Kuching - Kayaking

On Sunday we headed an hour north east of Kuching to spend the day kayaking on one of the local creeks with the Kayak Kuching company on a trip that was 188 ringot each (ie; $60 AUD each).

After 45 minutes of driving we arrived at a small village where the kayaking company worked from. Here we piled several kayaks on the roof of the van to head another 15km upstream where we would start our trip. The creek flowed through the middle of the town, and a quick walk over the suspension bridge showed it to be shallow but running quite fast.

We arrived at our starting destination shortly later and geared up quickly as there was only Bec and I in our group, along with our local tour guide, Beko. The kayaks we used were the sit-on type kayaks (and funnily enough the one Bec and I had was identical to the one Mum and Dad own). The creek water where we started was flowing quite fast, and we were happy to finally find some cool water, as the whole way through Asia we had been swimming in 30+ degree temperatures.

We kayaked down the river, and over small rapids for about a hour before stopping on the bank and walking up a small creek to a waterfall. Here we ran into another kayak group of four people. The waterfall was quite small, but an excellent place for a bit of a swim and just like the main creek, the water was quite cool.

After another hour of kayaking and some slightly bigger rapids (still only class 1 rapids) we stopped at a large sand bank (well actually a rock bank really) and headed up the steep bank to a small village for lunch. The Village was perhaps 20 metres above the creek, and our guide explained that in 2005 the area flooded and the village had about a metre of water through it, and didn't get electricity back up and running until 2010!

Unfortunately for me, our lunch consisted of egg sandwiches... so i had a great lunch of pineapple instead and had a muesli bar I had luckily added to my backpack. Our lunch came with a drink we had been seeing around town called 100plus, which we had intended to try and turned out to be a sort of soda based lemon drink... not quite like anything we have back home, but was extremely popular in Malaysia. After our lunch we had a bit of a walk around town and saw some of the local buildings. We met 2 hyperactive puppies and saw the drying of pepper corns which is one of the main agricultural products of the area.

At about 1pm we headed back down to the kayaks and set off downstream through more minor rapids before coming to an amazing section of the creek where the water had washed away the massive rocks on the sides of the creek to form large overhanging rock formations that we could kayak under. We also kayaked into a small cave on the side of the creek which was home to at least one bat that we saw hanging from the roof above us.

The scenery throughout the kayak trip was incredible, and a lot of the time the rainforest canopy basically covered the creek and the large trees sent down massive vines to levels just above the creek. One of these we stopped out and after being given the idea from our tour guide I managed to climb up it... about a metre!

We had a very interesting tour guide, and throughout the day we heard some stories from him including everything from the time he crashed his motorbike and had amnesia for several months, to the time he nearly drowned out to sea! He spoke to us about how awkward it is when his sister and her husband come over for dinner, as they are Muslim and do not eat pork... something his family loves to eat! I was glad we had him as a guide, as he had some interesting insights on religion and even the politics of his country!

We arrived at the end of the kayak trip at about 3pm before an hour drive back to our hotel. This trip, which we did not originality plan to do, ended up being one of the most enjoyable parts of our trip, and definitely had some of the best scenery!

The river from a hanging bridge

Bec kayaking

Bec in the little waterfall

Some of the cool rocks along the river

paddling 

cute puppy in the village

View of the river from a hanging bridge

paddling under the hanging rocks

Doug climbing a vine

Vines hanging from the trees

The bats sleeping on the roof of the cave, I think we woke them

Taking a break for a swim

Kuching - Bako National Park

Our third tour organised by Daphne was a day trip to Bako National Park. We knew this was a must, as the wildlife and scenery is something we had heard about before the trip. The trip itself was probably the most expensive one we had done (about 200 Ringot or $70 per person) but was well worth it.

The day started with a 45 minute van ride to the little riverside village from where we would take a boat to the national park which is unreachable by road. The river itself was quite small, but from the height of the wharf, we could tell that the area has very large tides. The main wharf itself was about 6 metres above the current water height.

We headed downstream for about 5 minutes between mangroves before coming out into the South China Sea, and heading along the coast to our destination which took about 20 minutes in total. On the way we saw some amazing cliffs and jungles and also many fishing net structures out off the coast. We arrived at the main beach of the National Park, and due to the low tide we had to disembark on the slightly muddy beach as the wharf was high and dry!

From the beach we headed up to a large modern building which we found was the information centre and cafeteria, and shortly after arriving we were directed to the jungle right next to the building which had several monkeys moving around the canopy. These were the larger moneys on the island called Proboscis monkeys which are a protected species and only found in Borneo and have a long large nose, that looked like a beak and are orange in colour.

We spent the following two or three hours seeing a number of monkeys of different breads, a lemur up in a tree and also a large Pit Viper snake in a tree right next to us... which we learnt was extremely deadly! Unfortunately for Aussie tourists its looks just like green tree snake... so at first we were not too worried....

We walked during the morning, which involved walking through mangroves and climbing through a small hole in the rocks, and found ourselves at a small beach with several over tourists. Here I had a swim, upon the advice of our guide, with several of them (trying not to remember the crocodile warning signs back at the boat ramp) before we headed back to the cafeteria for lunch.

After lunch we spent an hour or so around the main beach, watching the many monkeys and wild boars. We found a group of boars in which one had an injured leg and it was sad to watch it get bullied by the dominant boar who obviously did not want the others in its territory.

In the afternoon we headed to the wharf which was now surrounded by water, and headed back to the boat ramp before a van ride back in which i think we both fell asleep once or twice after an exhausting day. As our tour explained, the day had been one of the hottest he had experienced there and was high 30's with 100% humidity!

Village along the river where the wharf was.

The fishing net structures made of a very strong wood that lasts in the water for up to 3 years

Proboscis monkey

Chilling out for a sleep...

The Pit Viper...

One of the cheeky monkeys... cannot remember the type.

Hard to see... but this is the lemur... up the skinny tree

One of the wild boars

National Park sign

Another cheeky monkey. This one wanted to steal Bec's food!

Our walk along the beach

Bec climbing through the little hole..

Our quiet little beach.

The rock I swum out to. Water was about 35 degrees!

Family of monkeys on the beach

Bec and the injured boar she found...

Cheeky monkey... 

Monkey was scared of the boars and climbed the tree...

The baby monkey we found

Awesome red dragonfly we found

The view on the boat ride back

Kuching - Sarawak Cultural Village

After being picked up about 8am in the morning we headed north to the Sarawak Cultural Village which is about a hour from Kuching.

The Sarawak Cultural Village is a large area laced with paths and walkways and about 25 culturally significant buildings including traditional houses and meeting places for the cultural groups in Sarawak, including the Bidayah, Iban, Penan, Orang Ulu, Melanau, Malay and Chinese people. These groups have traditionally lived in different areas throughout Sarawak, and the cultural village brings them all together... for tourists to see...

I was a little worried the trip would be a bit boring at first, as I am definitely not overly into museums and things like that, and from what i heard this place was a bit like a museum, however i was happily surprised with how much we both enjoyed this trip. Definitely a must if you do not have time to travel around to all the different areas of Sarawak.

We spent the better part of two hours wandering around the buildings, each of which has representatives of the cultural group on site to give you a bit of the history of the group, and also several had stall which sold traditional goods including some clothing, jewelry and food. One of the buildings we visited was a village meeting place and there were real human skulls hanging in the centre. We discovered that this was from the " headhunters" which was a term used to describe the practice of village boys needing to get the skull of a man from another camp to become a man.... a practice which is obviously no longer undertaken!

The Melanu house was one of the most surprising. It resembled a colonial house, with more western looking carved wood furnishings. Not to sure if there was some influence here, but it stood out among the other houses which we mainly bamboo construction and had little or no furniture.

After our tour of the houses we headed back to the theater room, which ended up being a large modern amphitheater with very comfortable seats, and settled in for a 45 minute dance show which included traditional dances from each of the cultural groups represented at the centre. This was by far the highlight of the visit and some of the music and acrobatics of the dances were amazing.

Me on the bamboo bridge

and bec...

Awesome little green lizard we found!

One of the staff making musical instruments...

Carved monkeys from coconuts

Me having a go at blowing darts... quite easy surprisingly.

The Melanu house... very colonial looking.

Bec.... hard to find shade in the like 40 degree heat!

One of the several cultural dances.

Fairly large display of dancing. At some stages there were about 20 dancers on stage

Guy balancing on a pole... was pretty cool to see him climb up there.

These guys did a sort of hunt dance and then got people up on stage to blow darts at balloons.. was quite entertaining.

Borneo - Kuching - Top Spot & Orangutans

We arrived in Kuching early night after a slight flight delay and headed to our hotel. From here we based ourselves for the entire time we were in Kuching.

On our second day in Kuching we got in touch with some friends of friends who organised for us to go out for dinner with them and also organised a tour operator to come and visit us at our hotel to see if we wanted to see any of the sights. We decided to book in to see the Orangutan Sanctuary, Kayak in the rain forest, visit the cultural village and also do a day trip to Bako National Park.

We headed out for dinner to the much acclaimed "Top Spot" which is essentially a massive food court on top of a car park, packed with locals. There are about a dozen big seafood stalls and several hundred tables. Luckily for us we were with Daniel and Cecilia and their family from Kuching who knew their way around this confusing looking place, and ordered all the food for our group. Dinner consisted of Sweet and Sour fried fish, steamed fish, garlic Mindin (a fern vegetable they get from the rainforest), Rice, Soup, Oyster bread, Grilled tofu and a massive platter of blue crabs... truly a meal fit for a king. One of the interested aspects of this place is that Daniel actually bought along his own fish that he had aught, and they cooked it up from us. Rough prices of the seafood there was as follows; (all cooked however you like)

Mud Crabs - 50 Ringot/kg
Red Snapper - 45 Ringot/kg
White Snapper 40 Ringot/kg
Fresh Water Prawns 35 Ringot/kg

An amazing place for dinner, one we would visit again before leaving Kuching!

The next day we got up early to meet our tour guide who was taking us to the Orangutan Sanctuary, which turned out to be about half an hour drive from where we were staying. The Sanctuary consisted of about 60 hectares of rainforest which i home to 58 Orangutans, including 3 generations and 2 babies.

When we arrived it was nearly feeding time and we headed into the jungle with the park operators to the feeding area which was perhaps 200 metres from the office. On our way some movement was pointed out to us in the trees, which tuned out to be some of the Orangutans heading to the feeding area.

The feeding area was a raised platform accessible for the Orangutans by several trees and ropes. During our half hour or so here we saw abut 7 Orangutans come to get some of the fruit and put on a bit of an acrobatic show for us up between the trees.

After feeding time we headed back to near the office where some other food had attracted the two mother Orangutans with their babies. Here we spent about  hour watching the escapades of the young Orangutans and got plenty of photos of them posing for the camera!

We spent perhaps two hours in total at the site before heading back to Kuching for lunch, and the price was 68 Ringot which you would think is a bit expensive for only 2 hours, but it was well worth it and an amazing thing to see when going to Kuching.

the jungle highway...

one of the bigger orangutans

doing upside down cartwheels

coming to get fed...

nice photo of the mum and youngest baby there

mum again

random pose for cameras

the crowd to see them

Mum doing some acrobatics

Mum and baby hangin' out