We had a good dinner last night. We opted for Western food again. We headed to Bla..bla..bla.. There are actually 3 restaurants close together that have the same owner; Junk which has a decor of antiques, Bla… which has a Bali decor and in between the two, The Living Room. This has a lot of nice couches and opens into a garden. They also have long house style sitting which is similar to the short tables and pillows you find in a japanese restaurant. I’ve been pretty stiff and sore so I decided not to sit at the low tables but a standard table that looked out onto the garden area. You could have anything on either menu from Junk or Bla.bla.bla. Junk is western and Bla is chinese. We opted for Pizza again. I had lamb and George a vegetarian. It hit the spot. Western food is pretty expensive. It was 109RM with beer.

We slept much better last night and woke up somewhat early. Sunrise and sunset does not vary when you are on the equator. It comes up at 6:30 and goes down at 6:30. We had the continental breakfast the hostel provides (toast, lime juice and coffee). At 8:00, we were picked up and taken to the Orangutan Wildlife Center at Semenggoh. It was a minivan and was 25rm. They feed the oranguatan on platforms at two different locations. They put a bunch of fruit and it is possible for the Orangutans to show up for the free food. They are free in the large center so there is no guarantee that any of the 18 Orangutans will show up.

But one just gave birth 9 days ago. She was there with her baby. The mother loved eating the small banannas. I don’t blame her – they are one of my favorites. She came down onto the lawn area also so we were able to get about 5 feet away. The caretakers are there at all times to keep the tourists in check. Two other young orangutans also showed up. They gave one a whole coconut which he took up into the trees to crack and drink. Did you know that Orangutan’s DNA is about 97% similar to humans?

You only get to stay about 1 hour. The center wants to minimize the exposure to humans. We were back in Kuching by 11. Lunch time. We headed to the chinese hawker center for some noodles. Prawn Mee for George and Kolo Mee for me. The noodles are very similar to ramen noodles. They plonge them into hot water/broth to cook and top with bean sprouts and meat of choice. George had prawns. I had ground pork, wonton dumplings, chicken, bbq pork and something that I didn’t know what it was. It was either a slice of tofu or fish cake. I think it was fish cake. I didn’t feel like eating it. You also get a little dish of soyu sauce and sliced hot hot fresh red chilis. We poured this over the noodles. Perfect.

Next we headed to the museum. It is part natural history. This part was a little sad. A bunch of old cases with stuffed animals. The lights were not working so it was difficult to see. There were collections of shells also. Upstairs was a really nice longhouse display. We will not be going to a real long house. We hope to go to the cultural museum but it would have been nice to do a longhouse. Next time. We also went to the Islamic Museum which was interesting.

We are resting again and repacking our gear for Bako. We head out in the morning. We’ll take a bus (hopefully) and then a boat to the peninsula. We will stay in a very basic one room chalet. I’ve heard it is very spartan and the bathrooms … well let’s just say not the best. It will only be for one night. We will do hiking to see more nepenthes and the proboscis monkey.

After that we will return and move to the sister hotel of where we are staying currently. It is out of Kuching. We want to relax a bit before heading back. Two weeks have gone so fast. I’ll write more when we return from Bako if I have internet connection.