Of all the food we had in Sarawak, we thought Miri served up the best. The main reason for this was the wider availability of Indian food, which provided a fantastic opportunity to avoid the constant and tiring noodle soups that are served up by the Chinese coffee houses (I don’t think I’ll ever understand what motivates people to eat a boiling hot soup when it’s a humid 30 degrees Celsius).
Miri also has an excellent fruit and veg market, where I procured and ate my first durian! I wasn’t entirely convinced that I liked it. Although the flesh around the seeds is quite pleasant to taste and texture, the onion smell turned my stomach. I think it’s an acquired taste, because I’ve since eaten and enjoyed durian.
We attempted some souvenir shopping in Miri and succeeded to a degree, although the local storeholders weren’t really up for Egyptian-style haggling. We bought a couple of blowpipes and packaged them up ourselves, which subsequently caused the KLIA security staff no small amount of interest.
We stayed for two nights in Miri. The first night we stayed in a hotel called Tai Tong Lodging House. It was ok, but the entire reception area comprised a large dormitory filled with guest workers, that liked to watch other guests going to and from the shared shower. In consequence we moved to a more expensive place for our second night (the Brooke Inn) because we wanted a better night’s sleep before the long journey back to the UK.