Birthday reporting, a Shetland pony motorcycle, more jungle adventures and a few transvestites!

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Hello from Kuching. The city of the cat (Kuching means cat in Malaysia) and don’t they like to milk it (no pun intended) there are cat statues and cat souvenirs everywhere! It pretty much feels like home now as we have been here nearly 2 weeks pottering around, seeing the sites and waiting for a flight to Kula Lumpar after we jumped on a lovely 24 hour bus journey to get here from Brunei.
The Sultans birthday was good although sadly he was apparently too busy to blow out all the candles on his many cakes and we did not receive any handouts of gold . He started the celebrations with a 8am parade and taking of the salute of all the troops (apparently if you are a sultan there is no such thing as a birthday lie in!). This basically involved the country coming out on mass to see him and the forces pulling out all the stops in celebration. There were even more pictures of him spread on any surface that did not already have an image of his face, marching bands, parades, 21 gun salute (fired down the main street), a helicopter and plane fly by and all this before 10am! All I can say is that sultanage must be agreeing with him – for 65 he’s looking very good! Anyway sadly we did not gain an invite to the party in the evening but we did make into the Brunei times news paper (sadly not our photo!) and to the firework display over the palace in the evening. We had a great day pretty much eating everything we could find (of course all in the name of his royal highness) and it was lovely to see Brunei with a bit of life in it – when we visited before there just weren’t many people around.
Celebrations over we headed straight from Brunei to Kuching and having recovered from the very long and lovely bus ride we set about exploring the city. Its a nice place, set along a riverfront with some old colonial buildings mixed in with Chinese temples and mosques. We’ve taken it easy really visiting more orangatans, some traditional villages, doing a spot of kayaking and even a few museums (well I sat outside a few!!). We visited Bako national park (a jungle reserve known for its spectacular cliff and jungle lined beaches) and spent several days reminding ourselves that whilst the jungle is nice its very very hot and sweaty. We did some more 7 hour treks which involved more vertical rope pulls and a bit of bog wading and by the time we returned we once again looked like we had been for a swim (despite not entering any water!). It was a beautiful place though and we got to see Probiscus monkeys again, wild boars, yet more snakes and a few very ingeninous monkeys that had worked out how to open the hostel fridge door to steal plastic cheese.
After this we decided to go and visit one of the local traditional villages known to have a longhouse. Declining all offers of tours we managed to find a place to hire a motorbike and once again all in the spirit of independednt travel set off on our own around the ringroads of Kuching. Luke for some unknown reason still does not trust my driving so I was purely in charge of directions this time sat on the back. Well armed with the worlds vaguest map I think I did ok and after only 2 wrong turns amazinglingly we made it onto the right road and set off into the countryside surrounded by green fields and looming hills. Sadly these hills brought with them inclines in the road and that is where we soon discovered being two up on a 110cc 1980s motorcycle really isn’t that cool. It wasn’t a big motorcycle to start with, if motorcycles were horses this would be a Shetland, but up hills it was barely much better than a pushbike – our record was 5kmph up the hills. It took us 2 and half hours to reach the village and about the same to get back. Cecil, bless him (I thought with his age it was an appropriate name) wheezed, puffed and moaned all the way there but with a bit of coaxing he even managed the dirt roads and to bring us back in one piece.
For the last few days we’ve generally been taking it easy. I had to get another Indonesian visa which has tied us down a little but meant we have been exploring the restaurants and bars of Kuching. My favourite has to be the one complete with several 6 foot 3 scantly clad ladies wandering around. Stunning as they are there is something about the fact that all Malaysian women are generally under 5 foot 5 as well as the size of their feet that suggests they may not have been born quite that way! However the music is great, the pool cheap and the people watching superb so after a shower I think we may just head back there.
We fly to Kula lumpar in 2 days and from there I am heading to Bali once again on my own :-( Somehow I don’t think Bali will quite be the challenge Indonesian Kalimantan was but as I want to island hop to the east I think I may leave Costa del drunk aussie behind pretty quickly. We’ll see though. I will look you all up from there.
Hope life is all peachy xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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Photos

birthday bash
birthday celebrations sultan styly!

birthday boy himself
Front of yellow umbrella (he is larger in real life!)

more probiscus monkeys
i don't think thats how you spell it!