For more photos, please visit my Facebook page, or Jong’s blog for professional shooting.

I have been traveling for 2 weeks. During that time, I didn’t do any sport other than endless walking under the sun. I miss kickboxing like hell and my body was about to enter dormant mode. But as I mentioned earlier that I’m a lucky girl, right when I needed some exercise the most, I had a chance to approach one of the most exciting outdoor sports that I’d long heard of: rock climbing. All thank to my 2 lovely friends Jong Saw Kang and Hui Hui who Annie introduced to me and the group of rock climbers in Kuching who didn’t mind sharing gears with me.

Saw Kang & Hui Hui (from Hui Hui’s Facebook)

On Saturday, we went climbing at the Bukit Batu Tapang, widely known among local climbers as the Tooth, located in 17th mile, about 40 minutes driving from Kuching. When we arrived at 10am, there were already about 15 climbers.

As I expected, most of them are Westerners, as I didn’t expect, all of them are super friendly and very experienced. They asked me if I wanted to try and before I could notice anything, I found myself ready to climb up. No instruction, no safety notice! I was really scared! The one who belayed me was Malcolm, a very tough seasoned climber. He instructed me from the ground, and occasionally shouted at me when I didn’t follow. He wanted me to come down when I kept holding the rope, but somehow I kept climbing up, and I managed to get on top. Just a day after did I find out that he was really mad at me. But I like his style. He made me think of one of kickboxing instructors, Master Khoo Meng Yang. They are both very tough, but that’s when we can learn the most.

After that, I climbed several more times, and I also climbed at the Batman Wall on Sunday. I found out that rock climbing is actually very safe if we follow all safety instruction properly. Rock climbing is not only about physical condition, it’s also about mental strength. You need to overcome fear and procrastination. However, I still feel really bad about my body. On Sunday, it took me forever to complete a baby climb at the Batman Wall and my arms were tired like hell. I need to do more exercise!

Climbing at the Batman wall

Another thing that made my first rock climbing experience even more worthy is the news that the Tooth is going to be blasted out by a local company from Bau. A reporter from the Star was there to cover the story as the last attempt to save to rock. Most people there don’t have much hope in that, but they just did their best. They LOVE the rock! It’s one of few perfect spots for rock climbing in Kuching! I really hope that it can work, somehow. I like the place too, and I hate the idea that people keep using development as an excuse to destroy nature.

On the Star. I’m quite happy that they called me a travel writer, but not happy that they didn’t call me Chip. Plus my picture is a huge turn off

Tags: Batman Wall, Bukit Batu Tapang, Kuching, Malaysia, Rock Climbing, Sarawak, the Tooth

Now I understand why people say when you are traveling alone, you have (a chance) to face your inner most fear and overcome it.

3 days ago, 16/05, I arrived in Sibu (a small town about 260,000 people)  at midnight. Caroline’s friend, a Foochow lady named Ms. Koh, picked me up and drove me downtown to find a guesthouse. Because it was quite late, I picked whatever hotel I could see. It was a big but run down hotel right in the centre of Sibu [Sorry to protect the business of the hotel, I can’t tell the name]. The Chinese man at the counter couldn’t speak so Koh helped me check in and left me in the room alone.

The corridor of the hotel

The first thing I did in the hotel was to check out the toilet. It didn’t work! The faucet and toilet flush didn’t work. I went down and asked the guy to come up with me to check. It worked! So he left and as I was preparing to take a shower, I heard someone turning on and off the faucet, and then flushed the toilet. Nobody else was in the room! I walked in and I saw water running. And then the toilet paper automatically scrolled. I was so scared, I ran down and tried to explain to the man but he couldn’t understand. I couldn’t check out because it was late and Sibu is very dangerous at night. So I came back to the room again and cried on Facebook. I didn’t dare the use the toilet or to shower. All weird sound stopped at 3am and I went to bed at 4am.

The haunted toilet

In the morning, I went down and met a Chinese lady at the counter. She speaks English. I told her the story and she asked what room I stayed. I said Room 405 and she said: “There is no Room 405 in this hotel.” It turned out that I stayed in Room 407 but somehow I thought that I stayed in Room 405. It was probably because the room next to me was 403. I still can’t understand why there is no Room 405 in this hotel. Is 405 a bad number in Chinese?

Tags: Alone, Ghost, Haunted hotel, Malaysia, Sarawak, Sibu

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