Warning—this is a VERY long blog post. Proceed with caution.

Trip numero tres of 2009, we decided to bercuti-cuti in Malaysia. Now we have Muffin “with us” everywhere we go, we thought of somewhere a little more laid back, where we could just go with the flow without any frills. And without any frills did we go!

Malaysia Airlines had amazing low fares which I learnt didn’t come guaranteed that we’d be on time. Our flight was delayed for 1 hour, but we were accompanied by the Chong’s and their lovely daughter Eva. I was more occupied with playing at Eva; holding her hand and poking her cheeks; before we knew it, it was boarding time. I think being in the KLIA terminal made waiting more pleasant. I would have been sulking if we were stuck in LCCT. I really hate that place, it’s like Pudu bus station, so noisy and stuffy and yucky. Urgh.

Eva, isn’t she the cutest lil girl?

So on the way we were, flight wasn’t full at all, and Eva was at her best behaviour sitting 3 rows in front of us. I didn’t hear her cry one bit. I wonder if I could be as calm as Grace when I bring Muffin out on his/her first virgin flight. I’m beginning to see more clearly why being a mother can be such a life changing experience—just looking at the number of bags the Chong’s had with them…fuh *sweats*

Our in-flight meal was served not long after take off. I would like to say kudos to Malaysia Airlines for their green initiative. The meal boxes were served in a biodegradable container made of sugar cane pulp. I won’t comment about the food but I am a big fan of going green so I was quite pleased that just this little step that they are taking is making a huge difference to reduce the ever growing landfill in our country.

We arrived into Kuching International Airport and said our goodbyes to the Chong’s, picked up our luggage, and there right outside the arrival hall a big-bellied dark skinned man was holding up a piece of paper with my name on it. Ah, the tour agents I picked didn’t fail me! Antoni from CPH Travel greeted us with a big smile on his face and we quickly sorted out payments for the tours I chose plus the car rental during our time in Kuching. He gave us some tips on where to eat, what to do and gently “reminded” us about tipping his colleagues wtf.

Look, even manholes have LOL cat on it. Scho cute!

We picked up our rented Myvi, and took out my iPhone and went into navigator mode. First stop, we went to look for our friend Li Ann who just delivered her baby #2. Ok, Google maps of Kuching is SO outdated!! Where there’s supposed to be a roundy-bout, it’s now gone. And where there’s a roundy-bout, it doesn’t look like one! And you can’t say 3, 9 or 12 o’clock cos each roundy-bout is so unique; some have 5 – 6 exits. Gawd, I was almost losing my mind when giving Dave directions. We missed a couple of turns and thank God we finally made our way to chillax with Li Ann, #2 Ashton and superstar princess Arielle.

From Li Ann’s place we decided to get going and check in to our no-frills hotel, and getting there was more frustration! I was giving wrong directions to Dave, and we were missing our exits and making rounds around the many Kuching roundy-bouts and having to make numerous u-turns. The rain wasn’t helping either. At one point I just simply put my phone down and scrunched up my face. Finally, after almost 45 minutes we found Tune Hotel, parked our car and checked into our room. It’s a good thing that Kuching drivers are very patient. We didn’t get honked at or kena flash at all! And we made a lot of last minute turns, so if we were in KL, the situation wouldn’t have been so serene.

Ahhh….Tune Hotel. It is really great. Location is excellent, rooms are clean, there’s a safe in the room, very basic modern finishing, and price is perfect for the service you’re getting in return. I like how you can choose to rent your towels and buy air-conditioning credits, very green indeed! I wouldn’t say Tune Hotel is for everyone, particularly those who need the space, or those who’d like some facilities with the hotel such as swimming pool, gym, restaurants, in room TV. It is the right choice if you just need a bed to rest and have your own attached bathroom.

Sarawak Laksa and Kolo Mee

Now to the makan topic. Food in Kuching is in a world of its own. The Chong’s introduced us to typical Kuchingite breakfast on Friday morning. From there on we OD-ed on Kolo mee and Laksa in Chong Choon and Choon Hui cafe, had two seafood dinners at Top Spot (superb crabs, tek tang, prawns, midin but found the orr chien wayyy too weird) and ventured into Hui Sing open air food court for some local delicacies like kueh chap, satay and so called kuey teow with clams aka char kuey teow. I love the laksa OMG! I even bought some laksa paste home to make some for my family. Wonder if it’ll taste the same. Now I understand what the big fuss is with Sarawak Laksa. It is really tasty! The meehoon has a thicker texture and the prawns are so fresh speaking of which I’m craving for a bowl right this moment *hungry*. Of course I wouldn’t argue with Li Ann that Penang has the best hawker food in the world but I’d say Kuching has its specialty lah.

ABC Seafood @ Top Spot

Midin, tek tang, tomato mee and the world’s weirdest orr chien

The famous 3 layer teh C peng

Paying for parking in the public lots on the other hand was an experience I will never forget. I remember during my college days in Taylor’s Subang we had a coupon parking system that go by per hour and per day use. That system has since been replaced by the pay and display system which is of lesser pain to the a$$. Friday morning was our free and easy time around town. So we had to get parking coupons for our car right? The parking coupon system is mad! Just look at the amount of coupons we needed for 6 hours of parking! No wonder there are so many multi-level parking complexes in Kuching—easy way out from dealing with coupons. And mind you, for our 6 hours of parking, it came up to RM 10. My daily parking in Taipan is only RM 4 ok wtf!!!

Ok that went off tangent for a bit. Now back on track; what were our main highlights in Kuching? We saw orang utans at the Semmengoh Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre (30 mins drive from the city). Entrance was RM 3 per person and we made sure we got there during the feeding time so we could catch a glimpse of them. At about 3pm the rangers got us to walk towards the feeding area which was possibly 500 meters into the thick rainforest. We waited quietly for the orang utans to appear when BAM! This one heck of a BIG orang utan was there right in front of our eyes on this huge platform, taking in his buffet of fruits and vegetables. The rain didn’t stop us from leaving as 2 other orang utans slowly lowered themselves in, swinging from tree to tree. One was even with child! Being a city girl I’ve never been this close to orang utans ‘cept that time in the zoo. Worth every sen of the RM 6 we paid to see these furry creatures. As we headed back to the city, we dropped by the Kuching museum only to walk around for 15 minutes before being shoo-ed cos they were closing at 4.30 pm. Now I know what Grace means by Kuching people eat dinner early and sleep early. Look at what time they get off work wei.

Another highlight of our trip was our boat ride to try to spot the rare Irrawaddy Dolphins (30 mins drive from city to Santubong Boat Club to get onto the boat). I did a quick Google search and found out that CPH Travel is the only company which has dolphin watching tours. The cost is RM 130 per person (usual price RM 140 per person but we drove ourselves to the Boat Club so we didn’t get charged for pick up). We met our guide Chronicle at the jetty along with our boatman Jamadi who did an excellent job telling us stories about the wildlife in the area, the way of life of the people of Santubong, and the history of the developments along the river. We casually sped pass the river banks (saw some crocodiles too!) to the mouth of the Santubong river as we almost enter into the South China Sea. Our boatman made some rounds and killed the engine at a few spots as we try to look for the shy dolphins appearing above the water. I must say David and I got a bit discouraged as we didn’t see any within the 1^st hour in the sea. We kept turning our heads from left to right to left again looking out for that slightest “peek” from the almost still water. Then it happened! Jamadi gave almost a scream of excitement when he saw a dolphin pop up above the water! He immediately started the engine and we moved closer to the site where he first spotted it. And for the next 30 minutes with engines switched off we saw possibly 2 dolphins appearing and reappearing above the water for 2 seconds! It was breathtaking. Again I must remind you readers that I am a city girl. These kinda things I don’t see often besides being at an aquarium, at Sea World or on Animal Planet. It is a sight I won’t forget for a very long time. I definitely recommend CPH Travel to those who want to go on the dolphin watch cruise. The team was professional and extremely friendly. Visit their website for more information!

Our ride

Chronicle, our friendly tour guide

Two for the album

Crocodile…grrrrr

Our best shot of the Irrawaddy dolphin

After spending 2.5 hours on the cruise, we returned to the Boat Club to pick up our car, and we headed towards Damai where we took a 3 hour lunch break at the Damai Beach Resort (15 minutes drive from Santubong Boat Club, 45 minutes drive from city). The Sarawak Cultural Village is located 2 minutes away from the Damai Beach Resort, which is where we went to next. Entry is RM 60 per person. We were disappointed with the condition of the place, having paid so much we expected it to be well kept, sadly, it wasn’t. No doubt the concept is great; however we only spent an hour there visiting the 7 ethnic houses that sit on a 17 acre land in the foothill of Mount Santubong. It was so hot and with David worried about me getting a heat stroke, we decided to skip the cultural show and head back to the city.

Damai Beach Resort

One of the ethnic long houses in Sarawak Cultural Village

Beautiful weaved products

They are also obsessed with art

The steps are WAY too freaky for me

Not forgetting this bamboo bridge

Uncle hard at work making a handle for a weapon

More longhouses

Cute lil’ girl trying her hand at a traditional dance technique

Another uncle showing his skills at making a traditional musical instrument

Weird statues outside one of the long houses

All in all Kuching was enjoyable. There are so many places in Malaysia we’ve not been to and we’re looking forward to more opportunities to cuti-cuti in our beautiful country. More photos from our holiday can be viewed in our Flickr album