2026 Western Australia

Flying to Kuching in Sarawak I was surprised that we had to clear immigration  leaving Kota Kinabalu and clearing again when we arrived in Kuching. Both times we had our passport stamped.  Things continue rainy but it hasn't dampened our spirits. A sturdy umbrella is a necessity.  Kuching is a lovely little city. It is clean ,easy to navigate with some spectacular infrastructure . The people are friendly and helpful. Last night we met a Norwegian fellow that has retired here. The historic downtown is tucked along the riverbank with a beautiful promenade winding along the riverfront, shaded by enormous rain trees. There is a beautiful pedestrian bridge that crosses over to the very spectacular legislature building.  We spent one day doing all the free stuff. The free heritage walk, the free Chinese museum and the free orchid garden.

A trip to the Orchid garden is one of the free things you can do in Kuching. It is a pleasant walk across the pedestrian bridge that spans the Sarawak River. The gardens are tucked behind the impressive legislature building.  The gardens are quite peaceful and they are certainly growing a lot of orchids.

 From Kuching, Bako park is about a two hour bus ride and then about 30 minutes by boat. We spent several days here and would have spent more but we got kicked out due to a busy holiday weekend.  We had a lovely cabin to ourselves , the food was good and there was lots to see. We did have some rainy stormy weather but that just made things more interesting.

We spent 3 days and 2 nights at this lodge on the Kinabatangan  River. It was about a hundred can dollars a night and included transport from Sandakan a two hour drive and three river cruises and all meals. We were pretty much monkeyed out by the end of three days. We saw orangutans, three species of macaque and the star of the show proboscis monkeys. Also crocs snakes and other reptiles and birds. We saw four species of hornbill unfortunatel the pictures aren't that great. Boa constrictor. We endured a fair amount of rain but our last boat trip was mostly dry.  For those who are wondering why you are seeing this again and out of sequence our blog critic, Tracy  pointed out that this blog disappeared off the site.. Probably the blog master accidentally deleted it while high on alcohol or drugs.

Pretty much every establishment is playing cheesy Kenny G Christmas songs. Celine Dion's Christmas Album is on everybody's playlist.It is unreal. And yes this is a Muslim country.

A five hour bus trip got us to Sandakan the second largest city in Malay Borneo. Most of the tourists opt for resorts out in the jungle or on the coast so the city does not seem to have too many touristy types like ourselves ambling about. We spent a few days here.  We discovered a great Indian restaurant and ate a lot of meals there.  Our last day here we took a city bus out to the orangutan rehabilitation center. In Borneo they pronounce it oohrang   oohtang. In Malay it means jungle man with long arms and smelly armpits. These apes share 94 % of our DNA. I must admit that of all the apes and monkeys that we have seen orangutans are the most fascinating to watch and observe. Anyways these apes have been rescued from the wild.  They are rehabilitated and if possible returned to the wild. They live in a very big patch of jungle and if they so choose they will come to a feeding platform where the hoardes of tourists wildly snap their photos. We were fortunate eno...