15. Malaysia @ Borneo - Sibu + Bintulu

After Kuching we took an overnight bus to a town called Sibu, almost 450 km and eight hours towards northeast. 

We got to Sibu really early in the morning. The bus driver dropped some people to the center of the town and when we asked if we are in Sibu, he said no. So we stayed in the bus. About seven minutes later we were in the bus station that's, well, seven minutes drive away from the center.

After some cursing and waiting we got a local bus back to the center where we had earlier been. Markus went to find a hotel for us to stay and he found a really nice one with a decent price: 60 MYR / 15 € or 110 dkkr.

This is our hotel in Sibu. The name of the hotel is Li Hua and it's own by Chinese people whom there's many in Malaysia.

Our hotel was situated near the harbor and the Rejang Esplanade in Sibu, which is not the most beautiful we have seen.

There was a big swan statue in front of our hotel. The swan is the emblem of Sibu town. One of the nicest things there is to offer in that town.

Tua Pek Kong Temple & Goddess of Mercy Pagoda is the Chinese temple in Sibu and was a place worth visiting. The temple is over 100 years old and we got to climb up the pagoda (added in year 1987) and had a nice view from there. One of the temple workers opened the gate for us to go to the top floor.

The view from the Chinese temple. People in Sibu are mostly Chinese, Melanu (indigenous people), Malay (Malaysian people) and Iban (Indigenous people).

Another view from the temple of Sibu which has a little less than 300.000 inhabitants.

Sibu town is not very beautiful and has not much to offer. And we only stayed for 2 nights.

The weather was ok. It did not rain, but it was cloudy most of the time. It was still very very warm and the humidity was high.

Sibu has a big market, where they among everything you can think of sell live hens rolled in news papers. Borneo-style chicken wrap!

The market had a huge vegetable department. But fruits and vegetables are relatively expensive in all of Borneo. Fresh fruit and fresh juice are something that we really miss.

Bintulu is another little town about 200 km. or 4 hours drive from Sibu. 

We only stopped here to break the trip further east. 

It turned out to be a good idea to stop in Bintulu town, because

we then got to see the Borneo International Kite Festival 2014 in Bintulu.

Carina's favorite kite.

There were many cool kites and this festival saved the town from really really boring. We stayed in Bintulu for 2 nights and then we took the bus to the town of Miri.