, we stopped at a park thinking I can jump into a stream or a river. I felt bad holding Heather back. We didn’t get to jump in the stream but we managed to freshen up using the tap water provided at the park toilet.

After a slow ride towards Bangar, about 5km from where we last stop, I passed by my old army training base in Temburong and old memories came back. The thought of the hard training there brought back smiles. The temptation to take some pictures got abruptly stopped. Long story short, I did miss the life then, and the idea of taking the boat out of Temburong came up, it would be a different experience, moreover with my stiff neck, it was a good break. We have a long way still to go and most of the time we would be on the road. We talked about it and the decision was made to be on the 3.30pm boat.

RA riding in Temburong, Brunei