Harbour View Hotel Kuching

... night, and is a lovely place for a late night wander, but we were warned a lot of people have been mugged along there this week in the run up to the Hari Raya festival (where Muslim's celebrate the end of the Ramadam fasting period).<br>We have a couple of nights exploring Kuching, visiting the market and mall ,before our next stop, crocodile central.<br><br><br>Baco National Park <br><br>To get to Baco you have to take a boat ride in a ****** little long boat ...

... Orangutan are the result of a successful rehabilitation program that has been going on at this location since 1975 or so. Young orphaned Orangutan were taken in, reared and taught by human handlers to forage and look after themselves in the wild. Now there are 26 Orangutan living in the reserve. There is Ritchie - the big dominant male who gets to have the run of the girls and keep the younger ones in line. When we were there we saw him, at least ...

... to a cafe on the river bank recommended in the Lonely Planet guide. The food, when if finally arrived, was incredibly delicious but it really did take an awful long time to arrive and it wasn't just that we were hungry. The drinks took a little while too but I must say that the Long Island Tea's were really, really strong. For about $7 one drink was all most people would need to be on their ear. Without ...

... room. It took up 99% of this windowless room, in which the bathroom leaked, the carpet was soggy, and the toilet refused to flush. Oh, the joys of traveling. Needless to say, we got up early the next day and made it our mission to find another place, ANY other place to stay. We ended up having to splurge and stay at the very comfortable (and mansion-sized compared to 'Cozy') Waterfront Lodge. Big bed, balcony ...

So as Kuching is the main jumping off point we did have to return post Bako and spent the previous night hammering the Tigers (beer not the animals). 7am my good lady raises me and after my 3 hours kip I'm in **** state. And hungover. Or drunk? Richie most certainly is anyway. We are off to another National Park but only for the day. This one is Guning Gading. Richie starts off with us but retreats to bed due to his stumbling. Anyhow ...

... somebody from the family of the second house Lisa visited ran to give her some more packaged banana chips. After being in Hanoi, where most people seemed interested only in how much money they could extract from us, this was almost unbelievable. I would have to say that Malaysia may have some of the most friendly and generous people in the world. As we were walking back, I shared that I had some bottles of Vietnamese vodka that I wanted to use up and we decided ...