sarawak; often planned, never visited, but after years in asia i finally travelled to there. the reason being that airasia started a new flight from singapore to kuching at exactly the same time that christiane and i were looking for a suitable holiday destination. consequently we booked a flight on the first possible day and set off to spend the holiday period in and around kuching. kuching is the capital of sarawak, and tuned out to be a sleepy little town a bit like a small, laid back penang. like its bigger west malaysian brother kuching has a nice little chinatown, but what it is lacking is the bustle of little india and with it the indian restaurants which makes the town a challenge for vegetarians. it seems that virtually all vegetarian restaurants that existed in the town had disappeared before i ever came here, which rendered kuching into a paradise for meet eaters and lovers of kolo mee, but leaves vegetarians to wander the streets in the search for local food options.

other than that the town is filled with guest houses and small hotel, which made it easy for us to find a room on arriving late at night. as the cheapest option, the anglican rest house was full, we ended up choosing a cheep guest house from the leaflets available at the airport which was centrally located but not necessarily a good choice in terms of rooms and facilities. yet it was ok for the first two night that we were to stay in kuching before visiting bako national park.

bako national park is the oldest national park in sarawak. its proximity to kuching make it an ideal place to visit, and bako is worth far more time than the couple of days that most people spend here. the park is full of natural beauty, with beautiful sandstone formations and a large biodiversity based on the varied habitat ranging from coastal mangroves, via tropical forest to arid sandstone uplands, and the best is that on a single walk through the park one can easily pass through all of these.

this being the rainy season christiane and i spent the first day lazying in our hammocks on the veranda of our bungalow. the second day was exceptionally dry and sunny for this season, so we went on a long walk to tajor waterfall and on to teluk tajor. the excessive rain meant that the tracks were muddy and often flooded, the conditions in which feed get wet and stay wet, which made our waterproof walking sandals the most suitable footwear imaginable. the walk was beautiful with an ever changing landscape, a large variety of pitcher pants and beautiful rainforest creeks along the way. a couple of times we saw the proboscis monkeys, the bizarre looking monkeys who are the basis for much of bako's fame. another striking inhabitant of the park are the green vipers, who are very stationary vipers, in looks and habits virtually identical to the eyelash viper of costa rica. these snakes sit motionless, often for weeks on the same spot waiting for pray. though being rather poisonous, due to their placid nature, they are of little danger to humans unless one insists on touching them, or carelessly stepping on them.

the following day saw us moving from the lodge type accommodation to the hostel style, meaning we now had to share the shower and toilet, which would not really have constituted a problem, had the entire place not been so run down, poorly maintained and covered in mould. the state of the accommodation on park reflects the inability of higher ranking park management to allocated funds appropriately and to build housing suitable to the climate and the environment. nevertheless bako is a jewel which the housing can hardly diminish.

the third day demonstrated the current daily weather pattern; after a night of heavy rain that continued into well into the morning the sky cleared up around 10 am bringing a partly cloudy and sunny day. for us this was perfect, leaving us time to wake up in the morning, going for breakfast and the leaving for a walk. the third day walk brought us to teluk pandan kecil and teluk pandan besar. on leaving the ranger station we stumbled across a group of grey legurs, some sweet agile local monkey, in size similar to the notorious macaques, but of totally different character; while the latter are invasive and dangerously aggressive, the grey legurs are the gentile little creatures. the proboscis monkeys were daily sightings on starting out on our walks, and so were the huge native bearded pigs that roam the ranger station. a steep descent brought us to telok pandan kecil, a small beach that is now covered in litter and organic debris washed ashore by the strong monsoon winds. the second beach is much larger, but it can only be seen from a viewpoint on top of the cliffs, but it is a most beautiful sight, with sandstone cliffs framing a large sandy beach and estuary. a steep descent brought us to telok pandan kecil, a small beach that is now covered in litter and organic debris washed ashore by the strong monsoon winds. the second beach is much larger, but it can only be seen from a viewpoint on top of the cliffs, but it is a most beautiful sight, with sandstone cliffs framing a large sandy beach and estuary.

christmas eve meant moving room again, but even though the room was as smelly, the shared facilities were nicer, which brightened christiane's mood greatly. after changing room again we decided to go for a real short walk and chose the pretty little path to the nearest beach, teluk paku. the path, so short is a real beauty, and we spend ages taking photos of our surroundings. had the accommodation been a bit more pleasant, or had we had the chance to stay in the semi-detached chalet we would have surely stayed another couple of days, but with the christmas holidays came more tourists, so we decided to return to kuching, which we did together with one of the chief rangers, a young malay, who was very knowledgeable and with whom i exchanged may a thought on the park. back at the pier in the village he showed me a large female python that the locals had caught. the poor animal was terrified in its net, and after sitting quietly next to it her eyes were pleading me to help. i begged the ranger that he should arrange her release in bako, as she was a most beautiful creature and of very good health. i am sure he will set her free.

back in kuching we discovered an interesting area to the east of the centre, along jalan padungan, full of wonderful coffeeshops and small shops and shophouses. the taiwanese porridge shop at number 91 turned out to be a heaven for vegetarians around lunchtime, and a couple of other coffeeshops fried up some meat-free fair for us at night. and with staying in the very nice john's place we decided that kuching is getting better by the minute. our rather long walk to the weekend or sunday market on saturday afternoon turned out to be rather entertaining, with buying lots of titbits and tasting a range of snacks as we walked through the maze of stalls, buying little but food and a wooden chopping board ;)

as much as we love kuching we wanted to explore a few other places and not being a fan of organised longhouse tours, which turn local dayak and iban pretty much into performing zoo animals we decided to venture to sri aman, to figur out an option to go on one of the many rivers of the batang ai region unguided. taking a bus to sri aman was easy enough, and on arrival we found a decent room in the tiara inn, took a stroll to the picturesque river front, and went for dinner in a local coffeeshop. yet it turned out that the local bus to lubok antu had halted its operations, which let us to nearly give up on our idea to go to the village in search for a boat, when a hotel employee told us that he had found a friend who would give us a lift to the place the next morning. so off we went to lubok antu, only to find the village as void of rentable boats as sri aman itself. the reason for this phenomenon lies in the active discouragement of any traveller to venture on the rivers without a guided and pre-booked tour. thus virtually all individual travellers bypass the area these days, which leads to the lack of available public transport. sadly enough do the local minibus drivers not understand that ripping off the odd traveller instead of charging a fair price is killing any budding or remaining form of unguided tourism, as nothing but negative reports will follow, rather than praise of the area and the cooperation of the locals.

as the young guy who took us to lubok antu fell into that category we decided to decline his offer to take us back for another 40rm, to let him return with an empty car, to stay in the village despite the lack of possible boating excursions in sight, and to take the bus back to kuching the following day. on asking around in the kedai kopi coffeeshop in lubok antu we learned that even here it is difficult to organise a long boat or even a decently priced mode of transport to the boat landing at the batang ai reservoir.

thus we decided to stay one single night in the rather spartan inn and on the following day to return by bus to kuching. the owner of the coffeeshop was a very helpful man, offering us to stay in his local church and to drive us to the dam after closing his shop in the later parts of the afternoon. strangely enough we were of the opinion that we had accepted the kind offer, while he seemed convinced that we had declined it and thus dropped us off at the hotel after our tour de dam. a classic example of misunderstanding, like the batang ai dam project is a classic example of foolish mega projects. the dam build in the early 80's forcefully dislocated the inhabitants of at least 30 longhouses by simply flooding the entire area. furthermore as the dammed water flooded the entire valley, including forest, houses and cemeteries, the water is still unsuitable for consumption. yet despite such problems showing up in all damming projects throughout the world governments still decide to build them, disregarding the social and environmental implications. one ought to think that human beings are capable of learning from their mistakes, but it seems that people are more inclined to repeat their previous mistakes on a larger scale, just like the malaysian government does by constructing a further dam, about 10 times the sice of batang ai, in sarawak's heartland.

the trip back in the morning went smoothly even though there is no direct bus to kuching. we simply took the 9am bus to sibu to the junction at the main road, and there flagged down a bus to kuching, where we transferred to the damai shuttle bus and arrived at the nanga damai at santubong before sundown. the place labelled luxory homestay is a wonderful place, located at the edge of the rainforest, comprising an old wooden cottage, a modern building with a huge veranda, and a small pool. christiane and i had booked ourselves into a room in the traditional wallace cottage where we could see the coastal sunset through the large bathroom windows overlook the coastal sunset before being lulled to sleep by the gurgling of the mountain stream running right beside the cottage.

considering that the next two days were dry and sunny they were spent more or less lounging on the deck chairs next to the nanga damai pool. it was wonderful to do nothing and to simply enjoy the quiet atmosphere of the nature around us. thus new year's eve passed in such a peaceful way, by going with karen, the only other guest in the homestay to a local seafood restaurant nearby before sitting and musing over a few beers on the terrace. the three nights stay was well worth its money, even though we neither climbed the santubong mountain, nor did we do any other walk in the area.

returning to kuching we had only one day left on which we intended to visit the boarder market in serikin, where indonesians come to sell their fair. the way to serikin was easy enough; we took the bus #2 the terminal in bau. bau is a little town mainy known for the nearby wind cave and fairy cave, which we did not visit. instead we took the next bus to serikin. the serikin market turned out to be rather repetitive in terms of goods offered, yet i really enjoyed its atmosphere. the market is really just a long road on both sides of which are stalls that sell traditional and modern clothe, spices, fruit, dried food, coffee, wicker furniture and produce, sleeping mats, beadwork, and all at lower prices than in kuching. without buying an awful lot the market it still made for a great day trip.

and that was pretty much it, the next day it was time to say good bye to kuching... for now at least.