Kuching

This morning we didn't have to get up too early.  We had an 11:45 flight to Kuching, so we met downstairs to catch a cab to the airport around 9 am.  We did that and thought we'd eat breakfast at the airport.

Our flight today was on Air Asia.  We've never flown with them before, obviously, so we weren't sure what to expect, but they were fine.  Our flight was on time and without incident (just the way we like them).  A very different security process in Singapore.  The security screening was right at the gate rather than a large security process for everyone.  Different.  Here's our plane.

We arrived in Kuching around 1:30 pm.  We were met by our guide, James Handfield-Jones with "Kuching Offroad".  James is an Englishman transplanted to Kuching and does tours with his partner, Mary.  A custom tour guide.  He picked us up and immediately we toured Kuching.  He pointed out various restaurants, places to avoid, places to go, etc.

Our first stop was lunch at the Aroma Cafe.

Here's our guide, James in the middle.  He's quite an individual.  Done a lot in his life, but he's now chosen to do what he's doing here in Borneo.  We have him, or his partner, as a personal guide while we're here.

We drove through a driving thunderstorm, with street floods to match.  It eventually eased, and we boarded a sampan (same sort of boat as in Hong Kong) to go to the other side of the river.  This is one that was on the river.

And this was from inside ours.

There, we walked a path to Fort Margherita, which was set up to protect Kuching from pirating in the 19th century.  It's currently under restoration.  We're walking along the path from the river here.

We checked into our hotel, the Riverside Majestic.  I have to say, it's relatively cheap to stay here in Malaysia, especially compared to Hong Kong and Singapore.  Here's our hotel...the one in the back.  

We have a great view of the river area from the 17th floor.  We also have a club room we can access, and have all we can drink between 5 and 7 pm every day, along with hors d'oeuvres and munchies, for free!

The elevator buttons are kind of funny.  They're along the side.  Don't rest your butt on them, or this happens!

After eating and drinking in our hotel, we weren't very hungry any more.  But we went to a recommended place called the TopSpot, just around the corner.  It's kind of like the hawker stalls we saw in Singapore, but on top of a parking garage!

James told us to go to '25', so we did, and just had veggies and rice.

Overall, it was quite the place.  We had this, 2 large beers which we shared, plus some ice cream, for about $20 Cdn...all 4 of us!

Tomorrow, we're off to places unknown in Borneo.