Miri Day 2- Lambir Hills National Park and Miri City Fan

We decided to go to Lambir Hills National Park. We had read good things about this Park in the Lonely Planets book and so we thought we'd check it out. There are a number of routes you can go. Two of them (I think) lead to waterfalls and there is one long one which reaches the summit. Since we had Yusuf with us we thought we'll get to the first waterfall and see how it goes from there.

The Park did remind us of Bukhit Shahbander but it was much bigger and the cicadas much louder (see video to hear them).

It took us about 20 minutes to reach the first waterfall. It was breathtaking!

The following is a video of the rainforest but I took it because of the noise one of the cicada was making. It was so incredibly loud. The video doesn't capture just how loud it was. We had never heard anything like it. I tried finding it on the tree but couldn't for the life of me work out exactly where the noise was coming from. The rainforest in Borneo is constantly like this- its never quiet.

We did start on the second trail and got quite a way in. The rainforest in this part was very different from the first waterfall. There were so many different types of birds that we could hear. We also heard monkeys and something that may have been a deer. But as we were walking along I heard something that (to me ) sounded like a growl, like a wild cat growl and nearly died! After hearing it again Zaheer informed me that it was in fact a wood pecker! I couldn't work out how he thought that sounded like a wood pecker but it calmed me down for a while anyway! We didn't make it to the end of this trail as Yusuf was getting quite tired and also due to our impeccable timing we were there at midday and it was HOT! So we turned around but I think we had seen enough.

After the Park we went to the Miri City Fan. It is a fan shaped (duh!) park with lots of small themed parks, a public swimming pool, a library and other things. It was heaven to us in that Brunei had absoloutley nothing like this. The weather was beautiful too (as we went late afternoon) and for a moment we felt like we were in England!

There are loads of trees like this everywhere.

This was part of the Islamic Gardens.

Yusuf was happy too!

We saw turtles/terrapins in the pond!! Very exciting!

And lastly, this was outside the Public Library. I thought it was beautiful. I was also very excited at seeing a public library as this is again something Brunei doesn't have.

Next stop- Niah Caves!!!

Our Miri holiday.........Day 1

This will not be like the epic of a holiday that was KK (7 days worth of blogging was NOT fun)- this holiday only lasted 3 days but it was more than enough! Not that I didn't absolutely love every minute of it but it was damn good to be back home.

So true.....

We basically dedicated two days to Lambir Hills National Park and Niah Caves and one day to mooch around Miri town centre.

Day 1 therefore consisted of us mooching around. It is about 3 hours total from leaving the house, driving to Miri and getting to the centre so we thought we'd chill out today. We drove to the Seahorse Lighthouse to watch the sunset. I am in love with the sunsets in this part of the world- mostly because I don't think I ever saw one in the UK with all the cloud cover! They are just so dramatic and beautiful. The photos don't do them justice.

After taking lots of pictures of sunsets and silhouettes we met up with our friend Simi and her brother and daughter (who were also holidaying in Miri) at the seafood restaurant at the Seahorse lighthouse. They had a huge selection of fish, lobsters and prawns- fresh from the tank! Simi decided to order a giant lobster (can't remember the actual name but trust me it was HUUUUUUUGE!). It was quite a sight when the waiter bought out the platter! Beautifully presented, no?

Literally spilled its guts..........

The meat was DELICIOUS- absolute heaven and the sauce complimented it so well. Probably the best place in the world when it comes to seafood.

This pose reminded me of Aliens.........minus the colour

Simi had also ordered oysters. We had never had oysters and after getting a mini tutorial we felt brave enough and thought why not??

It was an interesting experience in that you don't really feel/taste much........just the lemon (which I put tons of so was spluttering all over the place at the end) but at least I can now say I have tried oysters!

And that was Day 1!

The time we tried making sushi..........

Not content with buying extremely cheap sushi at Excapade Sushi, Zaheer decided we try and make it ourselves at home. Being the loving, supporting wife I am I thought why not? (whilst inwardly crying I wasn't gonna get any Excapade Sushi). After doing a bit of research online we found out we needed sushi grade fish. Had no idea what this was so after lots more searches (google is brilliant) we found a shop in Gadong (situated underneath Excapade Sushi!!! I was being tortured) that sold sushi grade fish and loads more other sushi ingredients. They had ran out of salmon as we went near closing time but they did have this gorgeous tuna at a very cheap price so we bought that instead.

Also all the other ingredients needed for sushi making: bamboo mat, wasabi, sushi rice, rice vinegar and seaweed paper.

After watching a few youtube videos on how to make sushi we started!

Boiling the rice.............

We sliced the tuna and cucumber. Then spread a layer of rice on the seaweed, put tuna, cucumber and crème cheese in the middle and started rolling. This was Zaheers attempt.

I was quite impressed so thought how hard can it be? Started rolling.......

and rolling.........

and ended up with this!!! OVERFLOWING RICE!! I turned it around for Zaheer to take the picture but he wouldn't unless he took a picture of my not-so-great-looking one compared to his perfection as he knew I was gonna be posting this on the blog!

We got this in the end (these are all from Zaheer's batch- mine looked a mess):

They were monster sushi rolls, like 4 times the size of a normal one! And more rice and less fish.

Overall it was a really fun experience and next time I think we'll put less rice on and maybe use more rice vinegar as it was slightly bland. Can't wait to make these with salmon!

What we have been up to....

A general update:

1. Zaheer took part in a badminton tournament for high school teachers in Brunei. Bless them they tried very hard but the competition was just so good. I was surprised they weren't professionals. The standard was very high. But we had a lot of fun cheering the Jerudong International School team on and Zaheer really enjoyed himself.

In action:

2. Yusuf got to bring home Pablo the bear from school. He absolutley loves this bear. He comes with a book that you fill in with pictures of what Pablo got up to- some of the entries are very funny. Yusuf wanted these pictures taken for the book:

(Pablo eating roti- and waving to the camera)

(Pablo making a lego car- and waving)

(Family portrait- and waving)

3. Yusuf took part in the Swimming Gala at school. The cutest thing was that while swimming if Oscar (his best friend in the pictures) dropped behind, Yusuf would slow down for him and if Yusuf lagged behind then Oscar would slow down so that they reached the sides together. It was sooo cute!

4. Taking pictures of the sunset whilst sitting in a traffic jam. Beautiful. Nothing can get you down in this country!

5. and watching this:

soooooooooooooo funny!!

Labi Falls

We had two days off school for Chinese New Year and a colleague of Zaheer's had said she would take us to Labi Falls. I had never heard of it to be honest and was even more surprised when I was told it was in Brunei (I thought it was over the border in Malaysia!) It was a couple of hours drive there.

There are these signs along the roads at regular intervals which I find beautiful. They say Subhanallah, Alhamdulillah and Allahu Akbar (Glorious is God, Praise to God and God is the Greatest). It really makes me realise what a beautiful part of the world we live in and what a beautiful world God has created.

There was a 40 minute walk through the rainforest to get to the falls.

Nearly there!

It was beautiful! The water was warm. The weather was gorgeous!

We stopped here for a bit and had a picnic then went to another small waterfall for Yusuf to swim around in.

Perfect break for a 2 day holiday!

What I woke up to today...........

Ah heaven- aint y'all jealous back in cold cold England??

And my orchids- they actually grow and flower in this country with no looking after whatsoever. I have just left these hanging outside and this one in particular has got about 10 flowers! So so beautiful! Brunei has its plus sides!