3 August, Lime Tree Hotel, Kuching, Sarawak, East Malaysia

For the geographically challenged, Sarawak is one of two states of Malaysia located on the eastern side of the island of Borneo, called Kalimantan by the Indonesians. The other state is Sabah. The equator is just a couple of dozen kilometres away, so there is the HOT and humid dry season and the HOT and humid wet season. We chose to visit in the dry season.

Why Sarawak? Well, we haven't been here before and we like monkeys.  

Sarawak is the largest state by area and it has some other major differences from other states. For starters, it is over 50% Christian with around 32% Muslims and the remainder made up of Buddhist and several tribal religions. As well, English is almost universally spoken, and generally, well-spoken. The capital, Kuching, which means cat in Bahasa, has about one million inhabitants, but it has the feel of a large country town. Australia has played a small part in the history of Sarawak. In 1945, Australian troops liberated what is now east Malaysia from the Japanese and governed the area until 1946.

We have hired a car for this trip and, so far, the driving has been fairly easy. When we arrived the Saturday afternoon traffic was a bit slow getting across town from the airport, but drivers are usually courteous and law abiding, so we are fairly comfortable with our decision to take to the road. After a few weeks driving in Greece a few months back, we are sure we can handle whatever Sarawak can throw at us.

4 August, Kuching, Sarawak

Up early for some morning light I headed off alone down to the river. Our hotel is in Chinatown which, much like many other similar communities across the world, is crowded, a little rundown, but full of character. The area by the river near our hotel is old Chinatown. Piles of discarded fishing nets, broken storage boxes and other derelict commercial fishing equipment litter the street. In the middle of all this was the small local fish market featuring last night's catch at incredibly low prices. Back up the street, food vendors were settling in their early morning diners. The smells were alluring and tempting, but there was a free breakfast waiting back at the hotel.

Today was sunny and clear, but storms were forecast for the afternoon, so we opted for a day around town to take in a little culture and history by visiting a few of the city's museums.

The weather this morning wasn't too hot. Our path took us along the nice shaded river walk with views across the river to old colonial government buildings and the new Sarawak Parliament House. On a detour up another popular Chinatown street, we came across a large ceremony with hundreds of families sitting around a super long table. We asked a nice lady in the crowd what it was all about and were informed that it was a coming of age ceremony.

We were disappointed to find that the Sarawak Museum was closed, but the fantastic Borneo Cultures Museum across the road gave us a reasonable grasp of the complex culture and history of Sarawak.

For lunch, we took shelter in a large mall to drop our core body temperatures enough to set off again, crossing the river on the Darul Hana  foot bridge which delivered us to the opposite side which, by this early afternoon, was in full sun. We climbed the hill to Fort Margherita, built in 1879 during the “White Rajah Dynasty.” An Englishman, James Brooke and his descendants, ruled Sarawak and other parts of what is today known as East Malaysia from 1841 to 1946. The fort was built to guard against pirates entering the Kuching River; today the fort houses the Brooke Gallery, showcasing the history of Sarawak under the Brooke dynasty.

We ended the day with a quick local ferry trip back to our side of the river and home just before the regular tropical afternoon storm struck.

6 August, Kuching, Sarawak

An event-filled day yesterday. All started as planned with an uneventful drive through some heavy, but manageable city traffic to the small river village of Kampung Bako to catch a riverboat for the 20kms down the river and the entry point for Bako National Park. We arranged to share the MYR200 (AUD67) round trip fare with a German couple, cutting our fare to AUD16 each round trip. Our boat landed us on a palm-lined sandy beach that featured some spectacular rock outcrops and we clambered out of the boat to wade to shore.

After completing our park registration formalities we set off on the first of the three jungle walks we planned. We were on the hunt for the elusive proboscis monkey.  Just five minutes into our first trek, we heard a monkey crashing through the trees, but saw very little of the monkey itself, although a fellow walker saw him with her binoculars.

It was a long, hot day, but we pressed on, walking/scrambling for six - seven kilometres of extremely difficult, steep and rough jungle tracks, stepping through webs of tree roots and trying to avoid slippery rocks, climbing steep steps and hauling ourselves up with ropes at times. Sounds horrible and at the time it was difficult and extremely challenging, but we managed it and so were very satisfied with ourselves. But monkeys? No further sightings, aside from a glimpse at a fellow walker's phone photo, taken through the lens of his binoculars.

Our boat driver was scheduled to pick us up at 3:00pm, so we dutifully headed to the high tide pickup jetty and met up with our German friends. Boat after boat arrived and departed with their four passengers, but not our guy. Eventually, we discovered that our boatman had two loads to return to Kampung Bako - our group and three young German women who had overnighted in the National Park. The seven of us looked hopefully out to sea, expecting two boats to appear on the horizon. Eventually one boat arrived and our original boatman invited all seven of us on his boat. What choice did we have? Off we went, a lot lower in the water than on our ride to the park, but we were finally on our way home. And, to add insult to injury, ust as we pushed off from the jetty, a proboscis monkey strolled across the sand on the opposite side of the creek. 

It was not the end of the day for us though. As we ploughed through the water, much more slowly than on our outgoing trip, the motor sounded strained, not too surprising given the extra load. Suddenly, the motor spluttered and died. After a tense 20 minutes, our boatman's father arrived with fuel. We had run out petrol!

Back at Bako, our two original German companions were overjoyed that their driver had waited for them, but the three German girls couldn’t get a taxi that far out of the city, so we loaded them up and drove them to their hostel in Kuching, only a couple of kilometres from our hotel. Over the 40 kilometre drive, we enjoyed their company, young travellers with whom we could share stories. Another adventure to re-tell and embellish in the future.

No trouble sleeping last night, but we were a little stiff and sore as we headed off for an early breakfast so we could struggle with the traffic to get to Semenggoh Nature Reserve in time for the 9:00am feeding session for the reserve’s orangutan population. 

Sighting orangutans was much easier than sighting the proboscis monkeys. As we arrived, the jungle trees cracked and groaned and three orangutans swung from the trees to grab bananas and sugar cane sticks, laid out by park staff. These orangutans are rescued animals raised here, sometimes for many years, before being returned to the wild. The reserve is large enough for the orangutans to live as they would in the wild, with little human contact. They are only fed twice a day, so they have to supplement their diets with other food sources.

Early end to our day, time for some washing and a bit of shopping.

7 August, Win Hotel, Sibu, Sarawak

Six hour drive today. It was very slow at first, wending our way through the suburbs of Kuching. The city has more than a million inhabitants, so traffic has to be expected. Getting about is slow, but the roads in the city are good and traffic is well regulated by lights.

Our most recent overseas driving experience has been in Hokkaido, Japan where the drivers are excellent and extremely law-abiding. Drivers here are not quite up to Japanese standards, but not far off that of the average driver at home. Our drive today was along National Highway 1, the Pan Borneo Highway. It is a magnificent highway that we would rate an eight on a scale where the German Autobahns are ten. The best parts of Australia's Highway 1 would rate as eight, with the worst stretches scoring a five or less. Speed limits are rather low for a highway of this standard with a top limit of 90 kph and frequent patches of 70kph and even 50kph.

We also made our first fuel stop today. WOW! The price seems to be fixed, as no stations advertise their prices. The fixed rate at the moment is MYR2/litre,  AUD67 cents. Yep sixty seven cents a litre.

8 August, Sibu, Sarawak, Borneo

Kapit, not to be mistaken with “Kaput,” is an important upriver port around 120kms from Sibu. Before 2002, the town was only accessible by boat. There is still a passenger ferry, but sailings are few and far between since the road was pushed through the mountainous jungle to the town. It is now a three plus hours’ drive from Sibu, on a generally good road.

Why did we go there today? Because we could, but also because we expected a quaint, frontier river port. Sadly, in the last 20 years, much of the old charm has disappeared. What has been preserved is an 1880 fort, constructed during the era of the “white rajahs.” Fort Sylvia is one of the few remaining forts constructed in areas where the local tribes needed to be controlled. The forts were basically nineteenth century “flat pack" buildings that could be shipped by river, put together and manned, quickly and effectively calming the warring locals, including the head-hunting Dayaks. Once the area was under control, the fort could be dismantled and moved to another area.

Our trip was a bit of a disappointment as the fort was closed, but the drive itself was worth the effort. For most of the route the jungle was virtually hanging over the road. In other areas, we drove past local kampungs, some featuring remnant traditional houses.

Back to Kuching tomorrow for our last night in Sarawak.

9 August, Roxy Hotel, Kuching 

Long drive today on a great day, specially for the tropics, where skies are normally overcast and the pollution drops the visibility to a couple of kilometres. Today the sky was cloudy but clear, haze or pollution non-existent. Views from the highway were magnificent as we drove the six hours from Sibu to Kuching. 

Time for a summary of Sarawak.

To be honest, we were expecting something way more adventurous. Sure we found a couple of days when we could get into the real wild Borneo. But our experiences in the main were much like our other times in Malaysia. While strictly a developing country, that definition doesn’t fit in comparison to Africa and other parts of Asia. From a traveller's point of view, getting about in Malaysia, even in Sarawak, is easy. We have driven on this trip and driving is the only way we would do it if we came back here. Bus transport is available, but timetables are not extensive and would not allow the flexibility of self-driving. People we met have used local “uber" type services and found them cheap and a good way to get about. For us though, hiring a car is by far the best way to get about.

We chose August for this trip, not because it was any cooler, it is always hot and humid, but because there is far less rain. We had a couple of brief afternoon tropical storms, but otherwise the weather was rather pleasant.

Malaysia as a whole is good value for money, but Sarawak is probably better than the peninsula , particularly when compared to Kuala Lumpur. We mostly ate in Chinese establishments, because they have beer. The average cost of dinner plus a couple of beers was AUD25 for two. Best of all, petrol is a standard MYR2.05, about AUD0.67 per litre. 

Our hotels were 3 star and universally excellent and, except for the outrageously expensive Sama-Sama at KLIA, (AUD265) cost between AUD70 and AUD100, most including breakfast.

Sarawak is predominantly Christian, which is unusual in mostly Muslim Malaysia. People are universally friendly and service in hotels and restaurants/cafes is prompt and pleasant. Best of all, tipping is not part of Malaysian culture.

Overall rating, Great, but not as adventurous as we had thought.

Postscript. August 11, KLIA

We awoke at 4:30 this morning for our 9:20 flight only to discover that our flight to Melbourne has been delayed until 12:00 noon. As a consequence we will miss our connection to Brisbane and have a more than 8 hour stopover!