Sometimes having no plan at all is the best plan. Everything went smoothly for me today, except the fact that I left Brunei earlier than expected and ended up at a hotel much more expensive than expected. This morning, I followed Caroline Ang to Miri and guess what, it is the best time to visit Miri ever During this May, Miri celebrates its 5th year of being a city with a lot of festivals: Jazz Festival, OctoFest, etc. Miri at first wasn’t I didn’t manage to get in the Jazz Festival because all tickets were sold out. It turned out to be my luck because it was raining the whole evening. Both the parade and the festival got messed up.

2 hours drive from Bandar to Miri was a great chance for me to contemplate the beauty of Brunei. The sky is blue because of no pollution and you can see trees and jungles everywhere. So green and clean!

Sarawak is the only state of Malaysia that has its own administration. People, including Malaysians, need passports or travel documents in order to visit Sarawak. For those who don’t need a visa to enter Malaysia, it’s just another stamp on their passport. But for those who need a visa, remember apply for Sarawak visa when you apply for Malaysia visa if you plan to visit Sarawak. I didn’t even need to fill in the immigration form when crossing border from Brunei to Sarawak!

We arrived at around 2 and when to a local food court for lunch. It was a modest Chinese restaurant but food is awesome! I ordered Ikan Bilis Mee Hoon and Caroline, even though very picky, had to admit that it was nice.

After that, we proceeded to check in our hotel. Caroline’s friend booked us a very nice room in Imperial Hotel – way over my budget because all hotels were fully booked (some even over booked like Marriot) because of the Jazz Festival.

At 5pm, Charles, Caroline’s friend, came with Justin, a Canadian student at Curtin college in Miri, picked us up and our debauchery in Miri began.

Miri is quite small with only around 300,000 people. It takes you only half an hour to drive around the whole city. First, Charles took us to Canada hill. Nobody could explain why it was named Canada hill, but it was where the first oil rig (in Malaysia) was discovered. On top of Canada hill, there is a big miniature of the oil rig. From there, you can see the whole city with the beach.

After that, we went to a food court on the beach for satay and drinks.

Charles ordered us chicken & beef satay with mixed tea. I don’t know what’s the name of the drink but there are a lot of things inside: jelly, dried litchi, barley, etc. It tasted good.

And since I’m interested in the restaurant encroaching upon the sea, Charles took us there for a visit. The construction of Marina Bay, the name of the restaurant, wasn’t easy. Since it was built on sand, they had to revamped the foundation first, then wait for everything to deposit & solidify, then build the restaurant. The whole restaurant is made of wood delicately engraved by Indonesian workers. It’s really beautiful, however, my camera sucks in low light so I couldn’t take any nice picture. 2 pictures are from Marina Bay Restaurant’s fanpage, the next one is from here and the last 2 ones are taken by me. I’m just wondering why such a heavily invested restaurant with spectacular view could be so quiet.

We didn’t have dinner there but went for Meng Chai seafood restaurant instead. It’s a typical Chinese restaurant with awesome food.

Then we left for dessert at Citrus. We were all full after dinner but dessert was so good that we finished it right away. I don’t remember the name of the dessert, but it was the best dessert I’ve ever had. It’s made of banana cake, sweet sauce, banana, cream on a hot place.

I could barely walk because of my stuffed stomach when we went for a drink at Tiger Island. This pub locates in the area where most pubs & bars in Miri do. There I learnt to play some drink games like flipping the coin into the cup.

We came home at around 12, full and content. There is only 1 problem which is Caroline cannot sleep with the light on and I cannot sleep with the light off. Oii I hate my darkness phobia

Tags: Imperial Hotel, Jazz Festival, Malaysia, MayFest, Miri, Octofest, Sarawak, Travel and Write