Road trip! Yay! We like road trips.

Destination Bintulu. This will be our third visit. Bintulu was also the objective in December 2020, and featured as a waystage on the Miri trip of July 2022.

This time we're doing it differently. We'd heard from a couple of sources that the Pan Borneo Highway (PBH) is now complete (and is therefore no longer the Pain Borneo Highway, as I recently saw it rendered -- accidentally, I think -- on a review, or the Pan Borneo Roadworks, as we used to designate it). So, we thought we'd give it a go. We suffered as it was growing up. Now's the time to reap the rewards of adulthood.

Day 1: Monday 29 April

We were slow to get going. But just before 1100, we were leaving Kuching, and at the other end of the journey, we were rolling into the carpark of The Coffee Code's Sibu branch just before 1800. Given that we had two decent-sized stops en route, that's not too bad. No-one really reckons you can do Kuching-Sibu in less than five hours (it's about 400 km, or the equivalent of Newcastle-to-London).

We had looming skies most of the way, but little actual rain. And the quality of the road was -- as we'd heard -- really good. Dual carriageway; good surface; low traffic density. And no more of that irritating swapping of carriageways that you kept having to do in the old days (to avoid roadworks).




First stop: Sungai Tenggang, for duck noodles from Mui Fah. We'd been looking forward to this lunch. And yet we drove straight past the shop... Never mind, a bit further along there's an opportunity to swap to the other carriageway, and retrace your steps.

Worth it. These noodles are always good. We've photographed the dish before, but what the hell:




On again...



It's all going so well, and then -- not long before Jakar -- this:


We'd planned to stop in Jakar anyway. It's a big prawn-noodle place, but we were still full of duck noodles, so we just ordered coffee (for which the area is famous). It was good stuff, and totally what we needed.


It doesn't take long to walk around Jakar:





Then on again. The dual carriageway resumed without too much delay. But soon after that, we were turning off the PBH anyway, and heading for Sibu.

The Coffee Code was as wonderful as ever. Nice food; pleasant ambiance.

And then we drove the short remaining distance to the hotel. The Starlink. Not far from the place where we stayed last time. Not expensive, but a good-sized room and all the amenities that others often cut corners on. The Star Megamall is right next door (we did a couple of laps once we were settled in), and there are loads of food places in the neighbourhood. Would recommend.


Day 2: Tuesday 30 April

We started at Sibu's very lovely Lake Gardens:







Breakfast next. The place we'd wanted to go to wasn't open. So we randomly picked this one:



We also randomly picked a stall, and as the labels were in Chinese, we randomly picked a nice-looking photo. It turned out to be Sibu staple ding bian hu, which I really like. The name literally means wok edge paste: "As the broth is boiled over high heat, a thin layer of rice paste is applied around the wok’s edges, steadily turning firm until it is ready to be scraped up and placed into the soup."

This was VERY tasty, with the rice paste and lots of other unidentifiable bits floating very satisfyingly in a rich broth:


The only problem was that the portions were huge... Not much more eating happened for the rest of the day.

Kapit was our next destination, but before we set off we took a look at Sibu's waterfront:



It's always lovely down here, but it's also a bit sad these days. The first two times we visited Sibu we took the boat from Kuching. That boat doesn't run any more. We had always intended to get the boat to Kapit. But that service doesn't run any more either, or at least not on a regular basis.

Change never stops, and in many parts of the world, waterways have lost out to roads (maybe with railways as an intervening stage). But still. It's sad to see just a few tatty expressboats moored and empty where once they were numerous, jostling each other and full of life.

We chatted with a guy who was sitting by the river. He mourned the demise of the boat services too.



The Sibu-Kapit road (the death knell of another boat service) was finished towards the end of 2020. We'd been warned that it wasn't in great condition. But it's really fine. And it's way more beautiful than I had imagined. The stretch after Song, in particular, goes up and down like a rollercoaster, offering fabulous views of vast expanses of woolly green mountains. What you hardly ever see, interestingly, is the river: The Batang Rajang, the longest river in Malaysia.



The article I quoted just now mentions the vastly increased number of cars in Kapit these days, and it is a really perceptible problem (to which we, of course, have added...). Contrasting with the crowded streets is the big, wide, majestic river:







One of the most interesting things to see in Kapit is Fort Sylvia, built in 1880. We've seen a few forts from the era now, and can recognize the architectural similarities:





Particularly noteworthy were the photos and objects connected with the 1924 peace-making ceremony, which put a formal end to the conflicts between Iban and Orang Ulu, and there's also an interesting collection of amber:




It was super-hot in Kapit this afternoon. Super-hot. And the only way to deal with heat like that is with a cendol:


There's some big food event happening here tomorrow (1 May is a public holiday). This means opening hours will be odd, and it probably also accounts for the goddam thumpy music currently invading our space.

But we're heading back down to Sibu tomorrow anyway. Let's hope all the traffic on the smooth sweeping road will be coming the other way...