Sarawak, Malaysia!

Slept decent on the plane. Woke up and watched Freaky Friday. Landed at KL about 4:something. Nothing open, so I had to wait a while to check on flights to Kuching, Sarawak. A few hours later, went up the departure area, and Malaysian Airlines had a ticket counter open, so I bought a return ticket from KL to Kuching, leaving today, and returning to KL on Dec. 24, from Kota Kinabalu, which is in the province of Sabah. I'll get back on that flight in time to catch my flight to Los Angeles. I was booked on an 11:15 flight to Kuching, but was told I could fly stand-by on earlier flight, the first at 8:15.

Checked into the stand-by counter, and about 7:45, they called my name, I got on the 8:15 flight, landed in Kuching about 10:00. Sarawak, despite being part of Malaysia, has it's own immigration control, so had to go through immigration again. Met up with a chick, Roz, from England, outside the airport, and we shared a taxi to town, and checked into the Orchid Inn. I got a single for 35RM, Roz got a double (no more singles) for 45RM. (RM is Malaysian Ringgit, their currency. Divide by three to convert to Canadian $.)

We showered (not together), then we went to the Sarawak Museum, then to the Cat Statue, walked along the esplanade, along the river front, then hired a taxi to the Cat Museum. Kuching means cat in the Malay language, and Kuching is all about cats. The cat musuem was so cool, had everything you could ever want to know about domestic cats. Even had a mummified cat from Egypt, circa 3500BC. Caught a taxi back to our area, then we went to Pizza Hut for supper, then back to the taxi rank, and arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 7:30 tomorrow morning to take us to Matang Wildlife Centre.

We walked down the riverfront to catch a river cruise, but had to wait until 8:30 for the next cruise, so went to a convenience store for water and snacks for tomorrow, then back our rooms, then at 8:00, headed back to the river for the cruise.

It was boring, we couldn't see much at night.

To bed shortly after 10:00.

Kuching is an amazing city. Sarawak is not what I expected. I expected a back water island, with hardly any development, kind of like the untouristed islands of Indonesia. Boy, was I off!!! Sarawak is the wealthiest province of Malaysia, being very oil rich. Kuching is a very modern city, with a beautiful park/walkway development along the river, all the big hotels (Holiday Inn, Hilton, etc.) having huge skyscrapers downtown. Big malls, brand name stores, lots of parks, childrens playgrounds, very developed, just like you'd expect in any western city. Incredible.