Sea Glass Kids: Kuching, the City of Cats [Joshua Burke]

KUCHING

After a three day journey from Singapore, Sea Glass arrived in Kuching. We went up the Sarawak River and found a nice government marina. The harbormaster is here and immigrations and customs is a small car ride away, so it is very convenient. Most of the boats at the marina have just been dumped here for years. Just us and another Australian solo on another boat are the only people staying at the marina. Kuching is located in the Malaysia Province of Sarawak on the island of Borneo. It is the provincial capital of Sarawak and Kuching means “the city of cats”. It is located near two main rivers and 40% of the city is national park. I have heard people say it is an amazing city so I could not wait to explore it.

Me above the city of Kuching. Notice how spread out the city is.

One of the many cat statues around the city.

Our reliable Malaysian box car brought us around Kuching.

In Malay, museum is spelled with a z.

After we got checked into the country we got a good nights rest. Mom, my brothers, and I headed off to the Cat Museum in our rental car. With my good navigational skills (and help of an IPod), we found the Cat Museum. The museum was in the Kuching North City Hall and the building itself was architecturally amazing. Entry to museum was free but you had to pay three ringit (one dollar) to take photos. The museum is the world’s first cat museum and has over 4,000 feline exhibits, photos, art, and souvenirs! It has the only complete skeleton of the rarest cat species in the world, the Borneo Bay Cat. It had tons of stuffed cats, paintings and drawings of cats, and an entire section dedicated to Garfield! I had never seen anything like it.

The Cat Museum.

The Borneo Bay Cat.

The many stuffed animals.

After the museum we decided to see Fort Margherita. The fort was designed on that of a late English Renaissance castle and was built in 1879 by the White Rajah Sir Charles Brooke. The fort was built in an ideal strategic position, on a raised bend of the river with a great view in every direction. However, it was constructed to convey power and security of the government, not for defense. The fort does have two jail cells though. It looked like the fort would never suffer an attack… until 19^th of December 1941 when the Japanese attacked. I guess the fort couldn’t hold off the onslaught because the fort fell along with all of Sarawak on Christmas day 1941. In all, the fort has flown four different flags in its lifetime. The flag of Raj of Sarawak for 62 years, the Hinomaru (Japanese flag) during WW2, the Union Jack until 1963, and the flag of the State of Sarawak after it joined Malaysia. I thought the fort was amazing but they closed off the tower and the main area where the cannons are.

Me with Fort Margherita in the background.

Another attraction we went to was the old Sarawak Museum. The Museum was built by Charles Brooke (the same guy who built Fort Margherita) in 1891. The building was for exhibiting the handicrafts of the indigenous people and the wildlife of Sarawak. It was designed by a French aide of Brooke who modeled it after the Normandy Town Hall in France. We were unfortunately not allowed to take photos inside. But inside there were many stuffed animals of all different kinds, bones of giant whales and orcas that were found in 1919, and many kinds of cone shells that shoot poisoned barbs. My favorite exhibit was the reptile exhibit. It has stuffed cobras, stuffed giant Borneo turtles, and three crocodile skulls. The stuffed flying squirrels and birds were cool too.

Me with a genuine British cannon. The cannon even had the royal seal still on it.

The second floor of the museum was the handicrafts of the indigenous people. Until fairly recently head hunting was practiced in Borneo and the Sarawak region. When the head hunters got their skulls, they put the skulls over a fire for good luck. If the skulls were not over a burning fire, bad luck would descend among the house. Beside from the headhunting there also was information on the traditional long houses that some people here still live in today. There was a replica longhouse that Queen Elizabeth the second and her sons visited. There were also many traditional weapons and ceremonial costumes on display.

The Semenggoh Nature Park is a park where orangutans that were once kept illegally as pets are trained to live in the wild before being released back into the wild. We came in the morning because that is when you have the best chance to see the orangutans when they are eating breakfast. As soon as we parked the car and walked into the park we immediately saw a young orangutan male. He was climbing around a tree eating a sugar cane stick a ranger tossed up to him. We also saw a mommy orangutan with her very young and cute baby. They were swinging from tree to tree on ropes eating leaves. The orangutans were very fascinating.

The young orangutan male.

The mommy orangutan with her baby above her. The baby has the lighter hair.

On the way out of the reserve we took a walk on the bamboo garden trail. The Borneo river and forest were amazing and you could hear noises of animals all around you. I thought I saw a crocodile in the river but it probably just a log.

After leaving the park we decided to go find one of the original longhouses. We drove on the well-maintained roads for about two hours through Sarawak enjoying the breathtaking view, but we couldn't find any. Eventually we pulled over for a lunch break in the outskirts of a village. As we were eating yummy wraps in the car, a Malay guy and his younger kids asked us if we wanted to go to his son's first birthday party at his house. We said sure and followed him to his house. His son was so cute and I told his kids (who spoke surprisingly good English) about our travels by boat. They were very fascinated. After a long talk and many thanks we started home.

On our last day in Kuching we went to the Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV). SCV is a place that teaches you about Sarawak's rich cultural diversity. In the village there are seven authentic ethnic houses built around a man-made lake. The lake represents how most Sarawakians built their longhouses along rivers or costal areas. Each longhouse is that of a different group. There are seven main groups in the Sarawak region, the Bidayuh, the Iban, the Penan, the Orang Ulu, the Melanau, the Malays, and the Chinese. Each of the different groups had different customs, ways of life, and even spoke a different language!

The original Malay stairs are just carved out of a log.

The bamboo bridge.

Before we saw any of the houses we ate a traditional Malay meal. The coconut cooked rice and chicken, the special fish, it was all delicious. We ate for so long that we only had time to see three houses before the Malay cultural show started. The Bidayuh people count up for 8.4% of Sarawak's population and live in western Sarawak. Early European travelers gave them the name "Land Dayaks" because they lived in the mountains. They lived in the mountains for easy protection against enemies and for access to pure mountain water. The first Bidayuh building we saw was used as a watchtower. Young bachelors lived in the watchtower and when the village was attacked they were called to arms. The Bidayuh longhouse was a mammoth structure. There were many different parts to the building and it was built on stilts high above the ground.

The Bidayuh watchtower.

The huge bidayuh longhouse.

The next longhouse we visited was the Iban longhouse. The Iban people, also known as the Sea Dayaks, build their houses to last 15 to 20 years or until the land in the area is exhausted. Then they packed up their things and went to find nice fertile land. Their longhouses are almost always built near a navigable river. 1/3 of all Sarawakians are Iban. While some live in the cities, most still prefer the longhouses.

The Iban longhouse.

We made it just in time to see the Malay cultural show. The performers did many dances from the different tribes. You can see some resemblance between the local Thai and Malay dances, but for the most part the Malay dances were very unique in their own way. On one of the dances a guy was swung round and round while sitting on an elevated narrow pole! I even got up and danced on the last dance.