Tag:mulu
I’m reasonably sure this photo was taken on the Melinau because the river is so narrow (comparatively). All-in-all it took me a day to get up-river from Miri to Mulu. Sometimes it takes longer if the boats get delayed, the river’s low or you can’t find a longboat to charter. Through my contacts in Brunei, I had everything arranged for me in advance so my boat changes were planned and I was expected.
Clearly the boat had seen better days. The windshield and side glass had long since disappeared. I wondered if in fact they had been plexiglass that had turned yellow and opaque. Note also that there is no-one steering up front! As you’ll see in tomorrow’s photo, even this wire and pulley arrangement was no longer in service, the steering mechanism having been superseded again. But despite the engineering modifications, the boat floated and it got the job done.
Three riverboats sit at the jetty near the mouth of the Batam Barang in Sarawak. With the survey over and the equipment shipped out from Kuala Belait, I had some leave accrued and decided to travel a little in the region. At high school I’d joined the school caving (spelunking) group. Every month or so a couple of the teachers would take 10 – 14 of us kids after school to explore caves in the Mendips – about an hours […]
