One of the things that made the trip especially enjoyable for me, quite apart from the splendid trekking through the jungle, was the opportunity to converse in Malay. People there seemed quite happy to speak Malay to me, and in just a few days my spoken ability improved hugely. I got the impression that, if I were to stay somewhere like that in Malaysia for just a few weeks, I could get to be quite competent in the language. In contrast, even if I stayed in Brunei for fifty years, I doubt I would get anywhere. One evening, I watched our guide, a Kelabit (from the Bario region), talking to the host of our lodge, a Berawan (from an area closer to Miri). As neither could speak the home language of the other, they conversed in Standard Malay, which seems to be the inter-ethnic lingua franca in most of Malaysia. And I was surprised to find that I could understand much of what they were saying.
I don't think I have ever heard Standard Malay being used conversationally in Brunei, where the inter-ethnic lingua franca is either Brunei Malay or English; and when people converse in Brunei Malay, I have no clue what they are talking about.
It was wonderful to encounter people actually using the language I have spent so much time and effort trying to learn.
