Sunday 3rd July
Slept in, then spent most of the day in the hostel. I am in Kuching all week so taking it easy, don't want to do the sightseeing and errands too soon.
Monday 4th July
Monday morning lazy lie-in. In to town to see about some flights, got my beloved old sandals sewn and glued back up by a guy on the pavement. Spent an hour looking for a bicycle hire shop, then it was too expensive. For dinner, I went with some of the guys from the hostel, across the river on a boat-taxi in the pouring rain. Good veggie curry over there and it had stopped raining when we came back.
Tuesday 5th July
Slept in longer than planned but no worries. I went to the Sarawak museum. It was pretty similar to the KK museum but they had some good ethnic carvings there, designed to keep away evil spirits. And there was some good taxidermy in the ethnology museum, lots of native animals. Walked around Chinatown.
Wednesday 6th July
More pottering about town and hanging out in the hostel. I sat by the river and read my book. The locals are friendly, some said "Good morning" as they walked past. And I found some good veggies for lunch, served cold of course, even though they were straight out of the kitchen. Had sweet potato muffin but it didn't taste of anything. And a Red Bean paste steam bun for dinner.
Shared my $2 bottle of whiskey while we watched NSW lose to QLD.
Thursday 7th July
It has been good to just relax in Kuching this week, and not be dragging my bag onto a bus every other day. (not that I am complaining) But now I am ready to do something else. Looking forward to the festival on Saturday. I went across the river this morning and to the old Margherita Fort, which is empty and not much to look at. I was near the large parliament building but couldn't get to it from there. Sat and read my book by the river.
Came back to the hostel and chatted to Nora, who is running the place by herself at the moment. She is a good hostess and a good laugh. She has 2 children back in her village.
In the evening I went out with the guys to the bar at the hostel across the road. We played pool and table football and I had 2 beers! The others went out drinking and dancing all night, but that's not for me. Back at our hostel I chatted to an Aussie guy about Indonesia as he has lived there for 7 years.
Friday 8th July
Hung out with the guys and their hangovers this morning, then at lunchtime I got the bus 11kms out of town to the Cat Museum. It is housed in a large UFO-shaped building. It's a fairly big museum and has many ornaments, paintings, poems, posters and information about the history of cats, types of cats, famous people who had cats, cat behaviour etc. It's quite light-hearted and just fun. Some of the links to cats were quite tenuous as they have a "Curiousity Killed the Cat" (English 80's pop band) Tour poster and a poster of the Cat Ballou movie, which, as far as I remember has no cats, and is only named that because the main charatcer shortens her name, Catherne, to Cat. And hanging from the ceiling was a 'Cat Burgular'. It kept me occupied for an hour or so and I enjoyed hanging out with feline friends. I walked back down to the main road to look for a bus to town, but a couple of guys in a van stopped and gave me a lift; no seats in the back, so I was sat on a spare tyre, next to their plants.
Read by the river. It was been even hotter than usual the last couple of days so I had to have a lie down in aircon room in the late afternoon. Dinner with English Lynsey. 2 soft serve vanilla ice creams each.
Loved you comment about being sat next to the emergency exit. The same thing happened to me on air India, I think it was because at least I was likely to do something, everyone else was too busy swapping seats and getting food and drink sorted out.
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