Wednesday 23 October 2013

Our new favourite Malay city: Kuching

The 280 miles passage from Miri to Kuching took us three nights and two days, and as as far as passages go, it was pretty pleasant. We even caught another fish with the magic lure we got from Barry. Catching two fish in a row is pretty unprecedented, and then even in Asia where there practically are no fish left and I even feel a bit bad that we're catching them!

We had lovely full moon-shine the whole trip and the wind was all downwind, varying from 5 to 20 knots, so we sailed the entire way. By some other small miracle, the only squall we got was a heap of rain just as we were approaching Santubong (our destination). The anchorage is in a river mouth with a 6m tide and apparently croc waters, so we're hoping our anchor won't get stuck. For the first time ever, our anchor also dragged a little bit (with the crazy tides), but luckily only 30 meters or so before it dug in again. Points for our hefty Manson Supreme anchor.

Santubong is half an hours drive from Kuching, the capital of the Sarawak state with a population of 600,000 people. We had heard from other cruisers that it was a nice city, so we tried not to have too high expectations, but we have to fully agree. It really is a nice city. Much more character and charm than Miri and KK. The city centre is also more compact and easily walkable and with both an Indian and Chinese town. We visited the Sunday market (also one of our absolute favourite markets), several museums and just walked around.

Near Santubon there's also a Sarawak Cultural Village showcasing how the different tribes used to live and with an interesting show. Another highlight was visiting an Orangutan sancturary with rescued monkeys and their offspring. They are two daily feedings, but because we are in the fruit season at the moment, they find their own food and only one youth came to the feeding station. But he was pretty darm cute and amazing to watch nonetheless.

We're now a mere weather window away from leaving Borneo. Almost directly west of here is Tioman Islands, which has clear water and good snormeling, something we're really looking forward to.

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