Kuching! Could this be the perfect Malaysian Experience?

Borneo Bound

We're in Sarawak! The capital city to be precise - Kuching.

It's very cool. We've only been for a day and we're quite impressed already. We're staying near the river front - Kuching is a city that occupies both banks of the river - and doing a couple of days here before going to the national park and the coast.

Our first day was spent exploring the city on foot. Kuching centre is very walkable. It's walkable in a way that Georgetown just isn't. Okay, yes you can do Georgetown on foot, but it's more fraught that doing that in Kuching. The streets are less hectic here, there are pavement that don't just vanish and leave you facing several lanes of uncrossable traffic. There are subways and pedestrian crossing and the drivers know what they are. There aren't swarms of moped riders ignoring every traffic rule. It's a city that feels accessible and frankly almost European in the way you can navigate it. It's also quite a lot cleaner. Yes, there are areas where people have dropped litter and yes there was a distressing about of plastic waste in the river and on the banks, but nothing like the scale of Penang.

The city is also less built up. East Malaysia has a much larger area compared to the population than peninsula Malaysia does, so consequently it feels less constrained by space. The buildings don't need to be high rise. Also there are height restrictions on buildings due to the proximity of the airport to the city centre.

This is the view from the national museum of Sarawak. Believe it or not, this is the centre of the city.

Here's the view in the other direction...

slightly more built up, but nothing by the standard of larger, modern South East Asian cities.

This all just contributes to the feeling that Kuching is just so much more relaxed. Which is weird, because Penang is already quite relaxed in comparison to say Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia in general has a reputation for being fairly relaxed as a country.

The people are also incredibly friendly. I mean roll the window of the car down and welcome you to their city friendly. Not a cynical piss take, like you may find in some countries (okay, by that I mean the UK, where I have experienced drive by wankerism on more than one occasion).

The city has a fairly good music, cafe and bar scene although it does appear that some of the places we had scoped out on TripAdvisor had been casualties if COVID restrictions. Kuching is a city that attracts a range of visitors. It's clearly on the backpacker trail - there were lots of them. There were also lots of older western and more specifically British travellers, which was strange to see - we saw more western tourists as a proportion of the crowds than we tend to in Penang and that's a really big tourist spot. There were also families and younger couples. The hotel we were staying in had Australian and British travellers as well as visitors from the region staying there. On the whole Kuching has a very traveller friendly vibe.

Darul Hana Bridge - a great spot to get views to the city.

The State Legislative Building

The main attraction for the day was the Borneo Cultures Museum. This is fantastic and, whilst it has a reasonably high entry fee for foreigners, - 50 RMY for adults 25 RMY for children - is still very good value and amounts to about £10 and £5 respectively. Given that you can spend at least half a day here that is still worth the price. We got in for 45 RMY total as we are residents of Peninsular Malaysia and qualified for the discounted price. The museum is also part of a much wider complex of museums and galleries, including the Islamic Heritage Museum and the Natural History Museum just to name two.

The building itself is impressive

 We were really impressed and it stands up to the big museums of the UK, which I consider to be high praise indeed given the quality of our national museums - the Science Museum in London and the National Museum of Scotland being two of our favourites.

Day 2 (we're in past tense now!)

The first part of our stay was 2 nights in the city centre at a hotel called the Lime Tree. This hotel has an eco friendly ethos and tries to reduce the carbon footprint of the building. The owners also run a lime orchard and use the locally produced fruit to make a range of products from lime marmalade to soaps. We got a family suite that had a double and two single beds - the two singles were in their own nook around the corner from the king sized bed. The room included breakfast, which was more than adequate and included some really nice local specialities including a Sarawak variation on roti cani. 

Day 2 consisted of an interesting photo opportunity, a visit to a fairly cool park, an amazing lunch and the riverside by night.

We visited the upside down house and took some cool zero g photos.

After that we explored a bit more and found the reservoir park, a fantastic public space which is currently being renovated.

There are some nicely laid out paths, seating and play areas and water features. It's currently being thoroughly refurbished and it's also very much free from rubbish, it also has lots of bins something which the city in general seems to be well equipped with - take note Penang!

We got some photos of the key landmarks

A cat statue - one of many.

Some cat based graffiti.

More cats...

We had a late lunch at a great Chinese style cafe called Life Cafe, which had an extensive vegetarian menu.

This was also the day that we got to see the city at night.

The Governor's residence - I'm not sure how he gets any sleep?

The legislature building illuminated

The bridge and the building

The bridge from a different perspective

The city felt calm and friendly at night, if a little bit weird (the street entertainment got a bit odd - dancing transformer robots and Minnie Mouse doing a Bollywood routine in front of a Chinese shrine) and there were many people just out enjoying the hawker stalls, cafes and bars. Again there seemed to be a fairly large contingent of tourists in the city, which after such a long time must be a welcome change.

Day 3 - Orangutans

Orangutans were one of the main reasons that we came to Borneo. We got to see some! Two to be precise. They were at a wildlife reserve where orangutans who are rescued are rehabilitated in a semi-wild environment. They are very cool! This is truly one of the experiences that we couldn't get anywhere else. The Semenggoh Wildlife Reserve is one of the major draws in the Kuching area and is a well organised and well managed facility. The 

The first we saw was the dominant male - he was happy to hang about in the trees and munch on the fruit he'd been given. He wasn't particularly fussed about coming down even to get a bottle of his favourite drink.

Here he is thoughtfully contemplating... well, fruit probably.

The second orangutan was the matriarch of the group, a 51 year old female who has been at the sanctuary for a long time. She was inclined to get down and interact with the staff, but in her own time and only so long as they had tasty treats. One of the things we learned was that orangutans like boiled eggs - who knew. I guess these are rare in the wild so must be an exotic simian delicacy.

She decided she needed all of the bananas.

After the wildlife sanctuary we went to the next hotel of our stay. We booked two nights at Cove 55, which was a little bit of luxury splurge, but well worth it.

The hotel is relatively small, but very well equipped - gym, infinity pool, onsite restaurant (which was very good as a matter of fact), library and reading room. There are a range of rooms and onsite villas in the grounds that can accommodate groups of different sizes. We had a family room in the main building and it was fantastic! Well equipped and comfortable with a full king sized bed and a double sofa bed. 

The views were astounding - looking out across coastal mangrove swamps to the South China Sea.

The hotel also had a spectacular view of a local nature reserve formed around a volcanic outcrop. 

The view from the beach side of the nature reserve.

We initially intended to go to the Bako National Park, but the tides were a little against us - the rivers and beaches are highly tidal and you need a decent draft to be able to access the national park. This was a little disappointing, but we were still able to access the Taman Negara Santubong, which is a smaller reserve, the one we could see from the hotel. It had beach amenities and you could even stay in a rainforest hut if you wanted (they actually seem reasonably pleasant and would be quiet an experience I'd imagine). We thought about swimming from this beach, but the water was not very clear - clean, but churned up with silt - if there's one thing I'm keen on in an area where salt water crocodiles are know to inhabit it's clarity. The beach was marked as swimmable and I think the area is normally very popular, but we are in the rainier season so there weren't many visitors and those that there were, like us, spent time taking in the sights rather than doing too much outright 'beaching'.

We had lunch at the cafe - a decent nasi lemak - and went back to the hotel to relax for a bit.

A warning sign at the jetty to Bako national park - worrying!

Cove 55 was outstanding. Not only was it very well appointed, the staff couldn't have been more friendly or welcoming. The restaurant manager, once he discovered we were vegetarian, spoke to the chef and they created and entire vegetarian menu! I've never experienced service like this anywhere. The hotel may be on the more expensive side, but I guarantee you'd be paying five or six times as much anywhere in Europe to experience anything like this. A two course meal for three (main and desert) with a cocktail each for Nicola and I and a mocktail for Thomas cost around £50, which is expensive by local standards, but nothing compared to the UK! I can heartily recommend Cove 55 if you ever find yourself in Sarawak.

Cocktails!

View from the infinity pool looking out across the tidal estuary

The hotel also has these lagoon villas in one or two bed configuration - each has their own private pool... These were a little beyond our price range.

Breakfast every morning was excellent and the whole experience at Cove 55 was absolutely amazing - a great way to end our Sarawak adventure - although I suspect we have only scratched the surface and we'll certainly be back!

If you are planning a visit to South East Asia I really would encourage you to include Kuching on your itinerary if you have the time and capacity - it is probably my favourite place so far alongside Singapore.