Kuching and Orangutans

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I caught the shuttle bus to the airport from Ubud and at one stage I was worried that I might miss my flight, but after the driver put his foot down I arrived on time. It was about a 3 hour flight to KL(LCCT) and I walked through the arrival hall about 1am and headed straight to the cheap food hall with free wifi. I killed the 6 hours I had to wait for my next flight quite easily by drinking plenty of coffee, surfing the net, and talking to a Malaysian guy also headed to Kuching. At 7am I boarded the plane and a few hours later after taking a taxi from the airport had arrived in the chinatown district of Kuching where I found an average place to stay for about $13 a night. I was pretty tired so I just got something to eat and had a little look around town that day feeling very much like a zombie. I found the city to be quite nice with a lovely waterfront promenade, some old chinese shopfronts, and friendly people.

The next day I thought I would take it easy, so I headed to the cinema in the afternoon to watch "Rise of the Apes" which I thought was a good movie to watch seeing that I was off to see the orangutans the next day. The movie was average but I had an interesting experience when I went to the toilet and found a rat sitting on top of the cistern. I wasn't 100% sure that it was dead and didn't want to find out, so I just took a photo and got out of there. I also checked out the many free museums around town. Although being small they are quite good especially the chinese museum and the textile museum.

On sunday I caught the local bus to Semenggoh Rehabilitation Centre where I was hoping to see some orangutans. It was a pleasant 20 minute walk along a small road to where the feeding takes place. Even before the park rangers had put out the food a couple of orangutans were already in the area with one of them entertaining us lucky earlycomers with his antics. There were 2 feeding stations and in total I reckon I saw about 10 different orangutans. The highlight for me was to see a very large and hairy male ( i believe he is called Richie) slowly make his way over to the feeding area and then sit there for 15 minutes whilst eating most of the bananas. I enjoyed Semenggoh a lot more than Sepilok (Sabah), which I had visited a couple of years ago, mainly due to the fact that it is more relaxed, less spectators, and more orangutans. It is considerably cheaper as well, costing me only $3 which included transport to and from Kuching. After arriving back from the centre I moved to another guesthouse along the waterfront called Rafflesia Lodge which is very nice with very friendly staff and about $12 for a room with shared bathroom.

Monday I headed north to the Sarawak cultural village which took about an hour on the local bus. The village is made up of about 6-7 traditional houses built by the different peoples of Sarawak which hold some demonstrations of their arts and crafts. There was also a 45 minute performance showcasing their traditional dance. Of course they had to choose me from the crowd to hold a pole while the performer spun around on his stomach on the top of it. I haven't been to one of these cultural villages for a while and whilst I thought some of the buildings and the performance quite interesting, it could do with a bit more enthusiasm and demonstrations. The following day I headed out this way to have a go on a high ropes course. Although being quite short ( about half an hour) it was a good test of nerve and I enjoyed myself most of the time whilst worrying for the remainder. There was no way I was walking across a shaky beam 8 metres above the ground without holding a rope or something. I did have a harness on though.

Today I had another lazy day. The only thing I have done was to cross the river on the small taxi boat and have a small walk to and around the little fort. I had a really nice but expensive indian meal last night and I am thinking about going again tonight because tomorrow I am off to Bako National Park for a couple of days where I think it will only be a choice of noodles or rice.

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