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KUCHING CITY OF CATS!
A fond farewell to Ruth and I move to the dorm for £4 night with breakfast. (I can’t afford to come home!) For most of the time I am on my own. Time now to relax and chat to other travellers. I meet Anna from Melbourne who has worked for most of her life in Indonesia and Karen and John from Brisbane who are working on a food growing project in Kalimantan and in a library.
Wifi here is unpredictable - but no worse than at home. In fact I can say that podcasts of the Archers download better in Borneo than in Perthshire!
I am fascinated by old woven materials and beaded garments and items. Driven on by wanting to share my finds with my friend Val Aldridge I revisit the textile museum and manage to get a licence to photograph items in the museum. (Let me know if you want to see them when I get home.)
I visit the Tun Jugah Pua Gallery where traditional and rare pua pieces of woven cloth typical of the Iban ikat culture are displayed. There is also a large room with numerous looms dedicated
to ladies with traditional weaving skills. I am lucky to have the curator of the museum all to myself for a couple of hours. She kindly explains so much about traditional weaving and asks her ladies to demonstrate different weaving techniques for me. Quite an honour and very much appreciated. Generally weaving skills are handed down from grandmother to daughter to granddaughter. All patterns and natural dye colours have their significance. The 2m x 1m cloths which were being woven may take over a year to complete and they are still used for tribal festivals and ceremonies. Sadly the younger generation of ladies really appreciate the wonderful woven cloths but they are not prepared to master the skills to carry on the traditions of their ancestors. Here I also visit the rooms with ceramics and beautiful pots and the bead museum.
Another encounter with the ‘Friends of Sarawak Museum’ when I join a walk through the old Chinese quarter of the town and visit the Chinese museum and and several beautiful temples. It is coming up to special celebrations. The temples are cleaned from head to tail. Local shops sell paper shirts and shoes and money which are burned
on fires in the temples as gifts to help in the afterlife of the deceased.
I explore new China town. Lots of interesting little shops and at last I have time to have my eyebrows shaped. (I am sure the force of gravity is stronger near to the Equator. My eyebrows and everything else seem to have dropped recently!) An interesting experience. The beautician shapes my eyebrows from the top rather than the bottom.
Hunger calls and I find Top Spot Restaurant which can seat over 1000 diners on the top of a multi-storey car park. So many people here. I walk round the edge and view the various seafood outlet stalls. Just choose your fish and veg and sit back with a Tiger beer and wait. I eat a tasty thick fish steak grilled in butter with garlic and a variety of mushrooms with fried rice.
I did have a windy tummy for a few days which precluded extended bus travel. (Was it the mushrooms?) It is suggested by Anna that I should visit the Chinese medicine man as part of my Sarawak experience. A little vial of brown balls taken with warm water must have
been just what I needed.
Now recovered I head for Bako National Park. A number 1 bus and then a fast very uncomfortable ferry ride. Unfortunately I forgot to take my bottom-saver cushion! Within minutes of arriving I see long tailed macaque monkeys. Some really tiny with such long arms, legs and tails that they look very spidery! They play just a few feet away climbing a fence and then pushing each other off into a big muddy puddle. Close to the path are wild bearded pigs with babies snortling in the mud. I follow a trail and meet another family of macaque monkeys of all sizes. Dad doesn’t like me and squeals loudly along with all the others. I make a hasty retreat. Later I am told that it was the small red plastic bag with my iPad in that was the problem. The monkeys thought it contained food! I join a night walk but only a few insects and little frogs. I am spoilt after Deramakot Forest Reserve night walks where I saw a pangolin, a tarsier, a slow loris, civets, mouse deer, sambar deer, flying squirrels, flying lemurs and squirrels.
The dorms here in the
National Park are full so I have chalet for 3 all to myself. A tropical storm in the night. Lightning and thunder overhead and torrential rain batters the metal roof. I wake just after dawn and walk in the rainforest in the rain for the first time. Lovely smells, birdsong and the constant hum of crickets. A vibrant kingfisher flies by. The tide is in and the waves lap the mangrove swamp. There was a croc here last week but not this morning.
I see a squirrel and then 2 proboscis monkeys sitting well camouflaged in a big leafy tree so it is difficult to take photographs. Three more appear and they chase each other from tree to tree and then leap onto the roof of the education centre. Such a clatter on the metal roof.
Still no leeches and hardly any mozzies. I should really count my blessings. I will leave Martin a pristine pair of leech socks!
Back to Singghasana Lodge and another day in Kuching before flying back to Kota Kinabalu.
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