On every street corner, a cat waving at you, tee-hee.
Swashbuckling Englishmen, skirmishes with Malay pirates, Dyak head-hunters and Rajahs of Sarawak. Feisty stuff. But that was in the 1800s.
Faith and I sailed our old boat five hundred miles from Singapore via Tioman Island (featured in the movie South Pacific) to Kuching in
Western Borneo. There we anchored for six weeks in the Santubong
River.
Bridges across the river prevented us from anchoring any closer to Kuching, so we would bicycle to the main road and wait for a long-distance bus to come along for the twenty minute ride into town.
Kuching is fab. It is known as Cat City and boasts statues of cats on most of the traffic circles, many of the felines waving. So cute. Of course, in the only pic I can show you, they are not waving, but the
Wikipedia link below has some great photos.
The city lies on the Sarawak River which is tidal. But a barrage just a
few miles downstream has created a permanent high-water and a lovely water-front with pavement restaurants. See the fab pic in the link below.
We live on a tight budget, but we saved our pennies for a plate of
Sumptuous Joy, a soft-shelled-crab dish on which we feasted at the
waterfront. Yum-yum. Boy, did we lick our fingers. Every last morsel.
In the early 1800s, Borneo was rife with Malay pirates on the one hand, and Dyak head-hunters with their blow-pipes on the other. It took an Englishman to put a stop to that.
The Sultan of Brunei told the adventurer, James Brooke, he would make him Rajah of all Sarawak if he got rid of the pirates. And that’s
exactly what this crazy Englishman did, personally leading attacks on the pirates, defeating and driving them out of Borneo.
As Rajah, he banned head-hunting.
Hope you have some fun checking out this site.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuching
