Needed a break badly.

Kuching means city of Cat.

Kuching have both city life and the nature life out there for people who are lover of adventure. As my trip was a last minute plan, I didn’t have much time to do the read up and planning, all I did was just booked my air ticket to flow over directly in few days later after I had booked.

Relaxing and lazy around.

Never know what hotel or hostel to stay and where or what location is the best area, on one day before I flow over, I wasn’t sure whether it was high season or low season, I went to do a search on the internet on hotel and hostel to compare pricing, at the same time check whether any room available for me.

As a budget traveller like me, I always end up staying in one of the hostel which is cheap and good for me to catch my sleep at night. As I checked on the website, there are a few hostels to choose with but I was not sure which is clean and convenient place to stay so I end up making a guess and call the hostel myself and book the room on the spot and request for airport pick up.

At the Kuching airport, you can take a taxi to city and it cost you RM23 (Malaysia dollar) by purchasing the coupon at the counter when you arrived at the airport. As I asked the hostel come to pick me up, it cost me RM20 which is the same price as the taxi fare if you call the taxi company directly booking. When I call to book the room, I also found out it was a little bit cheaper than you booked on line going through the 3^rd party. Booking online it take a few days to confirm so I can’t wait as the next day I’d to flow over already.

My arriving at the airport, a young man holding the name sign board was waiting for me and he drove in a Mercedes Ben to pick me up, it was so impressive.

When I check in to the room, wow… I’ve my own small private room of my own, just one bed in the room with air conditional, window view, it was so comfortable. In the room, it still have wi-fi accessing to internet if you have your own laptop with you, this sound like staying in the small hotel but I was paying a cheap rate for a comfortable place to take a short holiday since my last holiday was two years ago. The only different between hostel and hotel; the toilet is located outside the room at the common area. Some hostel do have toilet attached to the room but you have to pay a bit more.

What I like about this hostel is clean and comfortable bed, later, I found out they are newly open (operated for 2 months only) and everything inside is new and clean bright colours. The staffs there are young and friendly; the owners of the hostel are young too.

The only thing I don’t like about the hostel is the location, is a bit far if walking is your mode of explore all the time. In Kuching, their bus service can train your patient; you hardly see bus drive past you, most of the local people will have their own car to drive to places.

To be very frank, if you have your own transportation (rent a car or bike) is the best way of exploring around. Their local people travel by public transportation is van, bus and taxi, their taxi don’t run by metre, they charge according to how many kilometre and they quote you the prices according to the distance.

The bus and van fare is cheap, is about RM1 can take you very far about 5 or 6km (or more) away. Taxi fares is about RM5 to 8 for short distance and distance more than 30minutes may cost you about RM20 to RM50 or more, it depend on the distance.

As I took walking as my mode of the transport, I walk a lot of places around the city area and I get to see a few hostels, I get to know where to stay is the best location, but as I never went visit the hostel inside I was not sure how it look inside. There is one near to Water front, I went visit inside and see the room, I don’t like the place, it gives me the feeling of dirty, even though the owner was very friendly to me.

My recommendation to stay is near the Water Front area, it is the location where will bring you to places you will want to visit. Most hostel website will claim that they are near Water Front but what is near to them does not turn out near for me, because my mode of transport was by foot most of the time.

To explore the city, the best way to explore is by walking; in Kuching is a small city but it divided into few other small towns.

Due to my trip is short, I could not travel too far out of the city area, and the further place I travel was the beach (about 30 to 45minutes journey). I book the transportation from one of the hotel counter and it brought me all the way there.

At the beach, I walk around the area, relaxing, never swim at the sea because it was dangerous sign show (see the flag colour to indicate whether is safe to swim), I also never swim at the pool because there were so many children around. I seat around at the sea side listening the wave sound, enjoying the wind, enjoying my ice-cream and walking around, at late afternoon returned to the city.

I also visited the Cat Museum, it was a distance away from the city area, I took a public van and travel all the way out there, it was not a big museum, less than an hour I was out the museum, so if you are not a cat lover, this is not a place for you, not worth travelling so far and profit you nothing but train your patient waiting for the van to come to travel back to the city area. (their van have timing, every 30 to 45 minutes or an hour to come one only, so you miss one of it, then you have to wait for the next one.)

The city life it look very much like Singapore 70s (if you have been to Singapore visited the museum, you will know what I mean), life style there very slow and simple, there are many small houses shops around, most of the shops sell the same things, their colourful cake is the famous snacks there which tourist will buy, their pepper also famous and some other art made of hands by the village people.

Kuching have many Muslim and Chinese, most of the Muslim are staying across the opposite side of the bridge and most of the Chinese staying in Chinatown area. Some of their local Chinese food name very much like Singapore and China Xiamen’s food names but they are all taste very different.

They have Laska, Lor Mee both I’ve tasted, Singapore Laska taste more coconut, Kuching taste more sour and spicy. Xiamen Lor Mee and Kuching Lor Mee they are the same clear soup base, Singapore Lor Mee is black in their soup base. Although Kuching Lor Mee is clear soup base but still taste very different from the Xiamen Lor Mee. Laska in Kuching is famous but different stall have their own taste, some very nice and some is not nice. I had try two different stall, the best stall of course have limited stock and by noon has already sell finished. The normal stall at any time you can find them selling but it taste so different (which I myself don’t like it.). I personally don’t like the Kuching Lor Mee because they will only cook it when customer place their order, therefore, I have to wait for more than 10 to 20 minutes in order to have my bowl of Lor Mee and it doesn’t taste nice, it is not worth waiting. Seafood is cheap in Kuching but not the best place to have seafood if you have tried other countries seafood.

Ladies if you think of going there for shopping, then you may want to cancel your plan of going there because there are very limited shopping centre for you to shop around. No fashions over there, just a simple life style they live with simple supplies meet their needs.

For people who love nature or want to look for adventure, Kuching might be a place that you can try to explore. The local people have nothing to play within their own city, most of the time they spend their time on watching DVD movie.

If you want to travel out of city area, then it is better for you to read up the information on the internet and plan your trip in advance, it will be good if someone can travel with you, otherwise, you will be like me end up in the city area relaxing. If you are travelling outside of city area, you will be meeting a different group of people out there in the villages. You must be prepared to sleep in the worse condition without air-con or without bed. Visiting the village, never travel there alone by your own ladies, it is better if you have someone with you and move on together, take safety as your guide.

Well, giving me a chance to go again, I’ll not go there alone because it has nothing much to offer, been there once is good enough. It will be good to have two to go, at least even you have nothing to do over there, at least you have someone with you to talk and fellowship with.

As for me, although I went there alone but I never get lonely whenever I travel alone because I know how to find my own ways to keep myself entertaining and make my trip enjoyable.  Thank you for taking your time to read my travel blog.

To read other stories of mine, click on the link: http://realtravel.com/member-m652835-afa.html