It was an early morning to get back to the airport. I was thankful I had been talked into a day in KL to reset before more traveling. We grabbed and Uber and headed to the airport. Thankfully, we had our boarding passes printed at the hotel so we walked right through to airport security. And I didn’t have to check my bag (Spoiler alert: Despite my worry I never had to check my bag or wear everything I packed again for the rest of the trip. And for that reason alone the vacation would have been a success.)
The flight was uneventful. Upon arrival to Borneo involved more customs. S and I explored the airport while A bought a SIM card. We then grabbed a cab.
The ride into the Kuching (the city of cats) wasn’t far from the airport. We were staying on the river walk which was an ideal location to just about everything. Our room wasn’t ready so we decided to explore Chinatown.
Kuching is the capital and largest city in the state of Sarawak in Malaysia. IT has a population of over 350 thousand. Borneo is the 3rd largest noncontinental island in the world and is made up for 2 Malaysian states (Sarawak and Sabah), Indonesia and Brunei. Borneo is famous for clouded leopards and orangutans.
Chinatown was quaint and had a small town feel. We wandered for a while and found a traditional pharmacy where we bought bug spray. (The mosquitos were no joke.) The man counted out the total and then the change he owed us at lightening speed on an abacus. For lunch we first snacked on various flavors of steamed buns (and I got meat skewers) then ended up at an outdoor restaurant trying 3 different traditional noodle dishes. It was all delicious. After lunch we wandered on and ended up at the “Wrong Place” where tried the local apple liquor. It was sweet and definitely had kick. It was no surprise that I couldn’t finish it.
Kuching is famous for its Sarawak cakes. I had seen pictures in a book and then more pictures at the airport. They were selling them on the street and in cake houses. We went in one of the cake houses and probably ate a whole cake (at least) in samples. We ended up buying two: a mint chocolate and a rainbow (whose flavor was rich. I am not sure what it was supposed to be). We also bought peppercorn cookies that were delicious and the Kuching version of Rice Krispie treats (two different flavors one of which was onion, not something I would purchase again). We headed back to the hotel to finish checking in, change, go to the bathroom etc.
Our toilet was difficult and the flush lever was not readily apparent. It had multiple buttons/levers, which made it confusing at best. S discovered this (If I had gone first, it 100% would have been me). She pushed what appeared to be the obvious button thing to flush the toilet.
From the outside listening in it sounded like she had to decided to power wash the door while screaming. This turned into laughing loudly simultaneously (It took a while to stop). She finally emerged and this was followed by the best part, A explaining to her about a bidet. I went next into the newly “cleaned” bathroom. Water was dripping from the ceiling combined with a thinning of the paint where the stream had been. This was not the first time this had happened not would it be the last. Then it was my turn to flush and I couldn’t find it for a while. I did eventually successfully flush and then turn on the bidet so I could see its range (more laughter). I can’t imagine sitting on it.
We decided to go to Ting & Ting grocery store to get water and snacks. The walk there was pretty quick. There were a ton of interesting things to try although a distinct lack of gummy candy. I got a grass jelly drink (it was refreshing), A got fish sheets that didn’t make it even a block away from the store before they hit a trash can (This was a solid decision because no one wanted our hotel to smell anything like that), and S got a shrimp/seafood flavored chip (which I didn’t think was so bad, but if I poll were taken my opinion might have been discarded). We got a host of other things as well. 
On the way home we found Top Spot Fish market and decided to eat there. It is a halal market on the roof of a parking garage. It was alright but I think that is only because we did it wrong. We ordered from the menu when we should have taken tongs and picked out our fish and veggies from the racks and racks of food that was begging to be chosen.
After food we went back to the hotel worked out and ended up falling asleep watching South Park.
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