Kuching, Sarawak - Day 4

On our final day of our Kuching trip, we've decided to hire a couple of taxis and visit the orangUtans and the pottery factory. Initially we wanted to do this on the 3rd day, but I reminded Esther that we had to check out of Tune hotel by 10am and it would be better if we hire the taxis on the last day of our trip and ask them to take us to the airport at the end of the day. This would save us the taxi fares from the city to the airport. :P

It was decided the day before that we had to get up early today if we wanted to go out for breakfast at 7am. Aunt Annie, Aunt Chris and Brian decided not to go. The rest of us were looking forward to have another famous-only-in-Sarawak meal called Hor Thien Hoo (not sure if it was spelt or pronounced correctly). Sze-En's dad told her that she must try this food. So for the first few days we went around hunting for this food.

The day before, after our heavy breakfast, we passed by a restaurant selling this food. Actually, it was by pure chance that we stumbled upon this restaurant. My mom saw the cook making this food and asked her what it was. It was so uniquely made and my mom couldn't resist asking the cook what was this food called. When she realized that this was what we were hunting for all the while, she and the other aunties wanted to order a bowl and shared among them. But they were so full from breakfast and everyone thought it would be better to try it the next day.

The restaurant was situated very near to the "great cat."

The "noodle" was made of rice flour and they just added some water and cooked it flat on a wok. Once it was cooked, they peel it of the wok and mix them with a bowl of soup. The soup contained all kinds of nice ingredients like fish, mushrooms, white and black fungus. A bowl of this cost RM4.50, a very reasonable price because of the ingredients.

The "Hor Thien Hoo" looks like a bowl of meen fun koh, but it sure taste different. I had my usual teh-si.

After breakfast, we walked back to our hotel and started packing up. Once we have finished packing, my parents and aunties saw that they had at least 1/2 an hour to kill, so they played their card games again.

The day before, my mom went out for a walk alone along the waterfront. She met someone, a driver of a van-for-hire and he said that he was willing to hire his 11-seater van for RM200 (USD57, EURO 40) for the whole day and he would chauffeur us wherever we wanted to go. My mom was thinking - if we hire 2 car taxis , it would cost us the same, but we would be in 2 different cars. To have all of us in 1 vehicle could be better right? And so, she got then man's contact number and gave it to Esther.

Esther called him to confirmed the hiring of his van. He agreed to take us up from the hotel at 9.30am. Umm... for all who are thinking of doing the same thing if you have a big group, be sure to check out the van first. The van that we booked was old and the air-cond was pathetic.

Anyway, we have already agreed to take his van, we shouldn't complain too much. The driver suggested to go to the Crocodile Farm first. We weren't so keen but since he suggested it, so we went.

This is the Jong's Crocodile Farm and Zoo. Like I've mentioned in my earlier post, the idea of visiting the crocodiles weren't very appealing to me. It was one of those "been there done that" kind of thing.

It was already passed 12pm and we were hungry.... at least I was, watching the crocodiles fight for their food made me hungry. The driver took us to a place to have lunch.

I must say, the food here is very good. I had nasi hailam (Hailam rice) and the others had chicken chop rice or rice with mixed dishes.

The driver suggested us to go to a bird's nest.. um farm or shop, but we said we didn't want to go there because we wanted to spend more time at the pottery factory.

Here at the pottery factory, the kids had so much fun. They declared that of all the places they visited, the pottery factory was the best. I think that they just love to get their hands dirty. hehe.

Our next destination was the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. We arrived there a little too early to see the orang utans so what did was to check out the area.

Apart from the orang utans, we saw pepper and pitcher plants too.

Our next destination - the airport. We told the driver that we wanted to reach the airport by 5pm, but we were too tired out to go anywhere else. We arrived at the airport at 4pm. It wasn't time to check in yet and so we waited till 5.15pm for the counter to open.

Once we got our boarding passes we went straight to the waiting area. We had to go through the international flight entrance. Over here domestic flights means places like Miri and Sibu.

The kids had a light meal at the Mary Brown restautant. I think this is the only restaurant once you get pass the immigration counter.

We had over an hour to kill before boarding the plane. After the kids had their meal, they wandered over to look at the planes while the aunties and my mom played their card games again.... in the airport. Sigh! What would they do without the RM3.80 cards, I wonder.

Oh this was our fourth day and by the time we reached the airport, Brian was so fed-up with Sze-En's presence. Did I tell you that she is a real chatter-box? Anyway, sometimes it is nice to hear what she had to say but other times... gosh.. I'm glad I'm not staying in the same house as her. hehe..

We separated the kids and there was peace. :)

The plane took off a little bit later than its scheduled time. It was alright.. as long as it wasn't like 1 hour or more.

This was what I had in the plane - nasi goreng with satay (fried rice and barbequed chicken). Esther had the Air Asia's famous nasi lemak.

Sze-En ordered maggi mee (at last her mom allowed her to have a cup of instant maggi mee)... but it was such a shame that she couldn't eat it because she was airsick. She slept most of the journey back and my mom ate her maggi mee for her.

Well... that's all. My Kuching trip ends here. All in all it was a good trip. I enjoyed my time in Kuching and didn't really mind the complains and grumbling made by the rest of my family members... hehe.

Our next trip? Not sure, but one of the aunties suggested Langkawi. Hmmm.... I'm not too sure about that. :)

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, Kuching, Sarawak

Ah... the orang utans at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre. I was so looking forward to visit this place. This is a rehabilitation centre and if I remember correctly, we were told that initially there were only 12 orang utans here, but now they have multiplied to 24.

The entrance fee was RM3 per adult and there were no charges for the children. Our van driver told us that we could purchase the tickets cheaper as a group. The entrance fees for a group of 5 adults cost RM10 (meaning RM2 per adult) and the 6th adult had to pay the normal price - RM3.

From the car park, we had to walk quite a distance to where we thought the orang utan would be. It's not that far actually, but one of my aunts who had knee problems thought it was too far for her and she said she would wait for us at the car park.

The dos and don'ts.

We were told that the feeding time was at 3 - 4pm. We reached here at 2.30pm. So what we did was to look around. There was an exibition of some sort. I wasn't too keen on that and didn't take any pictures of them.

We saw the crocodiles again. Aunt Chris said that she had never seen a real live crocodile before, and she finally got to meet some of them here.

We saw some orchids and pitcher plants.

The kids were getting restless. It was almost 3pm and they were wondering when will the orang utans make their appearance.

At 3pm, a park personnel asked us to congregate in another place. He gave us some rules to observe. Among them were no flash photography, no feeding the orang utans, be quiet at all times, keep away food and water bottles out of sight from the monkeys and be prepared to have a sudden hot shower (a.k.a pee from the orang utans). Naturally as we entered the jungle, all of us were looking at our surroundings, not wanting to have hot showers from the orang utans. Oh... the park personnel also said that we may not see the orang utans if they were not hungry and didn't want to come out and grab a bite from where the food was prepared for them. He asked us to be patient and not go off in a huff after waiting only for a short while.

We were told to go into the jungle to the feeding area, about 200 meters from the roadside. Going inside the jungle reminded me a lot of climbing Gunung Datuk, the only thing was, here the ground was flat with the occasional tree roots patterning the ground.

We reached the feeding area in probably 3 minutes or so. We waited and waited.. and scanned the trees above us (you know, just in case..) and looked at the feeding area. The kids were waiting patiently too, and I think it was harder for Sze-En because she loves to talk and it was so difficult for her to keep quiet for too long. Just before the trip to this place, we told her that the orang utans won't come out and she would have to call out to them by speaking their language. I guess she was also all prepared to make her monkey's call but that was before we knew that we had to be quiet.

After waiting for 10 minutes, the park personnel (he was on a walkie-talkie with someone) said that the orang utans were at the car park area.

So off we went out of the jungle to the carpark. Aunt Chris phoned Aunt Annie to tell her that the orang utans were seen at the car park area. Aunt Annie said yeah, she was looking at them now. Gosh, the amount of walking we did (actually not much, but we were all so tired by then) and all along we could have waited for the orang utans in the car park area. Aunt Annie was laughing at us. She thought she gave seeing orang utans a miss (because she had knee problems and couldn't walk fast and far) but in the end she was the first one who saw them.

Here's the orang utan, posing for the camera. My camera wasn't good enough to take nice shots and the sky didn't cooperate either. We could hear the thunder and the sun hid behind the clouds most of the time. I had to zoom to take this shot. There were so many people wanting to take a look at the orang utans. So many cameras were focused on them. Knowing the weakness of my camera, I left the scene so that others could have a better glimpse of the monkeys and probably get some good shots of them with their DSLRs.

There were 3 orang utans. We even saw a mother with its baby.

While we were in the jungle, Aunt Annie made friends with the taxi drivers and they told her how a pepper plant looked like.

Here's how they looked like. They were planted along the roadside. The taxi drivers also pointed out the orang utans nest to her. When we reached the car park, she told us that she made the right decision of staying in the car park area.

I really enjoyed this visit very much and would highly recommend this place to anyone visiting Kuching. Nothing beats looking at wildlife animals without them being caged up. :)

Pottery Factory in Kuching, Sarawak

From the first day itself Sze-En was looking forward to visit the pottery factory while she was in here in Kuching. So after the crocodile farm, we went to one of the random pottery factories found in the outskirts of Kuching.

I can't remember what was the name of this factory. We were each given a round sticker to paste on our T-Shirts. I didn't see the need of it because a visit to this factory was free. From the entrance we could see some activities going on upstairs.

There were at least 5 0r 6 women carving the vases. I was impressed by their art. They could create a pattern using free hand. I didn't see any pencil markings on the vase, or maybe the markings were so fine that it could only be seen by the person carving it.

Some almost finished vases.

Here's a potter hard at work. When he saw us, he begin making a few different types of vases.

Originally, he was supposed to make these. They looked like covers for claypots.

The potter was kind enough to let the kids play and make their own pots. Esther also dirtied her hands and tried to create a vase out of the lump of clay.

After a while, they only managed to make these :-

It's not so easy after all. This made me think of God trying to mold and shape us into a person pleasing to Him. After this session I'm sure Sze-En and Brian must be thinking.. it's not easy being God after all... human beings are all so stubborn.

There was a special place to wash off the clay. My parents and the aunties were getting restless and we asked the kids to clean their hands. As soon as their hands were cleaned, both of them rushed back to the working place and started playing with the clay lump again. They really love this place. After a few minutes, they went to wash their hands again.

Later I asked the kids this question - Of all the places they visited which was the best place they enjoyed? Both of them said that it was the pottery factory.

Jong's Crocodile Farm & Zoo, Kuching, Sarawak

The idea of visiting the crocodile farm wasn't very appealing to me. I knew how crocodiles looked like. I've been to the zoo a few times and they all looked the same. They all looked as if they were sleeping. Not very interesting at all.

Since the kids were with us and they were all geared up to go, we found ourselves here at the crocodile farm. Oh, we booked a van (with a driver) for the whole day. What we did was to let the driver know where we wanted to go and he would take us there.

The entrance fees were quite pricey. Someone (can't remember who) said it cost RM10 and that someone must have been a Sarawakian. Looking at what we had to pay, I assumed we were once again treated as a foreigner. :(

I really didn't want to visit this place, but I went because Esther may need help looking after the 2 kids. I told my parents and the aunties that they needn't come in. We'd try to be quick, after all there's nothing much to see except crocodiles. They were relived. They also didn't want to see the crocodiles. I was really surprised when my dad decided to come along with us.

A photo shoot first with a non-moving crocodile.


Crocodile eggs anyone?


A Chameleon. The kids saw them at the Malacca Butterfly & Reptile Sanctuary too.


A goat and some chickens..... if you can spot them.

Ah.... this is what we came for.. the crocodiles, all lying on top of each other. I wonder why they do that.

We saw otters, monkeys, peacock/hen and cassowary.

The farm area was bigger that I had expected. We were there in time for them to feed the crocodiles. We saw 2 men throwing baskets of fish to the crocodiles. When it came to food, the active ones got to eat more. Crocs who were too slow or were fast asleep would have to wait for the next feeding time.

There were some long benches nearby and we realized that the real "feeding the crocodiles show" was about to start when everyone started choosing their places.

Oh... there's the bait. Someone had wheeled 2 baits away from each other to the middle of the pond.

Crocodiles were swimming leisurely, still unaware of the bait...

Ah.... I smell food....oh it's up there. What is it doing up there? Now i must summon my strength to reach for the food.

One, two, three.. up.

Sometimes the person manning the bait purposely lifted the rope higher when the crocodile was about to eat it.

After a while we got bored and left the scene. Thank God the kids also had enough of the show.

I wonder why the crocodiles sometimes sleep with their mouths open.


Exploring further...

We saw other animals here. Surprisingly the owl was awake. It blinked a few times to let us know that it was watching us.

We came across a pond full of water lilies.. but no flowers. :(


The otters again. The kids said goodbye to their favourite animal.

We were inside the farm for about an hour. Guess what my mom and the aunties did while we were inside the farm?

They were playing card games again. (Like that also can!!!)

Another photo shoot of the kids at the entrance of the farm, another "been there done that" to add to my list. :)