Malaysia, Kuching holiday 3/3 eating

 
There are a large selection of restaurants in all price range, including a lot of Dai Pa Dong for cheap good eats. We focused mainly on seafood and Malay dishes. 

Highly recommend these three restaurants:

Lepau, for tasty indigenous dishes in a pleasant environment, the only place I tried Tempoyak, fermented durian wine lys sauce, cooked with bean and shrimp, so fragrant. 

Rock road seafood, with live tanks of seafood and baskets of fresh vegetables to pick and choose, excellent cooking and not expensive. 

 
Kantin at Granary, for the converted old granary high ceiling atmosphere, nicely made Malay dishes. 

A vegetable we eat every day is Midin, the young curled up shoot of fern, cooked in various way, with garlic, Balacan (fermented shrimp and chili) and chili vinegar pickled. All delicious and love the crunch and bright greenness. 

Another interesting find in the market is various Longan like fruits. They tasted like Longan with thick juicy sweet flesh around a big stone. One has thick green shell called white flesh longan and the other has a thick dark brown shell with beige flesh called Buah Crystal. 

Malaysia, Kuching holiday 2/3 outside the city

Rented a car with driver to visit inland of Kuching one day, and to the coast side the other day. 

Visited Fairy cave and Wind cave, both are limestone caves eroded by river many years ago, forming many stalactites and stalagmites. Since then river receded and land mass raised, the caves are high above ground. So unfortunately they are not cool underground places to visit to escape heat. 

Stone maze is an area where river has receded and you are walking around well eroded rocks with amazing shapes. It reminded me of cruising in Ha Long Bay among those huge boulders, except in here I am walking around them and can see in close proximity. 

The next day we went to Santubong area, north of Kuching towards the sea. Very beautiful calm white sand beach at Princess beach, and wide flat bay great for clam gathering at Buntal Bay.  

 

 

Nearby is Heritage Cultural Village, where there are reconstructed wooden houses typical of the various tribes living in Sarawak, plus a dance show. It is nice to see the various building styles and how they (still) live in the traditional way. 

Malaysia, Kuching holiday 1/3 in the city

Once back to Hong Kong, joined up with friends to go away for a few days together. Picked Kuching in the Borneo side of Malaysia, because none of us have been there, and there are historical sites and some natural scenery to visit.

First impression is so many Chinese faces, Putonghua is so popular. It is a major migration port in the last 200 years for Chinese from the coastal area to come to work as farmers. Now the descendants become the majority population.

The old centre is not big, there are a few well preserved long rows of traditional two floors buildings to be seen especially in China town and Indian area.

Visited Chinese museum in an old court house near the river, to understand the migration of Chinese to this part of the world. Also Fort Margarita on the other side of the river, for the 200 years old building, the history of Sarawak, and especially how the first white rajah James Brook and descendants ruled the place.  

Scattered around are Chinese temples, Indian temples and couple of very grand mosques.

It is an easy place to wander around, safe, wide clean roads, no busy traffic, no motorbikes, and very polite and friendly locals.

During hot midday, a good way to hide from the sun is to join a river cruise on a small boat for an hour up and down the river, to admire both new and traditional buildings along the river.

A good place for a long midday rest is in The Common, inside Old Court House, they serve very good cakes. Colonial style building, spacious high ceiling and open courtyard in the middle with palm trees, wonderful atmosphere.

Another fun activity is in the Upside Down House, where furniture are hoisted on the roof. A staff is there to organise us in various postures around the room and take photos. The result is hilarious, we enjoyed the experience and laughed so much, felt like we were back to our teenage times together.