HOME!! A little bit exhausted but very happy. We had a brilliant time – so I have decided that my new life mission is to never let anyone ever tell you that it’s not worth going far far away for only a few nights – it is always worth it – jet lag and all in order to grab at life’s opportunities whenever you can. We packed SO much into our 6 day trip it was ridiculous, such an experience.
We flew from London to Singapore (13 hours) and then changed for a short flight on Air Asia (who I have to say are pretty impressive for a low cost carrier and I’m loving their very cool jeans and a black shirt uniform – it is definitely time for the rest of the aviation world to catch up on captain and crew attire.
Here is my daughter’s immigration card as we left Singapore that I had to get her to re-write owing to the interesting spelling of the city:-
We arrived in Kuching, the surprisingly charming capital of Sarawak, Malaysia’s largest state, located on the island of Borneo. Literally translated, Kuching means “cat” in Malaysian and there are numerous monuments to cats spread throughout the city. This one looked as if it wanted to get in our car:-
The city is divided into two by the Sarawak River and is relatively small and easy to navigate. It has a wonderfully colourful history and some beautiful old buildings – many colonial in nature thanks to the Brooke family “white Rajahs” who influenced and ruled the area for many years. The Sarawak Museum gives a very good insight into the history and is a good way to get an idea of the many different animals Borneo has to offer.
So, on day one we took a 45 minute drive north of the city to the Sarawak Cultural Village to see a show, eat lunch and look at the ethnic houses of the major native groups of Sarawak. I have already posted some photos of our morning. I’m not ordinarily a fan of being taken to the local cultural village – it never feels very authentic – but on this occasion, because we had teenagers with us, it was very useful in giving us some information about the differing characteristics of all the local tribes and I not only learnt all about how to shrink heads but to sift rice:-
If you are there with your family it would be quite fun to dress up in the local costumes and have a photograph taken – how gorgeous does this family look?
Then we sat and listened to a man playing a sitar – he was wearing clothes, honest….apparently women never play the sitar within the tribes because the songs go on for so long that they have been told to avoid it at all costs because “it makes your breasts grow long”. I was loving the music and totally getting into the spirit of the moment – far far away when he suddenly started playing his second song – and I felt like I was back in the womb, totally at home, until I realised that it was the song my mother used to sing me as a child -“My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean.”
From there we went to the Permai Rainforest Resort and checked out the tree top accommodation where you can sleep under the stars overlooking the South China Sea and enjoy being amongst all the animals. I would have loved to have spent a few nights sleeping here and then trekking into the rainforest where there were monkeys, cobras and pythons to be spotted:-
You can just see the treehouse in amongst the jungle:-
The view from the restaurant of the South China Sea:-
The bedroom:-
From there we went on a tour of Kuching including a visit to the Sarawak Musieum and a cottage industry Malay songkit weaving centre called “Tanoti”. All very interesting, but I wasn’t really able to take any decent pictures of either of them because they didn’t want me to.
We went back to the Hilton for supper and had a relatively early evening in preparation for our busy Day Two.
