Hello again! Harry and I have just come from spending five days in Kuching, although it feels like much longer. The days have been going very slowly, but in a good way.
We stayed at a great little hostel called Threehouse, which even included free breakfast! (Again with the food theme). Harry discovered an amazing seafood restaurant, which for some reason also served venison, and treated ourselves to a fancy dinner out at a restaurant called Living Room, which was recommended by our Lonely Planet guide. They obviously have a very different idea of what 'on a shoestring' means than I do, as it was by Kuching standards, shockingly expensive. Still, mango duck and black pepper halibut for A$15 a pop, can't complain...
However, by far the oddest culinary experience we had in Kuching was our visit to a KFC in India St. Hungry and heatstricken from our fruitless search for the Sarawak Forestry Office, we ducked in for a quick popcorn chicken and discovered that it was, in fact, a deaf KFC. As in, everybody who worked there was deaf, and you ordered by pointing at a printed out menu and gesticulating wildly to indicate size and quantity. Who knew there were deaf KFCs?
As for non-food-related things, well, we wandered at length around the Kuching waterfront, poked around the markets, and attempted a rather abortive expedition to Fort Margherita, the historic fort on the other side of the river from the main town. This adventure involved us wandering around for ages around seemingly deserted roads, eventualy winding up on this muddy track through the jungle, all the while thinking 'there must be an easier way to get to this major tourist attraction than THIS...'
To cut a long story short, we made it to the fort, it was very pleasant, although CLOSED AND LOCKED, and the shortcut we took back was a quagmire and my shoes are still wet. On the upside, we crossed the river in a small boat, which was fun.
The best day trip we had, however, was down to the Permai beach and rainforest. The forest came right down to the beach, which we had entirely to ourselves, and we found a colony of hundreds and hundreds of brightly coloured crabs, as well as mudskippers! (You know, those weird fish that can walk on land?). Unfortunately, I have no pictures of these, as I did not have my camera on me at the time. There was also a swimming pool in the rainforest made out of a small river flowing down from the mountain, which was refreshing, if a little bit freezing.
Anyway, Kuching was awesome - so awesome, in fact, that we're going back there to spend a night in Bako, the nearby national park, famous for Proboscis monkeys (google them), before heading on to Phuket, Thailand. Right now we're in Miri, a hideous sixteen hour bus ride north of Kuching, and I'll tell you all about that and whatever else we get up to in the next update!
Harry:
Delicious: Mongolian Venison ($2)
Non-Delicious: Otah-Otah ($8)
Delicious: Mango Duck ($15)
Non-Delicious: Colonel Burger ($0.80)
The sea was extremely warm and excellent for swimming, but Lauren refused (after an initial and ceremonious dipping of the feet) due to a ludicrous fear of "SEA LICE" which I tried to assure her were imaginary to no avail.
As such we left the idyllic unpopulated beach and bathed in the freezing cold "jungle pool" while being harassed by armies of crabs.
