Hot News - September 2006 (Kuala Belait / Brunei, Sept. 4, 2006)
- Website statistics: In August we were able to welcome on our website 27'879 visitors who did 699'031 hits.
- (July = 31'435 visitors - ??? countries* - 683'902 hits)
- Record days since 12/17/1998, the birthday of our website: March 20, 1'474 visitors; August 29, 47'038 hits
- (*= the country counter, which stopped working March 23, 2006, has still not been repaired by the
- ISP Goldnet - frustrating! - usually there were monthly between 100 and 118 different countries!)
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- With a delay of one month, our LandCruiser is back "on the road". What we have seen until now, the work for its
- "rejuvenation" has been done well, although some minor things popped already up, like the rubber of the windscreen
- not being completely watertight during heavy rain, or the device missing to set up the awning - our only sun and rain
- protection. We are sure that there will be more minor adjustments to do - hopefully not so much on the engine - but
- these two things became evident very fast, as the rainy season is approaching rapidly
- nearly a daily routine.
- The first time our car was given back to us to be checked was on Saturday, August 26th. We needed all of Sunday
- to clean the inside and to set up a list with 24 questionable points, which had to be improved the following Monday.
- Tuesday evening it was returned for the second time - now acceptable for us. Wednesday evening was the deadline
- of our housesitting time in Miri, because the owners returned from their holidays. It was a very hectic period, as we
- then had to reload the vehicle completely in one single day! But now we can relax in Brunei - the sultanate in Borneo
- officially named Negara Brunei Darussalam - exactly in Kuala Belait, a little and quiet city in the South, busy with
- the exploration of oil. Entering Brunei from Sarawak, it is already very obvious that there is still a lot more pristine
- jungle to enjoy - not yet logged for its wood or for palm oil plantations like in Malaysia. The wealth of Brunei lies in
- its oil wells -offshore and also on land. This Islamic state became our 154th country.
- Slowly,we are going to drive now towards the North of Borneo, constantly observing carefully every suspicious
- noise, which could pop-up and originate from the car's overhaul. It will need some time to get back the confidence
- and feeling that there are almost
- the capital of Brunei, afterwards through a first narrow part of Sarawak's Limbang division, followed by Brunei's
- exclave district of Temburong, just to cross another small part of Limbang, before finally arriving in East-Malaysia's
- second autonomous province of Sabah. It is interesting to know that actually at every border crossing during this
- hurdlerace there will be an immigration and customs control - one sign more of the autonomies in the world's 3rd
- biggest island. It is only a few years since there is Trans-Borneo connection by road - today even paved. There will
- be follow-up photos on our website "Current pictures of our Borneo trip from Miri/Sarawak to Brunei and Sabah".
New Reports/Pictures
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| + our LandCruiser on a "Rejuvenation Cure" | in Miri/Sarawak - the East Malaysian province on Borneo June-Aug. 2006 |
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| + added from a earlier visit to the USA: | Las Vegas (Millennium change) |
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| + added from our Arabian Peninsula round trip: | Pictures from Yemen (May-June 1996) |
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| + Flashbacks of our Worldrecordtour: | Pictures from "all the continents" (Oct. 1984 - April 1997) |
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