Top Things to Do in Miri | 10 Days in Miri Mulu
Miri is all but a sleepy town.
Located in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, about a two-hour drive from neighbouring country Brunei, Miri plays a crucial role in modern-day Malaysia and is an excellent gateway to marvellous natural wonders and UNESCO sites.
It houses Malaysia’s first petroleum well – first struck in 1910 – and powered the growth of the country’s oil and gas company Petronas, which ultimately contributed to the prosperity of the city.
We were on a 10-day trip in Miri and Mulu, and here is a guide to the list of places we went and activities we did to inspire your planning.
I visited Miri and Mulu in Jul 2022. This post contains affiliate links that cost nothing to you but support my blog! It may also be updated periodically. Cheers!
The Plan
Our 10-day sojourn is broken into three parts – Miri Old Town, Mulu National Park, and Miri Marina Bay.
If this is your first time reading my blog – welcome! – know that my trips incline towards outdoorsy activities more so than city tours or cafe hopping. Miri Mulu is my first overseas trip after a two-year-long working holiday adventure in New Zealand.
Transport
Travelling within Miri is easy.
As with most other Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore, you could easily hail a taxi through the app Grab. It costs us less than RM15 to travel anywhere within Miri.
We hired a car for two days to travel to places outside Miri like Gua Niah. Car rental and petrol are affordable. It costs us around RM100 per day and the same for a full tank. Remember to purchase parking tickets from convenience stores for parking within the city.
As for getting to Mulu National Park, the only reasonable way is by flight, which costs less than SGD100 (2022 prices) for a return journey with Maswings.
Accommodation
Being the ever-budget-conscious backpackers, we stayed in one of the many OYO franchise motels in the old town and later Marina Bay area for about RM 30 per person per night (2022 prices).
For something better, have a look at Amigo Hotel, Walk Inn, or the Grand Palace Hotel.
There are also 5-star international hotels like Marriott and Pullman.
Sights
Stating this upfront: we did not anticipate spending more than three days in Miri. Our plan was to dive in Miri-Sibuti Marine Park for two to three days, but bad weather foiled that. We did squeeze in a day’s worth of diving towards the end of the trip after the storm had passed.
The silver lining, if you could think of it that way, was more time spent exploring all the possible nooks and crannies of the city.
Attractions are listed in brief. Our detailed 10 day itinerary comes after.
Within Miri City
Most places of interest are within walking distance from our motel in the Old Town. We stayed two nights in the Marina Bay area after Mulu National Park and found the area to contain more chic cafes, unique restaurants and cool bars.
Warning: I like to think we are hardy people so we mostly walked under the afternoon sun to get to those places. But the Mirian sun burns more – and stings the eyes more, especially if you are driving – than the sun in Singapore if that makes sense. Our Mirian friends blame the sea.
Attractions
- Canada Hill
- The Grand Old Lady
- The Petroleum Museum
- Miri Big Sign
- Miri City Fan
- Miri Central Market
- Old Man Street
- The Handicraft Centre
- Miri Chinatown
- Tua Pek Kong
- Wall Murals
- Saberkas Night Market
- Coco Cabanas
- Tanjong Lobang Beach
Old Town Food
- Braised Kway Chap and Beehoon soup at WZT Cafe
- Night market at Wireless Walk Miri
- Kolo Mee and Chicken Curry Rice at the Miri Central Market
- Fried fish at Surabaya Restoran
- Kuching Laksa at 63 Cafe
- Ice Kacang at Sin Wan Delight & Cold Drink
- Night market at Saberkas Night Market
Marina Bay Food
- Hot Pot Buffet at The Taste
- Dim Sum at Wang Zai
- Chinese Zi Char at The Superb Cuisine
- Noodles at Wang Xiang
- Tea at Chapter One Cafe
Beyond Miri City
The usual places beyond Miri City include exploring the UNESCO-nominated site Gua Niah/ Niah Cave, doing a half-day hike at Lambir Hills, and beaches like Tusan Beach or Brighton Beach.
Information on the sights beyond Miri is incredibly sparse.
We intend to coincide our visit to Tusan beach on a full moon night to see if we could catch the phenomenal Blue Tears. However several reviews dating back to 2021 state the deplorable conditions of the beach, which made us think otherwise. The famous rock formation that has been widely circulated on the internet is also no longer there. That ultimately led us to choose Tanjong Lobang Beach for the 6.40 pm sunset instead.
Miri is a popular base to fly to the UNESCO site Mulu National Park for its impressive cave chambers and ecologically diverse tropical forest. We visited the Mulu caves and did a challenging trek to the Pinnacles.
Do you know the underwater world of Miri is more than impressive? We managed to squeeze in a day to dive at the Miri-Sibuti Coral Reefs National Park, which coincided with Sarawak Independence Day!
My 10 days in Miri x Mulu
Day One
We had delicious rice noodles at WZT Cafe, spent our first evening wandering up and down Wireless Walk Miri at Jalan North Yu Seng and Jalan Merpati, and visited the malls.
Day Two
The next morning saw us slurping up more noodles and chicken curry rice at Miri Central Market, while locals engaged in their daily marketing activities.
We stopped by one of the several beautiful murals and wandered into an old but quirky shopping complex – Old Man Street.
Afternoons are hot, and since we cannot explore the sea, we dived into Lemongrass Family Reflexology for some well-deserved massage instead.
What’s next after a dreamy Thai massage? Some more delicious food – Kuching Laksa – at 63 Cafe.
The Miri City Fan was a bore, to be honest, and our saving grace for that long walk was a couple of cooling ice kacang at Sin Wan Delight & Cold Drink.
We grabbed to Canada Hill, located behind Miri City, where Shell first drilled oil in Malaysia. The now-defunct oil well, affectionately named The Grand Old Lady, is a replica of Malaysia’s first oil well.
Situated behind the monument is a free, albeit run down and poorly maintained, museum – the Petroleum Museum – on the history of oil in Miri.
A giant ‘Miri’ sign landmark was recently set up (we saw it spruced up for its opening!) and added more colours to the hill.
Apart from visiting the landmarks and enjoying the panoramic sunset from the cafe by the huge sign, you could combine the experience with hiking the hill – as most locals did in the evenings.
That day ended with a fatty meal from the Saberkas Night Market, which opens at 5 pm every Thursday to Saturday.
Day Three
Our third day in Miri was to Gua Niah, where we drove in our rented car and spent a day there.
Day Four
On our third day in the Old Town, we drove to Thien Sin Prawn Mee to have some divine prawn noodles for breakfast (it errs on the expensive side, but the price is justified!).
Next was another random jalan-jalan around the streets of Old Town to see what we missed.
We wandered into the small streets of Miri Chinatown (around the Central Market) and visited the oldest Buddhist Temple in Miri – Tua Pek Kong.
One of the biggest and most beautiful temple compounds I’ve visited in Malaysia is in Penang. Kek Lok Si Temple is a must-visit if you’re there!
The Handicraft Centre, the so-called ‘most recommended place in Miri to buy souvenirs, was disappointing.
Lunch at Surabaya Restoran was delicious – the fried fish and spicy chilli padi tickle my ears.
The 6.40 pm sunset at Tanjong Lobang Beach was divine.
Day Five – Day Nine
Our next five days were in Mulu National Park.
We spent Day One visiting Deer and Lang Caves and spectated the daily bat exodus. Visits to the Wind and Clearwater Caves, followed by a three-hour trek to Camp 5 happened on Day Two. Day Three saw us scrambling up and down the difficult 2.4 km trek to the Pinnacles. We trekked out of the forest on Day Four and flew back to Miri on Day Five.
Naturally one could only indulge themselves with more Thai massage and delicious food upon landing in Miri after five days of Mulu.
Day Ten
Alas, a day spent exploring the underwater world of Miri at Miri-Sibuti Coral Reefs National Park! The weather finally cleared up. After hours of intense and frantic communication with several dive shops the day before, the people of The Dive Squad at Piasau Boat Club managed to swap us in with others who would dive a day later instead.
Diving on Sarawak Independence Day was nothing short of special as we met true-blue Mirians who dived with their state’s flag.
Day Eleven
We spent the last half-day in Miri grabbing to Coco Cabanas to snap a selfie with the gigantic seahorse. Then it was a cuppa in Chapter One Cafe, and later back in the airport to face reality.
Conclusion/ Rambles
I’m so glad I’ve finally visited the Bornean side of Malaysia and explored one of the biggest cave chambers in the world! Cost-wise, this trip isn’t exorbitant vis a vis the experiences we had gathered – hiking in a tropical forest saturated with wild animals, visiting the caves, climbing the pinnacles, eating and massaging as and when we want it, and scuba diving.
My 10 – or rather 11 – days in Miri was a mix of leisure and exertion, and a great trip to explore the sights and sounds of Eastern Malaysia and Borneo.
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