Hi Everyone!

It has been about 3 weeks since our last update when we were in Kuching. After Kuching we went to Kapit (we had to do endure a 5 and a half our boat ride on the deck!). We really wanted to get to a long house for the Gawai festival (1st June). We met up with a German couple and 3 ladies from New York and went with a Chinese guide to 2 longhouses. The first longhouse was quite modern. The second longhouse we went to was a traditional wooden long house. There were skulls (human) hanging in the communal area from the days when the Iban people used to practice head hunting! After visiting this longhouse we went back to the modern one to see thier tradtional ceremony. This included offerings of rice and eggs and every so often somebody would come round with a bowl full of chicken blood... you had to spoon some blood into another bowl... it was part of their ceremony. We watched them do traditional dance (Rich and I attempted but we were awfull!) We also played drums with them which was really fun! We played a game where you had to stick to a rhythm and if you messed up you had to drink rice wine. They loved thier rice wine and you felt rude if you didn't accept it... we ended up having several glasses!

After Kapit we travelled with our new German freinds to Niah caves. The caves were amazing and so huge!! After Niah we went to Mulu national park. We organised a tour (as it was compulsory to have a guide) and climbed 2.4 km and over 1000m high to get a veiw of the pinnacles. These are amazing limestone formations sticking out of the mountain, huge spikes of rock! Might I add our guide didn't even make it up, he spun us a story about his ankle but we think he just couldn't be bothered as he admitted to us after we were going too fast and he didn't like climbing the pinnacles as it was too hard!! What a wimp! The day after we walked the headhunters trail and got a boat to Limbang. The boat journey was amazing, we saw so many long houses on the way and it was a really scenic trip! The water level was really low and the boat men had to get out and push the boat on several occasions! It looked like really hard work and took six hours!!

After a rest in Limbang with very painful thighs!! We headed to Brunei, to Bandar Seri Begawan. It wasn't what we expected at all. It was really relaxed for a major city and the architecture was stunning. Some of the mosques were incredible... no expense is spared. We visited one that cost $USD 8 million to build and had imported English stained glass, venetian mosaiscs, Italian marble, belgian carpets and a lot of gold! We also saw the palace from the outside. It has 1788 rooms and 247 bathrooms!!

At present we are in Labuan. We were only supposed to stay here as a stop over for Kota Kinabalu. However we got chatting to a guy that was sailing round the world (for the 3rd time) and he is 76 years old and he is doing it alone!! He had some amazing stories and invited us to see his boat today. We took the opportunity hoever the water was really choppy and we couln't stay too long as Rich was feeling very sea sick! We stayed for long enough to have a coffee and look at some articles he has been in. He invited us to stay on the boat but I think we will give it a miss as it is still choppy out there!

We are heading to Kota Kinabalu tommorrow where we hope to meet up again with Max and Jeannine (the German couple).

We are now half way through our trip and it is flying by!!

Miss you all!

Love Zoe and Rich XXX