Rainforest World Music Festival

Bus pass and my 3 day pass!

While waiting for the bus back to Kuching from Bako, I overheard a traveller telling another that most Malaysians couldn't afford the pricey ticket to the festival and it would probably be full of tourists, 

something which he especially wanted to avoid, how wrong he was! While it may be true that most 

locals can't afford a full 3 day ticket, it does not however mean that they could not go for a day as there had been big discounts months before the event. Malaysians all over the nation throng to 

Sarawak for this event, including moi, a hop and skip away from the neighbouring state ^.^

Across the river there is cake!!!

The last day of Kuching, I went across the river to buy Kek Lapis ( Layer Cake) which Sarawak is famous for.The past few days I'd observed the locals walking home with bulky packages of cakes, I think to stock up for the Aidil Fitri at the end of Ramadan.

Early morning while waiting for the bus to Bako

To the end of the waterfront some cool crocodiles!

A curious building, the road opposite has the memorial of the White Rajah

Look for this building, My Khatulistiwa( Equator) , it's where you get the sampan to cross to the Malay kampungs

It is definately one of the must dos to try when in Kuching, so I took the sampan across (50 cent ride) and along the way met with a few other adventurous travellers,a mother and her son and an Italian teacher. There we proceeded to try as many samples as we possibly could from 3 bakeries.

Cheese, oreo, no make it watermelon...or mint?! help :(

The first one we stop at was closest to the food court but not one of the best . The second bakery, Mira,which my hostel informed me was worth buying,are famous for their "Moist Layer Cake" (Kek Lapis Basah).They had a promotion of buy 3 free 1 but I didn't buy any yet at this point as my companion was told Dayang Salleh was the best place to buy from. Dayang Salleh has a small sign and is hidden among the houses just a little ahead of the Mira bakery.

Baking ladies 

Bet you can't stop at one!

A smosgarboard of choices inside had me all overwhelmed and bursting with cake, needless to say I didn't have dinner that night but although they were slightly more expensive than the other bakeries, they are most definately a good buy. In the end I went home with 2 big cakes.

RM 20 for the large, Rm10 for the small (but the large is 4x the small). If you buy RM100 worth of cakes you get a free RM10 cake( or maybe RM20, I forgot! :|)

Note: All cake related pictures above are from the first bakery, I started eating a lot of cake samples along the way and forgot to take pictures,plus I had greasy fingers :D

After my friends had bought their cakes, we left our packages at the foodcourt with the mother to check out Fort Margherita. The trail starts in the village where the first bakery was but we stopped to ask locals the way as the signage isn't very clear. It was closed when we arrived but isn't a big compound so there wasn't much we could do except to enjoy the exercise haha.

A hike to Fort Margherita - we needed the exercise for all the cake samples we ate

Bako National Park

Being the dithering person that I am I left it too late to arrange for a stay at the Bako National Park. This was after I  had decided on going to the RWMF. As mentioned previously I am by nature not an outdoorsy person, computer bound and sedentary I wanted to be a new leaf! So it was after having met countless Borneo travellers (not from Borneo but travelled Sarawak and Sabah) extolling the wonder of Bako I had to go see for myself what charms this place held.

Now the only National Park I'd ever been to was Kinabalu NP, so I had one place for comparison. The difference between Bako and Kinabalu are the namely the types of forests you can see,the climate and wildlife. In Kinabalu NP, you can see different bird species and montane forests with tall looming trees whose worth is big enough to buy twenty two Proton Sagas (Malaysian cars).Ooh and there's nothing like being in the cool air suitable for farming vegetables, strawberries and  imported milk cows! In Bako NP, you have a different topography, and a lot of humidity! Some trekkers I was playing Uno with one late night mentioned how they never knew they could sweat as much as they did in Bako! Anyways in Bako, you could see some semi wild bearded pigs and monkeys! Wetland forest and oddly enough, a lot of pitcher plants.

Kuching - Not really a cat city!

Kucing means cat, so with a city named Kuching I happily went about looking for the cat statues that I've been told are all over the city the city. Sadly I only found two, and came across one while on the bus bound for Bako,therefore I wasn't able to snap up pictures of the welcoming cat into the city. I was told for different holiday festivals,this big white cat statue would be dressed up which is pretty rad in my opinion. They ought to dress it up in tribal outfit for the Rainforest Festival since it is quite the tourism draw for that month.

Ask anyone why Kuching is named so, locals shrug ,probably because the real reason has been obscured by time. It's based on the Sanskrit word "cochim" which meant port! and Kuching being the main entry,saw the immigration of Chinese workers seeking new fortunes in Borneo.

Walk around in Carpenter street and the waterfront, you'll be able to see the pride the Chinese have for their heritage and the care to preserve their history as evident by the Chinese Museum at the Waterfront. with no less than three temples on Carpenter street, stroll along and you could almost sense the by gone days. 

 You will also see why this street is called Carpenter Street, with old fashion hand made furniture store. Coffin makers were probably here once upon a time, what with three temples on the street but the times have changed and Carpenter street is now famous for the best noodles in town. Prices are slightly steeper here than the rest of the city but definately worth coming too.

The first afternoon with a friend, saw us walking away in defeat as the Laksa stall had run out for the day and heading to a foodcourt we found the local fishball noodles to try and some pork satay to go with it.Absolutely delicious!

Just a note, noodle portions here are smaller which I really like, I don't have to walk away like a saddled penguin unlike back home, I'm often aghast at the amount of food I have to waste before the end of each meal.

Also more colonial buildings buildings abound on this side of Borneo, with a few being requisition for state purposes, a Tourist Information Centre, Sarawak Handicraft Museum and opposite it, a post office, kudos to Kuching for preserving them.

One other thing, Kuching always brings to mind cats but I've only ever seen one real cat on Carpenter street. However the Cat city must of course live up to it's name and therefore you have the novelty Cat Museum, which sadly I did not make it to. I know I'll come back again someday, especially to trek to the Village in the Clouds, that is something to look forward to at least!

A village life

The kampung house from outside

The road out the village, most of Kinabatangan has lost its jungle to Palm trees sadly

Inside, the kitchen where the hub of activity is ,the children come to play and the women gather to do 

chores or just to meet and chat. Under the vynil flooring is the earth itself. Behind me from where I stand to take this pic is the living room where we slept, well actually I was meant to stay in the smaller house for guests but a spooky intruder in the night made me move my bedding into the main house, I thought it was a rat that had ran across my face, but they told me it was the cat, maybe that would explain the clammy paw I felt on my hand when it was softly treading across me before my nerve broke and I jumped of the bed. Yes laugh! it was not fun :(

I rather imagine the cat than the rat!

Sometime during the stay my host apologised for not having the city comforts of home. I told her I didn't mind it at all, as long as there was a toilet and a door to shut it and a decent spot to sleep then I can rough it out.I certainly wasn't complaining! That is part of the adventure,to see how rural people live and to push the boundaries of my comfort level. I knew what this trip entailed and not having 5 star comforts does not faze me! I just don't like creepy crawlies in the dark >.<

I feel like this cat too! it's still too early to be up! 

Farewell picture

Sukau

 I've always seen many newspaper promotions for Sukau but thought it an expensive weekend getaway. For one thing, I'm a city girl and I don't pretend to be a tree hugging nature lover eventhough I'm surrounded by all the greenery and amazing nature in and out of my city,it just never sat at the top of my list of places to go. I decided to go as one doesn't necessarily have to venture out of the country just to travel. Doing something new somewhere else is an adventure in itself :)

Nevertheless, the marketing for this place really made me curious about the tranquil wonder of the place but since it's in my state I guess one never wants to do things that are within reach. Also I'm not big on doing things solo, if I didn't have anyone to go with then I wouldn't go so I was really glad for this opportunity. The initial plan was a visit to Gomantong Cave, Batu Tulug, Sukau river cruise, and Tabin Wildlife reserve,however the 3 days for this was rather short and also we didn't have the proper vehicle which meant we had to scratch Tabin off because of the difficult and rugged roads. Think of those Dhakar rally roads and you get the picture.

The first day we left the city at noon as we had to pick up the group from different locations,coupled with frequent potty stops we finally arrived at the home of someone in the group. This trip home for her was partly to see if she could start out a village homestay and our group were her guinea pigs trying out her family's hospitality. Dinner and then  some drinking and card games made it a very late night for us, so needless to say we did not wake up early enough to go to Gomantong Cave.

Kinabatangan River,

No pygmy elephants to be found! 

Spotting for wildlife

Proboscis monkey

At first we saw a group of females with the young and also some juvenile which didn't have the prominent nose haha. After our boat went to different nooks and bushes we finally beheld the glorious backside of a large male sitting all by himself. We made a lot of noise to get him to turn around for us, after all the annoying noise we made he deign to show us his profile briefly and quick as a picture-happy Japanese we snapped his profile. Immediately after that he moved behind a branch with more foliage and hid from our view.

Hello , you handsome stud!

 As we turned back to the house by the river, a younger male spotted our boat and came trashing down through the trees to screech at us, guess we disturbed his peace with the speeding boat. Proboscis males like the one pictured above are usually alone and distanced from his harem family and they do not interact with humans much, which is good for them. Sadly we did not see any pygmy elephants which I was rather hoping to see in the wild. So many travellers I met have see a herd of 10-40 elephants. At least I would have another reason to come here and perhaps stay longer at a river lodge and partake in some day and night treks and maybe catch a better picture of a hornbill. Anyhow enjoy the wildlife pics from my friend, who has a better camera than my point and shoot :)