Kuching

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We flew to Kuching in the south of Sarawak, the biggest city in Borneo with 500,000 inhabitants. It is situated on the banks of the Sarawak River and has a lovely waterfront walkway along which people stroll, particularly in the late afternoon and early evening. Stalls and buskers abound. We are staying in the Harbour View Hotel but Sian and I have a view of rubbish strewn roof tops! The hotel does have WiFi but we have found we can only get it to work by connecting to a router two floors above and sitting in the bathroom....... The temperature and humidity here are much lower than we have been experiencing so it is lovely at 29°C.



We visited the Semenggoh Nature Reserve for feeding time for the 27 resident Orang Utans but none showed up. This must have been very disappointing for the 150 peope from a cruise boat that had docked at the port, but they are probably the reason no one came for breakfast. The cruisers all left and we were then very lucky to see a mother and her baby pass by in the trees, stopping to feed from time to time. We should have left the area by 10am but the kind ranger allowed us to hang around until the Orang Utans had gone. I did at least get a chance to use the x60 zoom on my new camera. The nature reserve is right on the edge of the town and I think therefore the Orang Utans are in a contained area and cannot wander far because of the built up area around them.



We then visited the Sarawak Museum which is quite small with the upstairs concentrating on people and their living conditions with a mock up of a longhouse and downstairs the natural history section which was glass cases full of stuffed animals and birds. Goodness knows when the taxidermy had been done, but I don't think any of the information had been updated since the early 1960's.



On or second day we visited the Bako National Park which is reached by a 30 minute boat ride along the coast, landing on the beach. We did a hot and strenuous 2 hour walk, seeing some Silver Leaf Monkeys and Fiddler Crabs and little else as the population of Proboscis Monkeys had already disappeared to doze by the time we got there. After our walk we were rewarded by a swim in the South China Sea. Dan's fancy watch told us the water temperature was 30°C - it was like a bath!

We all reckon the best place to eat in town is a pace called Top Spot which is a sort of food court specialising in fish on the top of a multi-storey car park. You literally pick one of the stalls, chose what you want, including piling veg on your plate, tell them how you want it cooked and it appears some time later on your table, not all at once of course. A full fish dinner with veg and rice and a very large beer costs about £10.

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Photos

Orang Utah and baby
He is hanging on for his ride

Orang Utah and baby
Photo by Sian

Sampan
5p to ferry you across the river