a much-needed breather

Monday morning. I woke up feeling as stiff as an arthritic centenarian, aching from top to the tiniest muscle of every toe, and SO grateful that our next trip to Nyegol had been postponed to tomorrow. There had been a moment of weakness last night when I had begun to consider the repercussions of cancelling the second leg of the expeditions and just idling the rest of the week in Kuching, or possibly even booking an early flight home... Thankfully, that bout of cantankerousness was nothing that a day in the city couldn't fix, and it passed quickly enough.

Part One of the adventure had ended: our new friends left for home early this morning. We haven't said very much about them here to preserve their privacy, but these people are a really cool bunch, and I do hope to come across each of them again sometime in the near future. I can't remember the last time I met a group of friends so passionate and quirky and even (I tend to be skeptical about throwing this word around, but it's definitely appropriate here) inspiring.

If any of you are reading this: Thanks for being such awesome company, and for making the trip so much more fun and memorable than it might otherwise have been!

My favourite picture of the group (if only because of Silicon's hilarious face) :D

So, Monday morning. Chris and I woke up late, made ourselves a stack of kaya and butter toast, then took a leisurely stroll down the Kuching waterfront. We had mediocre nasi lemak and kuey teow for lunch at a shopping mall (nothing beats real hawker food), did some shopping and got caught in the rain.

Around dinnertime, we paid a visit to the well-known TopSpot Seafood Restaurant, highly recommended by many travel websites and even the receptionists at Lodge 121, where we were now staying. It had every indication of being 'touristy', i.e. exactly the kind of restaurant we tend to be rather wary about, but we decided to try it anyway since we had been in tourist mode all day.

TopSpot is basically a rooftop carpark with about six or seven huge seafood stalls lined up along the sides, each of which is like a restaurant in itself. Every stall sells fresh seafood by weight, cooks it however you want, and also serves rice and a variety of accompanying dishes. A firm favourite here is the stall called ABC Seafood, but to first timers like us, every stall can seem nearly indistinguishable from the next! The only pointer one could possibly rely on is the queue at the front of each stall.

This isn't a food review, because it's difficult to order lots and lots of different things when it's just the two of us eating, but this is what we had...

sweet and sour garoupa

stir-fried paku

...and they made for a very satisfying meal indeed.

By the end of the day, another trip up to Ulu Bengoh didn't seem like such a bad idea after all. ;)

Damai Beach and dinner

It didn't take very long to go through the papers for the Nyegol trial, which was scheduled for the following day (Monday). We were let off early - Saw felt like staying to help out with any remaining errands, and the rest wanted to sightsee since it was their last day in Kuching. 

Chris and I decided to give the sightseeing a pass because we were going to be around for a whole week more (and my legs were still protesting at any sort of movement, even ten consecutive steps on level ground). And so we found ourselves hitching a ride with Daveency to Damai Beach, about 40 minutes' drive from Kuching.

A gorgeous view of Santubong hill from the window

Here we are...

Daveency went to meet up with a bunch of his friends who were already there, so Chris and I had an hour or so to ourselves, to enjoy the sunset and the mosquitoes.

Ai Fern and Christian - 'the caucasian guy' of two posts ago - had also been hanging out at the beach, so we met up with them for dinner. Ai Fern brought us to the popular Lim Hock Ann Seafood restaurant in Buntal, a small Malay fishing village about 20 minutes' drive from Damai towards Kuching city centre.

They have quite a wide selection of fresh seafood here, and Ai Fern says it's well patronised both by tourists and locals. It escapes me now what we had for dinner that night, but I do remember that we tried Sarawak or chien (oyster omelette) - it was pretty interesting having it thin and crispy, instead of scrambled and fluffy like Penang's. Each to his own in this case, of course, but I personally like the Penang or chien with their fat juicy oysters more!

Dinner company was pleasant. Christian decided that none of the dishes we had ordered were to his taste, except for the fried meehoon and stir-fried vegetables (the most ordinary and generic dishes at the table, haha). The two guys also spent some time bantering about Monty Python at length; unfortunately most of that was lost on Ai Fern and me.

diversion

The next day was a Sunday. We were all to meet at the office to iron out any irregularities with the Nyegol folks' witness statements, so we grabbed an early breakfast and were at the office at about 10am (on a Sunday, yes - such is the zeal of a bunch of youth in pursuit of a cause! Or maybe our companions were just morning people).

But when we got there, there was no one to be found at the office - the doors weren't even open yet. We hung around the staircase for a while, peered into the hairdresser's next door a few times, meandered about the coffee shop downstairs... everybody gradually drifted, and after about an hour I finally decided to get a haircut, since there wasn't anything better to do at the time. 

Behind me is Ah Tui, the guy who helped me trim two inches or so off my back and shorten the fringe  (a bit short, but I liked it at the time). I asked him about politics, since the Pakatan Rakyat office was just next door, but that wasn't very effective as far as conversation starters go. He asked me if I went clubbing.

Ah Tui had a limited English vocabulary, but what he did know he didn't hesitate to use: anyone who stepped into the salon would be greeted with a deep, sonorous "hellooOooOoe" and later ushered out with an equally comic "buh-buuUuuyye". When he was done coiffing my hair and I expressed satisfaction, he burped out a "goooOoood!". Funny guy.

Anyhow, I was so pleased with my RM17 haircut (£3.40!!) that we came back again on our last day in Kuching, for Chris to get his hair cut.

Before...

On the left is Mike, the salon owner, and Ah Tui on the right.

...and after.

I don't blame you for not being able to tell the pictures apart, but there was a difference! His incorrigibly thick mop of hair became a neat, less unruly mop of hair. For a few days. :P