I arrived in Kuching early in the morning, after a VERY long and miserable bus ride along the frontier-like Trans-Sarawakian highway linking the cities of southern Borneo that line the sea. I was dropped near the downtown waterfront district, near the prominent city mosque and not far from little india, a brief little pedestrian street that may be more aptly named little china by the looks of the store signs and clientel. I wandered around with my backpacks, which is always a ridiculous feeling - I'm much more inconspicuous with my big old blue sack, look more out of place than usual, if that's possible. In places where noone was looking i'd pull out my LP and try to sort out the map; I gave up eventually. There were only 4 or 5 hostel/hotels listed anyways, and 2 of those in the book were admittedly infested with either bedbugs or rats. Not sure why, in a city of somewhere between 300 000 and 500 000 people, with dozens of accomodations, LP would list two with such poor prospects. I walked down the street behind the waterfront and eventually walked by a restaurant and an Indian woman standing outside - she was overly friendly, and I was hungry, so I went in to the Bollywood Cafe and asked her to recommend something. Soon a plate full of Briyani rice and chicken curry was on the table, and a roti was on the way. I sorted out my hunger, and tried to locate the place I was told to stay at by Ragu, the Indian chap in Miri. Taxi drivers could not help, nor could shop owners. I figured Ragu was off a bit and so walked around until I found something to my taste: The Borneo Bed and Breakfast - not to be confused with the other B & B nearby that was allegedly crawling with B & B's of a different sort. This place was run by an Iban family and was reasonably priced, 16RM for a dorm and breakfast. Inside I was greeted by the friendly owner who was talking about an organized trip to the orang utan centre with a girl who turned out to be from Vancouver. I could tell she was Canadian by listening to the two women speak - nothing in particular that she said, but just her mannerisms. It's funny actually, but it's usually easy to tell the northern North Americans from the southern. Subtle differences, difficult to put into words, more of an intuition.
On a side note:
I have met some very wonderful americans on my trip, although there are admittedly VERY few travelling in this part of the world - a phenomena worth discussing some time. I claim no ill against any americans, but the truth is, in this world Americans are not loved. This fact is more hyped from back home, and in fact most SE Asians really don't care where you're from, but the reality is that many do not care for the American people based on what the American government does. As a canadian attempting to achieve some sense of identity, we sow flags onto our backpacks. I don't think the locals actually see these flags, which serve more as beacons to locate fellow Canadians. The flag sowing ritual, however engrained in the backpacker population, is truly futile in the places I've been. As a tall white guy I am more often mistaken as a Brit, or an Aussie, or as I was today, a Dutch (even with my distinguished accent?). I have only been taken for an American by other western travellers, usually british, usually indifferent to North americans.

not sure what my point was.

Anyhow I checked in, I met the girl, who was off for a run, and went to sleep - the only occupant of the 10bed dormitory. Later I would go for coffee and then drinks with Jenifer, and older nurse travelling the world.

I was not too impressed with Kuching at first. The LP really plays the city up a bit, calling it a Must See place, do not miss, charming. My first impression was that of a drab city, nothing too special. Kuching, however, would grow on me. By night especially, the city glows elegantly. Daytime reveals the filth, but even then it's not too bad. It's a pleasant place, navigatable by foot, with a fantastic history. Only in Malaysia can you have a Hindu temple near the Chinese temple, within sight of the Mosque, not too far from the Church. People of all types wander the streets, and even the street people, of which I believe there to be about 6, are friendly - especially grateful when you drop some Bollywood Cafe samosas in their cup. Across the river a large white Istana sits well guarded - the 'royal' palace. Presumably the istana was home Raja Brooke, the first in a line of White sultans who controlled Borneo with British interests in mind. Nearby the palace is Fort Margurita which now serves as a police 'museum' and is located within fortified police barracks. I was truly disappointed by ths museum which was little more than a mini model of the fort in the main lobby, and a total of 6 maniquins in various useless poses on three different floors. The only thing worth seeing here is the basket full of heads hanging from the ceiling of one of the parapets. If you're in Kuching, don't bother with troubling yourself with this landmark. The ride across the river, though, was interesting. You pay 30sen (perhaps 10cents) for a ride in a very unfortunate-looking-man's boat. This man lives on this boat. Back and forth for only about 3RM a trip. I wonder how much he makes in a day. Not much. felt very badly for these guys, tipped well. Probably homeless men given boats and livelihoods by the government (Lipton sponsors all the boats heavily).
In Malaysia, a wonderful country by the way, it is clear that jobs are plentiful. I don;'t know for sure, but I would say that unemployment is low. The problem is that people have such shitty jobs, and the pay is meager. A small shop in a mall, take the pharmacy in the mall near the Hilton for example, may employ 4 or 5 people at any one time. Here, and in all other gifty-type shops, they follow very closely behind you in an effort to 'assist' you, no doubt. They work all day, everyday for peanuts. Unfortunate. The Bollywood Cafe employs one Malaysian guy, great guy, but he works from dawn to dusk every day (as do the two owners). Some jobs in the paper advertise positions with competitive salaries set at 24RM/day - thats 8$CAD. Gives you some perspective of life in SE Asia, perhaps. Despite the low pay and hard work, the Malaysians are fantastically friendly - I love them for that.

During my few days wandering the city I found only two cat monuments. Still not too sure why it's named the City of Cats (Kuching in melayu). Saw a few stray cats. The other side of the river crawls with them. Hmm.

Semmengoh Orang Utan rehabilitation centre might be worthwhile in the non-fruit seasons. Unfortunately none came for the normally popular morning feeding; they could be heard hollaring in the distance though. One old, fat, ill-tempered, arrogant Brit, who came on the trip organised by the B, B&B, would claim it was because the two children present were complaining a lot. I'm not so sure.

I stayed one restless night in the BBB, and after discovering odd mosquito bites the next morning I decided to move. I haven't been bothered by bugs of the bed kind thus far, but it would seem that the BBB dorm bed in which I slept had something irritating to my skin. Megan would not have been happy sleeping there....

I found the information centre, which was profoundly helpful, and managed to locate the place I was initially pointed to, not too far away. The Fairview homestay is a dorm run by a couple living in the historic Tan Residence. It's clean, tidy and has hot showers in a tiled bathroom - very lush! One of the best accomodations so far.

I met up with an SFU alumni the other day. We have been in contact via this site and email. Really cool, but strange, to discuss former biology professors and classes when so far from home. Found it difficult to remember names, courses...

I fly to Kota Kinabalu at 3:30 tomorrow, set to meet with the Vancouver girl and together we will climb Mount Kinabalu the following day. If all goes as planned we'll breach the summit for dawn of Christmas Day - some 16 hours before everyone back home... I should be down and on my way to Sandakan by the time it's clear that Santa visited my Canadian home. wonder if he'll find me?

Over and out from Kuching.