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Published: January 10th 2011
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Kuching in Sarawak literally translates into 'Cat City'. Gabrielle adores cats so you can imagine how excited she got when we headed into this feline-loving city. By chance in Sibu, we bumped into Edward who we had met earlier in our trip. So we got on the boat together and admired the scenery as we drifted into Kuching. After we alighted and started to walk to find a bus stop, a family in a pick-up truck pulled up to us and offered us a ride. We climbed onto the back with our rucksacks on and clinged on for our lives as we whizzed around the city. It was great fun as the children in the back seat pulled faces at us. We ended up at the best hostel, Tracks B&B on Greenhill. It was extremely good value at just 12RM a night and really friendly. The guys were full of great advice and we had a good laugh in the evenings chatting and exchanging stories. On our first day in Kuching, we headed straight to the Museum of Meows (a museum dedicated to everything to do with cats). We found out everything you could ever want to know about cats from
body language to how they have been percieved throughout time. The next day, we decided to go to a a more conventional museum, the National Museum of Sarawark. We learnt about the tribes of Borneo and saw the 40,000 year old skull that was found in the Niah Caves. There was also 'a lot of pots, pots and more pots" as Gabrielle put it.
We went to Bako National Park for a few days in search of the rare Proboscis monkey (which is only found in Borneo) and to go trekking to find some beautiful beaches. After leaving our backpacks at Tracks B&B, we got the boat to sail into Bako. It was a longboat and the sea was pretty rough so we got splashed a few times. It was fun riding through the breaks of the waves to pull up onto shore. We got to Bako National Park a bit damp but otherwise okay. We headed straight out and went to a nearby beach to play in the surf for a few hours and sunbathe. When we were walking back to park HQ, we were really lucky to find a family of Proboscis monkeys heading back from the
beach into the jungle for the night. The next day, we went on a longer trek to the north of the island to find a small waterfall and a huge deserted beach. The waterfall was pretty but a bit underwhelming, although it was refreshing to bathe in a rock pool. The beach was magnificent as it stretched back miles and was surrounded by huge rocks. On our way back, we bumped into an American guy who sounded exactly like Tom Hanks, especially when he said "I mean, C'mon!" We were again really lucky to see the Proboscis monkeys, this time swinging through the trees one after the other. Later on, we went on a jungle night walk. We saw a viper snake, a random snake, a wild jungle cat with luminous eyes, fireflies, a long-legged centipede and a pool of catfish. Gabrielle got really excited when she thought our guide had said that there was a croc near a stream and hurried over to take some pictures but was disappointed when she found out that he had just said frog.
The next day, we headed back to Kuching to do our last bit of sightseeing before leaving Borneo. We
looked around a temple which had turtles everywhere and spent a day wandering around the town and market. Kuching has colourful french colonial buildings so it was nice just admiring the architecture and enjoying a stroll along the riverfront. We also went to The Cultural Village, which celebrates the diversity of the tribes within Borneo. We looked around the carefully reconstructed longhouses of each tribe and had fun jamming with an Iban man on his musical instruments, as well as trying out a blow pipe. There were also traditional dances including funeral rites, rainmaking and various celebrations.
It was our plan to next head to Australia but we decided not to go as it is so expensive in Oz, so instead we have plans to go to India and Burma instead. We decided to head up to Bangkok for a few days, plotting a course to get to Vietnam through parts of Thailand, and Cambodia.
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