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Kuching - which means cat in Malay - was a wonderful city to relax in. We had booked a lodge on the river waterfront and were very comfortable there for the nine nights we stayed. The staff were wonderful, particularly the man who organised our breakfast each morning. He was so attentive I'm sure he would have spoon fed us had we wanted him to! The riverside has a long paved promenade lined with landscaped gardens and restaurants and is well used by the local people. The city was very clean and the area in which we were staying was lined with old Chinese shop houses. The population seemed predominately Chinese as there were not a lot of Muslim dress being worn. The town centre follows the riverbank and feels like a small community as the suburbs are isolated by the river which does have one bridge crossing but it is a long way from the old centre. There are also quite a lot of multistorey hotels built along the riverside now but they are all up one end together.
The opposite river bank is dominated by the nearly finished Parliament Building, which is of a traditional design and will look
amazing once opened in the evening with all the lighting accentuating the shape. As well there is an old fort, in a bad state of repair, but as it borders the new parliament building we presume that they will renovate and tidy it up. On the other side of the new building is the residence of the current governor. There is also a busy little community of Malay people, still living in the traditional wooden houses. To get across to the opposite riverbank you caught little oar controlled boats which crisscrossed constantly.
A lot of the tme in Kuching was spent not doing much at all. We did catch a bus out to the Sarawak Cultural Village which is a living museum. It has examples of the traditional houses built by the various tribal groups in Sarawak, from the tiny tempory huts of the Penan people to the tall houses - enormous long houses built on stilts 40 foot high. Each house is staffed by tribespeople who will happily describe their customs etc. A couple of the houses had skulls hanging up as last century many of the groups were headhunters. We also watched an excellent performance by the various
groups of the traditional dances and music including a blowpipe display. It was a very informative day! The other museum I loved was the Textile Museum, crammed full of beautifully displayed costumes and beadwork. Beadwork is a traditional art which began when the early Western settlers used them as trading items. The antique beads are now very valuable here.
Another morning was spent at the Semenoggoh Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre where again we were privileged to see some more orangutans. Many more and much closer than we had in Sabah, and for 6RM against 70RM in Sabah. The price was actually far too cheap! We didn't really get to see the animals up close untill the hundred or so noisy Asian tourists left - no doubt upset they hadn't seen any - but if they would only have shut up they would have! Asians don't know the meaning of quiet and live life on full volume. The remainder of the day we spent at the Islamic Museum which was a disappointment as all the exhibists were faded, dirty and generally poorly displayed.
Next day we boarded one of the little boats and visited the fort across the river and the Malay
village. The fort is presently the Police Museum but was built in 1879 by a English man Charles Brooke to defend Kuching against pirates. As a reward he became the first white Rajah and lived a very comfortable life thereafter. Our favourite waterfront cafe which was in the centre of a garden, with a lovely bronze statue of a group of cats in front, was also named after him. Kuching has a few cat statues but most (all) except the bronze one were very ugly - brightly coloured cement - enough said!
That evening we decided to have high tea at the Hilton Hotel - it had been recommended to us by a couple in KL - and we loved it. Great value for money - 33RM each (AUD$13) - it was a banquet - everything you could think of and more! We didn't need to eat that evening but found the Hilton hard to leave so ended up in their cocktail lounge which wasn't such a bargain as alcohol isn't cheap in Muslim countries.
Next morning we walked to the local Sunday markets - really large - a lot of fish (main part of their diet here) and colourfully
displayed vegetables. The people were very friendly (as we have found all the Malaysians) and happy to talk about how they eat and cook their food. We've been eating most evenings at either a Lebanese Restaurant (complete with Hookah pipes) or a food court on top of a car park. At the food court you go to a stall, take a plate and fill with whatever raw vegetables and fish you want and they
take it away and cook it for you. We've also been patronising the various branches of Starbucks through out Malaysia as they all have free wifi, air con and don't care if you sit on one cup of coffee and read a book all day.
Another day we had planned to catch a bus to visit a longhouse which was advertised in our guide books as having 100 doors. We had been looking forward to seeing it but the tourist office said that the government had banned longhouses of that length now and that over the last couple of years it had got shorter and shorter - and was now only 10 houses long - the same length as the one we had gone to see
in Sabah. As it would have taken another couple of hours on a very noisy local bus to get there we decided that one was enough. It appears that there is only one really traditional long house now in the region and to get there was a long hike and an expensive tour. This village will soon be gone as the government is building a dam and it will be eventually under water.
Instead we headed off on another local bus and took just as long to get to a cave system, but it was enjoyable to see a bit more of the countryside and a couple of the smaller towns. That afternoon we decided belately to phone the agents for the Indian Embassy in Penang to check how long it would take to get our Indian visas there. We were not happy when we found that it could take up to a fortnight to obtain from Penang and as we had booked air tickets to Mumbai for the 3rd June meant we may not have had our visas in time. Though we had booked tickets to Penang from Australia decided we should fly back to KL instead to apply
for the visas, as the application timeframe was shorter. We hadn't applied for the Indian visas in Australia as their validity starts from day of issue so there would have been at least 2 months of their six months used up before we even arrived on the continent.
Unfortunately this meant we had to leave Kuching at lunch time, not late evening (as were our flights to Penang) so were then unable to stay overnight in previously booked rooms at Bako National Park for our last night in Borneo as it wasn't an easy place to get out of by lunch time. What a stuff up! Anyway we headed off to the national park early next morning for the day and had a fun, if exhausting, day. After an hour on a local bone shaker bus and a great 20 minute speed boat trip down the river to the park we arrived and saw proboscis monkeys in the mangroves next to the boat jetties. They were really close! We had decided to take a 5 hour trek but the national park advised against it as they said it was too long - it was only about 8 klms - and
we thankfully took their advice. The 5 klm trek we did took 4 hours and we were totally exhausted at the end - wringing wet and legsore. We saw a lot of pitcher plants though and spent the whole time climbing (as much as walking) over tree roots and going up and down steps. We thoroughly enjoyed the walk however, particularly as we knew we had a non refundable room waiting for us at the end of the walk. It was great to have a shower and a half hour nap before catching the boat back down the river home. On the way back to the jetty we saw 2 more proboscis monkeys eating flower buds in one of the trees. These were so close we could have touched them - a real highlight of the day.
Devin told us we would love Kuching and we certainly did. It was a very peaceful area to spend time in - great food, very clean, and there was a lot of Chinese history in the backstreets. One of the last things we did there was visit the Chinese Museum on the waterfront - very tiny but it had the most detailed carved
ivory pair of figurines I've ever seen. They were about 4 foot high and stunning, very old and rare and amazing to find items like those in a tiny one room free museum.
Later that day we caught another Air Asia flight to KL where we booked once again the D'Oriental Hotel in the middle of Chinatown. At least we were very familiar with the area. Next morning we caught a taxi out to the Indian Embassy to find a queue half a block long of Indian people waiting for the Embassy to open. Thankfully somebody came up and told us that tourist visas were no longer issued there (we had wandered why we were the only foreigners there) and there was a new tourist office in Chinatown - 10 minutes walk from our hotel! We were starting to wander whether we even wanted to go to India by this stage...
The rest of the day we spent at Petronas Towers, browsing the book shops and enjoying the food hall and aircon. There was an amazing storm which lasted for ages whilst we were there so we couldn't have left even had we wanted to! Next morning we headed down
to the interstate bus station 10 minutes down the road and were lucky enough to get an express bus to Georgetown, the historic centre of Penang, 10 minutes later. We still had 3 nights prepaid hotel accommadtion to use there and at least 5 working days before our visa applications would be cleared and didn't want to stay in KL any longer.
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Devin
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It sounds like you both had a great time in Kuching - I knew that you would. Lovely photo of you both too! xx