Kuching Day 4

The second last day was mostly spent in the city. We planned to do souvenir shopping. We were at the Waterfront, walked a long the river and took some pictures.

We hunted for souvenirs at the row of shops parallel to the Waterfront. I know that it is a tourist area, but the prices were not too expensive. There are many things that has a local flavour, like wood carvings of cats, monkeys, tribal masks, paintings, etc. Spent the whole morning shopping for souvenirs and spent about RM50.

Next destination was the Sarawak Museum. It is actually a few museums collectively, namely Islamic Museum, Ethnology Museum, Art Museum and (Stuffed) Animal Museum. I managed to take some pictures from Ethnology Museum.

Taken at the Ethnology Museum

A painting from the Art Museum

A model made from recyclables

It was time for lunch. We headed to this circular-shaped hawker center and ordered laksa, siu mai, some vegetables and meat soup noodles. Finally I saw one stall which sells White Lady a.k.a. Snow White in Chinese. It's basically ice kacang, but with condensed milk, sago, pineapple and lychee with a twist of lemon. Very smooth and refreshing, but the rest said it was just OK / bland.

There is a famous fish ball noodles stall within walking distance, so we decided to try it. I know this was becoming more of a food vacation than a sightseeing / R & R vacation. But really, the fish balls were excellent; very authentic fish taste and good texture. We also ordered a plate of pork satay. It was also delicious.

After all the eating, we went to the Civic Center. It is one of the taller buildings in Kuching, with a very interesting design. It looks like a spaceship to me.

From the highest floor of the Civic Center, we could see the whole city of Kuching.

View from the Civic Center

One last stop to buy some snacks before dinner. No, not for ourselves but to bring back home. Bought some pepper for an ex-colleague, some biscuits and titbits.

Dinner was good. We had steamed red talapia fish which was very fresh. Had pork knuckles and another dish of miding vegetables.

Another day well spent. The next day was our flight home.

Kuching Day 3

We headed for the cultural village early in the morning. We got lost a little on the way there (there is absolutely no signage to the place!) and arrived at 10 a.m.

The place is quite huge. Entrance fee was RM60 and we got a "Passport" each, where we were supposed to get a stamp at every traditional house. There were also some notes on the different tribes, their cultures and history.

I will let the pictures do the talking.

Making "kuih bahulu". We bought them and they were good!

Inside the Malay house.

Things used in the olden days, from the Chinese House

The Melanau Tall House

The verandah of the Melanau Tall House

Tools to make blowpipes

Iban Longhouse

Inside the Iban Longhouse

There are two cultural performances daily, at 1130 and 1645. It was very interesting to watch the traditional dances, with the dancers wearing their tribal costumes. The dances were lively and the music was quite pleasing.

Two thing that irked me during the cultural performance. The MC's accent was terrible unidentifiable, hence what he said was impossible to understand. The other thing that I didn't like was this one dancer whom I felt was cocky. He wanted the audience to keep on applauding and applauding his spinning-on-a-wooden-pole stunt *rolls eyes*

We managed to finish the whole tour of the Cultural Village by 2 p.m. As we still had time, we visited the famous Cat Museum. There is everything and anything that are related to cats on displayed, from dolls, pictures, stories, teapots, sculptures to Doraemon, Hello Kitty and Cats the Musical. I don't remember seeing anything about the Pussy Cat Dolls though.

Quite an interesting museum actually. Some of the exhibits are really beautiful and unique. But Nyk commented that it seemed like a cat fanatic's exhibition of his vast collection of memorabilia from the interesting to the weird.



















When we were about to leave, it started to rain again. We had dinner with Lloyd's mum at this restaurant called Fook Xing. The dishes there were cheap and good. One of the unique dishes which we ordered was the duck wrapped with yam. Definitely unusual but it was great.

The mom mentioned a famous "kway chap" (mixed pork innards with kway teow) and Nick's eyes lit up. So we headed to the market where the stall is right after dinner. Nyk and I shared a bowl. It was good, but nothing spectacular. Nick loved it a lot though.

Feeling satiated and sleepy, we headed back to the hotel.

Kuching Day 2

The next day was fine weather, just perfect for our trip to Bako National Park. According to the websites I have read, it is a must-go.

And I agree.

We had to take a boat ride out to the island. The river bank was lined with mangroves and we even spotted a crocodile sunning itself.







There were a few tracks to choose from and we decided on Telok Pandan trail, which is not too long. It is expected to take us about 90 minutes to complete the trail. There are two trails actually, one Teluk Pandan Kecil and Teluk Pandan Besar.

Both track overlaps except for the last part of their respective trails. Our main one is actually Kecil; Besar is just a 10-minute detour from the Kecil track.

Some of the sights which I saw:










At the end of the Pandan Besar trail, the view was beautiful. We were standing on top of a cliff and this was what I saw.





We turned back to the Pandan Kecil trail. It took us another 20 minutes before we reached this wonderfully tranquil and white-sandy beach. We also saw a dead jellyfish washed on shore (picture 2 below).








A boat came to pick us up from the Pandan Kecil beach. On the ride back, it started to rain and once again, we were drenched. That's twice in 2 days.

We went for lunch at a restaurant in a Malay kampung and ordered miding (local vegetable), chicken (fragrant and yummy), steamed white pomfret and hor jian. The hor jian is a little different from the ones that I have eaten. It's dry and there is crunchy prawn crackers around it.

I quite love it. Nyk didn't; he prefers them to be wetter. There is no starch but lots of eggs.

After that, we visited a temple nearby. And then it was time to head back to the hotel.

Kuching Day 1

Nyk and I arrived in Kuching on 8th November (Saturday) at about 1500 hours. The flight was pretty uneventful and there wasn't many passengers on board.

Kuching International Airport

Lloyd and Nick were at the Kuching International Airport to pick us up. First thing we did was to check in at this hotel called Hung Hung, which is right next to the General Hospital. Hmmm, so in case anything bad happened, we would be extremely safe.

Why did we choose this hotel? It was the most affordable one that I could find online, at RM70 per night.

Next up was to visit the Sunday Market. This market actually opens from Saturday afternoon till Sunday afternoon. There were some things which one doesn't usually see in a open air pasar, like cats, dogs, DIY hardware stuff like screws and hammers, plants, etc.

We were there for less than half an hour when clouds opened up and there was a heavy downpour. We were all wet under our tiny 1-person umbrellas. We spent another 20 minutes to get back to the car and we got more drenched.

Dinner was at this place called Hong Kong Noodles. We ordered roasted duck, some local vegetable (I forgot the name) and toufu. The food were all great and I enjoyed it.

Kuching shops closes at about 2100, so there wasn't much to do after dinner. I didn't know that the people here have such wonderful work-life balance. But actually the sunrise and sunset here are an hour earlier than West Malaysia. That probably explains why.

And so we retired for the day.

Kuching

I am blogging now from Kuching, in Sarawak. It has a very nice old world charm to it, with not many high rises. Most of the people here live in semi-detached and terrace houses in stark contrast to the HDBs and condominiums in Singapore.

I would be back in KL on Wednesday, so there will be no updates till then. Enjoy the weekend guys and gals!