Photo Travel : Kuching, Sarawak | East Malaysia, Borneo

For today's Photo Travel it is about Kuching, Sarawak. Sarawak is the biggest state in Malaysia and it is located in Borneo which is a huge island on its own. To find out more about Kuching which is the capital city of the state of  Sarawak check out this Sarawak wiki link.

Let's get down to the pictures and I hope you will enjoy them.

[caption id="attachment_2553" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Postcards of the ethnic people of Sarawak: The Iban"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_2554" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The Charles Brooke Memorial, Kuching"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_2555" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Charles Brooke Memorial - The Iban Warrior"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2556" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Chinatown, Kuching"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2557" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The Old Court House, Kuching"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2558" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The General Post Office, Kuching Town"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2559" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Indian Mosque Lane, Kuching"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2560" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Masjid Bandar Kuching - The Indian Mosque in India Street, Kuching crammed amongst the shop lots"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2562" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The super old skool spice shop along India Street in Kuching"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2563" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Three prominent buildings/landmark in Kuching"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2564" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Boat cruise along the river at the Kuching Waterfront"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_2565" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Bot Tambang at the river Kuching"][/caption]

 

7 Random Interesting, Quick Facts About Kuching, Sarawak

I'll make this a short intro or more like a no intro at all. So here goes the 7 Random Interesting, Quick Facts About Kuching, Sarawak that you may want to know and probably agree at how interesting they really are. Let's get on with it ...

• I overheard a remark made by a fellow Brit on our shared van to Kuching town which was “Kuching is WAY greener and cleaner than Penang Island”. That I totally have to agree hands down.

[caption id="attachment_2327" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="A postcard picture of a cool dude of the ethnic people of Sarawak talking on the phone . This is yet another random interesting facts about Kuching, Sarawak. Mind you, Kuching is pretty urban and modern though, you don't get to see much of people dressing up like this in Kuching town. :)"][/caption]

• Kuching town center is pretty much 'walkable' provided that you walk around with good shoes, sunblock, sunglasses, hat/cap/umbrella because Kuching's heat is like “sweat dripping by the buckets kinda heat” and drinking up water throughout your 'walkabout around Kuching town' is a definite must!


• Main Bazaar Street is packed with shops after shops of Kuching's antiques and handicrafts. If you are into Arts and Galleries, it is a must to drop by “Artrageously Ramsayong Art Gallery” located at this Street. You must take a look at the intricate weavings of the bemban mats weaved by the local ethic people and appreciate the amount of effort being put behind the making of those intricately delicate and yes, outrageously beautiful mats.

[caption id="attachment_2328" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Bemban Mat with Aeroplane design"][/caption]

• Kuching Waterfront which has an awesome view of the Sarawak River is pretty interesting by night time and there will be a lot of food stalls opened in the evening too. Do watch out for a man dressed in traditional Iban attire (nothing much really, just a tiny little 'underpant' with a long piece of beautifully weaved cloth covering the front), with lotsa interesting tatoos too, playing a Sape ( something like a guitar) and it's totally live music. You can drop him some tips and enjoy listening to him play some excellent tunes with his Sape. Oh, he got things amped up a little bit because he'd plugged his Sape with an amplifier. So if you hear some sort of traditional music playing around the waterfront, go hunt for its source and you may find him there.

[caption id="attachment_2329" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Iban guy playing Sape at Kuching Waterfront * excuse the picture quality of my low pixel camera phone :)"][/caption]

• I've never seen this anywhere but only in Kuching where they actually sweep up the street along the waterfront using a huge, fallen tree leaf and at first I thought it was a joke, but no really, the cleaners who cleans up the fallen leaves use one of those huge tree leaf to sweep up the street. How more eco-friendly can you get than that? Way to go Kuching!


• Sarawakians are so nice, warm, chatty and friendly where you can literally smile and walk up to a person and have a nice conversation over things. Trust me they will be more than happy to talk to you and help you if you ask for any especially when they find out that you are out of town-ers.


• The people are so friendly they kept on asking if I was from Kuching which was really odd and there came to a point where a friendly old lady literally came up to me and striked up 'interesting yet partly interrogative questions about my A-C ...haha' . Also, the lady cleaner at the Kuching Waterfront was really nice she was part sweeper, part Kuching tour guide at least to me and really you will be very happy and all smiley when you are in Kuching or anywhere around Sarawak. The local people are really that nice! :)

Suffice to say that I'm really glad I've finally stepped foot at Kuching. Sarawak is the largest state in Malaysia and of course, I'll go back down to Sarawak to explore more of the rainforests and the national parks. Hopefully, the next time around I'm down in Sarawak, I can learn up more Sarawakian slangs which I did learnt a few from the friendly 'old lady' and probably blend well with the locals again. It couldn't get any better when complete strangers simply open up to you during your travel. It makes traveling simply worthwhile.

Rainforest World Music Festival 2011, Kuching Kicking Off Fri, July 8 2011

Oh yeah, the most anticipated Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF 2011) in Borneo - Kuching is kicking off tomorrow - Fri, July 8 2011.  I'll be flying down to Kuching tomorrow morning and I'm getting very excited! :)

It is going to be both my first time heading down to Kuching and joining the Rainforest World Music Festival. Double the excitements there ! I am expecting  to have a jolly good time throughout the three days event and hopefully I get to meet a lot of awesome, interesting people along the way too.

Another major thing to look forward to at the festival is the fact that  I'll be camping for three nights  in a row!  Man, you don't get to camp often, so I figured, why not be a true music festival go-ers and do it the best way which is to camp. I'm pretty sure fellow campers are really fun people to be around with. :)

For the love of music, discovering new cultures and traditions from the Sarawakians, stepping foot for the first time on another beautiful land of Borneo - Sarawak and for a good weather no matter what the weather forecast has predicted and yes, for a safe flight, good times and meeting interesting, unique and equally beautiful people, let's the party started tomorrow!

It's still not too late for you to come and join the rest of us at this Rainforest World Music Festival 2011. I will only get my festival tickets at the door so come on down to Kuching and join us from tomorrow until this weekend. The more the merrier, ya'll! If you are coming along, see you there!

 

 

 

Missed a weekend Kuching trip but I am glad I missed it!

Yeah I have sum up what I am going to say in this post all in the title. Haha. So the story is, my dear FF (you can check out her blog on the link, although not much is going on there for now) won a pair of free air ticket to Kuching by a fairly new airline operator to Sabah and Sarawak. For some unknown reason our reply for the tickets redemption was not entertained not until it was 2 days before the day we were so suppose to fly which at that time I have already decided to not go because of the weather (raining and some parts of Kuching were flooded earlier last week and a plane skidded at the Kuching airport runaway) - all happening last week, so it wasn't exactly a good idea to rush and make it there all because of some free tickets.

And...to add on to things, I was feeling a bit under the weather on the weekend and I would have one of the worst days throughout the trip if we would actually have made it to Kuching on the weekend. So all in all, things happened for a reason and I'm just glad I hadn't gone on the trip.

However, I'm feeling a bit bad for FF because she was really anticipating to make her first trip of the year to somewhere in Borneo. Sorry partner, but I think we'll have a much better trip soon when the weather is perfect and with no rush ( for tickets and taking leave from work). Whatever it is, I'm still looking forward for some trip to Kuching and let's see if it's going to work out soon. As for now, I'm not going to plan on anything but I'm just going to go with the flow and focus on today and now.