Kuching, the "cat city"

Kuching is the capital of Sarawak, one of the states that compose the island of Borneo. According to some people, the name Kuching means "cat" and this fact is reminded by the many statues of cats spread all around. It's a rather large town, and a good base to explore this part of Borneo, but there is not very much to do in the city, apart from a stroll along the waterfront, a short cruise on the Sarawak river or a visit to some of its weird museums.

View from the waterfront

A taxi to cross the river

Nevertheless we managed to spend ten days in the city. We visited the parks and other attractions in the area, but many days just passed by surfing the Internet, chatting with Frankie and the other guests of the hostel, and waiting for the extreme heat or the showering rains to pass. The rain here is as tropical as it gets: a few rain drops turn all of a sudden into a curtain of water which can last from a few minutes to many hours. Umbrellas are pretty much useless against it, and you either find shelter below the many colonnades hoping that it won't last long, or just accept the fact that you'll get wet and keep going on. More often than not we chose the latter, knowing that we would dry off eventually;

For the whole time we stayed at the same hostel. The rooms weren't exactly big, and we have mixed feelings regarding the owner, but we met some very nice people and we missed having friends to go out for dinner and watch a movie with. The tours and activities organised by Frankie were also a definite plus. One night she took us to visit a shaman at a Taoist temple. She explained us how this version of Taoism mixes the Buddhist philosophy with the belief in a multitude of gods, demons and spirits. They believe that the shaman is a medium that can be possessed by some spirit and thus gain higher level of wisdom and knowledge. Unfortunately we arrived too late to witness the phase of transformation, during which the shaman is possessed by the spirit by dancing, yelling, singing and hurting himself. Afterwards he is not himself anymore, and for a couple of hours he will answer the questions that the believers pose to him, mostly regarding health, love, business and so on. During this time he behaves rudely, smokes from a long pipe and drinks a lot of rice wine. They say that when the spirit leaves and he becomes himself again you can't smell the wine in his breath, since it was the spirit who drank it. We didn't check.

The shaman (in white) with his helpers (in yellow) and a follower (in red)

Another day she drove four of us to visit a traditional "long house", a village built almost entirely using bamboo canes. The main surprise here was finding out that the previous Czech president, Klaus, is a sort of a celebrity here since his visit in 2012. They have Czech flags in front of a house, a small sculpture built in occasion of his visit, and they take great care of two trees that were planted by Klaus and his wife. K was astonished. The best part of the trip was being able to taste many different types of fruit, straight from the many fruit trees that grow around the village. We forgot the name of most of the things we ate. It was interesting too see and taste the cocoa fruit, whose seeds are then used to produce chocolate. We also tried the stinky jack-fruit: they say that it is an acquired taste, but we obviously haven't acquired it yet. Slightly gross.

Czech pride

Cleaning the rice by traditional "shuffling"

The main part of a longhouse is the elevated "main road" where all houses are built

Well known even in the middle of the jungle

"Planted by Vaclav Klaus"

Remains of ancient generals and local heroes

Couchsurfing lunch

The most intense days of our stay in Kuching were much less nice though. Less than one week before our flight to Australia we found out that we had to apply for an electronic visa, and that it could take some time. We applied immediately, but in the rush of the moment K made a mistake in her application. I received my visa in a couple of hours, while hers got stuck in the system. She tried to fix it but the response could take up to ten days to arrive. Our flight was programmed in six days. All we could do was to patiently wait for some employee in Hobart (Australia) to read her email and go on with the process. Those were stressful days. K would check her email every five minutes, literally. We even contacted the airlines to check whether we could postpone our flights. Our week in Melbourne was at stake, and in the worst case scenario we could miss our flights for Tasmania as well. The clock was ticking... We spent our days wandering aimlessly like damned souls, regretting that minor mistake. On the dawn of the fourth day the light finally came in the form of a visa approval email. We are going to Australia as planned after all! To celebrate we had dinner at a famous local seafood place: lobster, king prawns, prawns and watermelon juice.

Before...

...and after

The most expensive dinner that we have had in Southeast Asia so far, and yet less than what you would pay for a pizza in Europe. We are really going to miss the SE Asian prices. And Asia in general...