Blogs from Sarawak, Malaysia, Asia - page 15

Tuesday 12th July Travelling day to Kota Kinabalu. Wednesday 13th July Flight to Sandakan. On the local bus we chatted to a lady who asked if we'd like to go stay at her hotel. She was very friendly and was lovely. Shame her hotel was not. Nor was Sandakan. It reminded me of a town recovering from civil war. A lady also did her business in the street so it was quite like China as well. Thursday 14th July Went to Sepilok Orang-utans centre for morning feeding time and saw 3 Orang-utans one with a baby! So cute! Then booked to stay at Uncle Tan's jungle camp and got on a long tail boat and were amazingly lucky to see 2 wild Orang-utans, again one mummy with her baby! Wonderful. This trek was already totally with ... read more

After enjoying a much needed shower after returning from the national park and having lunch I checked out Kuching's art and craft shops. Most of what they sell is generally the same and most of that is cheap tacky souvenirs, but some of it is amazing art work just impossible to transport without breaking. After buying a few things and getting arty myself I headed down to the river for dinner at the 'Little Lebanon' restaurant. Not having a clue what I had ordered which is generally the case I was surprised when I received a plate of rice and then some fridge cold fish tasting rather sour serviced on a piece of lettuce, not sure whether it was nice or not I just ate it. Then had fried ice cream to change the taste in ... read more

Tuesday - we decided against eating at Top Spot as it was all pretty much seafood and we didn't fancy it; instead we ate laksa at a small local place, very tasty, complete with lime and sambal on the side for 5 ringgit each (one pound, 2 NZ$). Wednesday - didn't do much really. It didn't rain, second day in a row. We just wandered around India Street, visited a Hindu temple and Mac got a very good 10 ringgit haircut. Later we went back up towards India Street to eat at Little Lebanon, an arabic place mentioned in the Lonely Planet. It was a huge disappointment - the baba ghanoush tasted nothing like authentic baba ghanoush and the falafel tasted burnt on the outside, although the inside was pleasant enough and the tahini dip was ... read more

Yesterday we left Miri and flew to Kuching. I'd say the Dynasty hotel in Miri was by far the best we've stayed at on this trip, breakfast was top with so much choice, Asian and more conventional. It rained all morning in Miri, when we arrived in Kuching it was really bouncing off the pavements, relentless, the most rain we've seen in a single day. Not the usual 5 minute wonder! We were picked up at the airport by our hotel in Kuching, the Lime Tree - very nice too, smaller room and no fridge but plenty of citrus touches such as lime body and hair shampoo in the bathroom, a free lime juice on the rooftop terrace, lime coloured scatter cushions on the bed, a lime coloured mug to drink tea from and lime marmalade ... read more

Kuching is a city in Sarawak, a state in Malaysia that is on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. The geography is a bit confusing. Borneo is a huge island divided among Indonesia (the state of Kalimantan), Malaysia (two states), and the small country of Brunei. Kuching is the capital of one of the two Malaysian states, Sarawak. Kuching. Kuching is a great city. Malaysian Borneo seems very wealthy, maybe more so than the rest of Malaysia (which is quite wealthy in general). Kuching is a city of around 600,000. It's clean, green, calm, quiet, wealthy, orderly, uncrowded, and great for strolling. Pretty much the opposite of my experiences in India. Even the weather here seems noticeably different from South India. Yes, it's tropical rainforest weather here. But 95 with 100% humidity feels downright ... read more