The Adventures of Doug and Bec: Borneo - Kuching

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.