If it was not for Joanna who is now working in Kuching, I would never have heard of the place. Let alone visiting it. It has been a while since I went there to visit her so this won't be as detailed as my accounts of the Sabah trip.
This 5-day trip was my first time in Borneo and started on 20th August 2011. I flew to Kuching from Singapore with Tiger Airways and the return tickets cost me SGD95, with hand-carry luggage only. AirAsia also flies this route so it is worthwhile comparing the two.
I arrived in the capital city of Sarawak bright and early at around 9am and Jo wasted no time taking me to breakfast. One of the things that this trip has introduced to me was 福州 (Fu Zhou) cuisine. 福州人 is a prominent Chinese dialect group in Sarawak so 福州 food is very popular here. Throughout the trip I tried 鼎邊糊, Mee suah 紅酒面線, 煮炒, Kolo Mee, Popiah, Sarawak Laksa, 魚丸, and many more dishes that I have never seen or tasted before. And they were all very tasty!
After dropping my luggage at Jo's place, she brought me to the city area along the Sarawak River. Food stalls are set up on the river bank at night time but it is quite a nice walk here during the day when it's quieter. There are small boats waiting by the river for passengers and local people take them as a mean of public transport to cross the river. RM0.5 would take you across the river. Alternatively if you would like them to cruise along the river it would cost you around RM35.
Kuching literally means "cat" in Malay and many statues of cats can be found at different corners of the Cat City.
The Sarawak River
The boat keep will only start the boat when he gets enough passengers so you will probably spend more time on the boat waiting than crossing the river. It only took a few minutes to reach the other side and the breeze made it quite a pleasant ride.
After getting off the boat, we followed the crowd and found a bunch of shops selling layer cakes, "kek lapis". They all had different designs and colours and looked absolutely beautiful. They came in almost every flavour imaginable, from prune, Oreo, peanut butter to some more unusual ones like Milo, peppermint and pandan! We definitely came at one of the busiest times as a lot of Malay ladies were buying cakes as preparation for Hari Raya.
At night we went to the annual Kuching Food Festival. The event is a major attraction for tourists as well as the locals. Even finding a parking took us much effort and time. Over 100 food stall were set up and offered a wide variety of food such as Nyonya food, Taiwanese street snacks, char kway teow, oyster omelette and even durian pastry!
Nice place!
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