Cat City

In Malaysian, Kuching means Cat and boy has this city milked that! There are cats everywhere, both real and fake, from statues to Christmas lights. However, for me the main thing I'll take away from Kuching and Sarawak (the region where Kuching is the main city) is the fantastic ethos of its people.

We were staying at a guest house on the north side of the river for our three nights here. From the moment we arrived, our host Madnor could not have been more accommodating and helpful. His wife had baked us some traditional layer cake and Madnor gave us some good advice on what to do during our stay. His first recommendation was to visit the Brooke Gallery, which he drove us to while also showing us some of the local sites.

Before coming to Sarawak, I had no idea about its history and how one British family changed the course of it. In the mid 1800s, James Brooke set sail for Borneo, having read about it in a book. When he arrived, the country was ruled by the Brunei Sultanate, however many of the indigenous people were revolting due to the high taxes being imposed on them. James Brooke made a deal with Brunei to end the revolt in exchange for some land, which he successfully did and as a result became the first White Rajah. Over the next 100 years, his son Charles and grandsons Vymer and Bertram would rule over Sarawak. But what was remarkable was the way in which they embraced all the different indigenous cultures that exist on Borneo and ensured that every culture was treated equally. Tribal leaders were invited to be part of the government and make decisions on how the area would be governed. Over time, the White Rajahs acquired more and more land from Brunei so that today, Brunei’s land area is extremely small in comparison to Sarawak.

Despite the rule of the White Rajah coming to an end mainly because of the Second World War, the ethos remains, that every culture should be respected and have equal opportunities. Everyone is incredibly friendly here and a diverse mix of Chinese, Malay, indigenous cultures, Indians and western people live together in harmony. It’s truly wonderful to see and something the rest of the world could learn a lot from!

After the Brooke gallery, we took a small boat across the river to the Waterfront area. There are loads of stalls, lights and entertainment along this stretch so it’s a nice route to stroll along. We took a river cruise down the river to get a feel for the city, and while a bit touristy, it was a good way to get our bearings. For dinner, we went to a local seafood hawker centre, which was lovely apart from all the steps we had to climb to get to the top! Our legs were definitely feeling that! Luckily we found a lift for the way down!

To get back to our guest house, we had to cross the river on a very small boat. Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be any timetable for the boat so we had to wait 45 minutes until the boatman decided to come across the river and pick us up. However, it only cost us RM2 (about 40p for the two of us!) and it did give us a chance to speak to a nice local man about Kuching.

One of the main reasons for visiting Sarawak was to see the orangutans. Unfortunately we didn’t research this very well and turns out that December is not only monsoon season, but also fruiting season which makes it very unlikely that you’ll see an orangutan. We therefore changed our plans and visited the Sarawak cultural village instead. This was very interesting and exhibited the type of longhouses, cultural dances and dresses, and traditional activities of many of the local Sarawak tribes. Our day started off with a cultural show which was very entertaining, followed by wandering around looking at the different longhouses. Unfortunately many of them were on stilts which meant more steps to climb (you can see a pattern emerging here!) Also, did I mention its monsoon season? Well we had great fun hobbling between each of the houses, trying to dodge the torrential rain! But the site was definitely worth visiting and gave us a good understanding of traditional life.

For dinner, we headed back across the river to another hawker centre where we had a fantastic Chinese selection of dishes. The food is very good here! At 8.30 we watched the nightly light show, which was incredible! I’ve never seen anything like it and it definitely put the Singapore one to shame! They projected a movie onto a fan of water followed by some amazing coloured fountains, the whole thing was definitely worth watching and made us wish we were staying here for New Year!

For our final full day on Borneo, we visited Bako National Park to the north of Kuching. To get there you have to take a boat from Bako village and once there, there are a number of walking trails and much wildlife to be seen. We saw proboscis monkeys, long-tailed macaques and wild boar, as well as various brightly coloured butterflies and dragonflies. Despite our (still!) aching legs, we decided to do a short walk to a cliff edge to see a sea stack. The terrain was extremely varied from rainforest through to sandstone rivers. However it was incredibly hot and humid! The views from the end of the trail were stunning though, so well worth it.

About 200m from the end of the trail the heavens opened (it is a rainforest in monsoon season after all!) and we got absolutely drenched! We attempted to dry off at the park HQ before getting our boat back to Bako village, with little success. The boats pick you up at low tide, which made for very slow going back as we kept getting beached on the mudflats. It was quite entertaining though, with each of the boats racing each other to be the first back.

Feeling a little bit drained, we opted for the easy option for dinner and went to the James Brooke Bistro on the Waterfront. The food was tasty, if not a bit touristy.

Overall, we have thoroughly enjoyed our time on Borneo and are grateful to everyone who recommended we go there as well as Peninsula Malaysia. The people are lovely and very welcoming, the food is tasty and cheap and the countryside is very beautiful. I would definitely recommend it to anyone thinking of travelling out this way.

Our next stop is Kuala Lumpur, where we will be for new year.