Pinch punch 1st March 2016

1.3.16

I’ve never heard rain like it!!!!!
We’ve been referring to the rainy season which usually finishes in February and a couple of locals have used the word monsoon.
Next time it rains in Turkey, which can be incredible rain that you think can’t get any harder, I shall remember last night, just incredible, can’t really describe it other than it sounding like huge buckets being emptied.

At 6.45 am our alarms went off, we both said no way we’re going to Bako National Park in this and switched them off.
Its now 9 am and we would have been at there by now and the suns come out, but consoling ourselves thinking about how muddy it would be.
We have to go at some point before we leave regardless of awful weather, it looks amazing and trip advisor reviews rave about it.
We just can’t come to Borneo and not go to a National Park.

We set out and decided to have a cultural indoor day and if the rain starts again, there are various museums around the area.
First though we stopped at an opticians that was advertising contact lenses and I need to reorder anyway.
They actually worked out the same price as ordering them from the U.S as I do now with one pair free for ordering 6 boxes, so one extra month and saves remembering to order when we get back.
I said I haven’t had an eye test for about 3 years and could I have a test, he showed me a piece of paper with small print, which I could read and asked if I could read the sign over the door.
Eye test passed.

We looked at some of the old buildings, really lovely old colonial style

We found a small Chinatown.
They were serving Sarawak Laksa. We had Laksa in Penang and weren’t blown away, but felt we should try it.
It was amazing, totally different to what we had before.
Rice noodles and bean sprouts are cooked for seconds in a pot of hot soup, chicken and prawns put on top, soup poured in and topped with some greenery that looked like cress but had a kind of spicy lemon flavour, more chilli (like you would need it!) And some lime.

It was raining on and off. We decided to visit the Cat Museum.
Kuching means cat, hence all the cat models around town and cat merchandise everywhere.
Got the K5 bus. Journey was slow going, there was loads of traffic.
Finally got there, and then there was a steep road up to it, hard going but posters told us how many calories we would burn.
Then some steep steps, but great views from the top.

And a view of a shopping centre in case we get bored.

Well…..
Don’t know what to say really about the museum that won’t offend any locals if they stumble across this blog.
But we did end up in the shopping centre.

Loved this though, the image of our Martina cat

Anyway, we like a supermarket and had time to kill before the 4 pm bus, which came at 3.40 pm, luckily we were at the stop early just in case.
We were a source of huge amusement to the local kids who wanted to say Hello, and giggle a lot. I guess they’re not used to seeing tourists while doing their grocery shopping.

The bus went a totally different way back and we were back in just over 10 minutes!
The contact lens man rang, he’s got them there already, so went via a few gift shops and picked them up.

Currently chilling by the river after the best frozen chocolate and mocha ever.

When we got back to where we’re staying we decided to walk upwards and around the corner a bit to see if there are any eateries to save going back into town.
There are, and there’s also Q3 and D11 Steamboat restaurants.
We went to Q3 (26 RM per head including soft drinks and ice cream, less if over 5 on a table. D11 is 21 RM, drinking water only, not sure about ice cream)
Same principle as one we went to in Thailand where you choose your ingredients and cook them yourself on the steamer/ fryer on the table.
There were prawns, crabs, calamari, chicken, lamb, beef in various marinades, lok lok which are a variety of different shaped nugget and finger type things, hot dog sausages and crab sticks.
There’s various leaves, mushrooms of all shapes and sizes and rice and noodles too.

It was a good chance to try a range of things we’ve seen but not tried, the different marinades and seasoning were lovely, and good to try different soft drinks, honey and lime juice was lovely.
And ice cream, a mix of flavours, the coffee one was fab.
The waiters looked bemused at us novices, I bet they have a good laugh afterwards, there was another table of tourists looking equally confused.

A great evening followed by an early night ready for going to Bako.
Alarms on again for 6.45 am again but this time we’re going regardless, as the forecast is no better for the rest of the week or the weekend.