Kuching

Kuching - legend has it that this city got its name from James Brooke, the first British Rajah of Sarawak pointed to a cat when asking the name of the city and the locals replied 'kucing' the Malay word for cat.

The name took and the cities theme is cats.  This is our first stop in Borneo and we are here for around 5 days before flying to Kota Kinabalu.

Apart from being home to a squillion cats, the city is built along a picturesque river with some impressive government buildings and for us, situated near Semmengoh, an Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and wildlife reserve and the Bako National Park.

This is one of the old government offices which has been retired and is not in use as the built a new flash one on the other side of the river.  This was taken from our accommodation which was a new modern building 10 minutes from the city - just a few ringets away in a Grab!  Our AirBnB host actually came to the airport to meet us and to drive us to the accommodation and see us settled in.

This is the new government building on the other side of the river - an impressive landmark.  It is hard to get a grip on how the government thinks with modern buildings rotting away and new buildings popping up and lot of the homes surrounding the city being little more than tin sheds.

If it wasn't the stink of Durians, then it was always the stink of fish markets and stalls.  I don't know how the sea life can restock at the rates it is being harvested in this country.  I didn't see much in the way of shark fins so either all the sharks are gone or sharks aren't on the menu in Borneo.