Kuching: The White Rajas of Sarawak and a Floating Mosque

August 4-5, 2024

So, back in June, I decided I wanted to go to Borneo. It’s one of two places in the world where you can see orangutans in the wild. I don’t have a special love for orangutans, but this felt like something important. I love nature and animals, and I got this sudden feeling in my gut that if I don’t do this now, while I’m here in South East Asia, I might never do it.

I also, very candidly, wanted to go somewhere that not many backpackers were going. My favorite South East Asian country, so far, had been Indonesia. While Bali is a backpacker haven and the other islands I visited were popular among tourists, as well, it had a very different feel than the countries I’d explored next. An exception to this was parts of Laos, but in June I hadn’t been there yet.

When I told some people back home that I wanted to go to Borneo and they hadn’t heard of it and didn’t know what I was talking about, I felt like I was making the right decision.

But, while Borneo is less popular with backpackers (because it’s expensive and a Muslim country, i.e. no walking street full of bars and cheap booze), it’s popular with older travelers, mostly from the UK and Australia. Also, unlike the rest of Asia, I would be going to Borneo during it’s peak tourist season. So I had to plan ahead. I secured myself a spot on a coveted Kinabatangan River Safari in late June and then left it to sit. Then, about three weeks before I was due to arrive, I planned out the rest of my route, making this my most planned adventure.

And so it began…

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Kuching, Sarawak

Day 1:

My first thought, as my Grab car speeds through the night, is that Kuching is a sharp city.

Sharp, clean lines. Paved roads and sidewalks. Even washed in night, it looks clean. The lighting is like what I see at home: bright and white or blue or red. Crisp. It doesn’t flash, like cheap attention grabbers. It isn’t pale and wispy, glinting down on hastily secured tarps.

That’s another thing. Everything is permanent—no pop-up street food stands or piles of sandals on the sidewalk. Honking is nonexistent and the traffic is barely noticeable. It’s 7pm on a Monday, so hardly a high-traffic time, but traffic never stops in Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi and Bangkok and Phnom Penh. Also, there are far more cars than motorbikes on the road.

Kuching feels more like a little Singapore than any of the other Asian cities I’ve visited in the last three months.

I drop my bags at the hostel and head out in search of food. A block from my hostel is the riverfront. People stroll along the well-lit path and the occasional restaurant rises in unique buildings. It takes only a moment for me to remember that I’m in Malaysia now, and I need to walk on the left side of the sidewalk. This feels like deja vu and sends a little sharp pang through my chest as I think of New Zealand. As I think of my first few days in Auckland. A fledging. Now, I’m experienced.

I walk along in the humid night air. A little girl loses her shoe and runs back to fetch it. Her mother smiles at me when she sees that I’m smiling at her daughter.

Malaysia is a Muslim country and the little girl’s mother is wearing a beautiful blue hijab with rhinestones, but I don’t feel out of place at all in my t-shirt and shorts. Some of the walkers are other foreigners in beachy, vacation dresses. Chinese girls wear short skirts and tight tops. Like most of Malaysia, Kuching is a mix between Malay, Chinese, Indian, and indigenous groups, so all styles of dress are accepted—and all religions. In the Grab car, I rode past a church and a mosque and now I walk by a Chinese Temple near the riverfront.

The architecture is beautiful. The Assembly Building glows across the river looking like a flower and a pedestrian bridge snakes over the wide, dark river in a illuminated S-curve.

Borneo is an island in the Malay Archipelago. Three countries share this island. There is Malaysian Borneo to the north, Indonesian Borneo to the south, and the teeny tiny Sultanate of Brunei cradled amongst the Malaysian part. Kuching is located in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

I wander for a little bit, but I’m very hungry, so I follow Google Maps towards a restaurant recommended by the hostel, but I can’t find it. Instead, I head into a place where most of the tables are full. It’s open air with a few fans blowing. I’m a little sweaty just from the humidity, but the night temperature is really comfortable. I don’t think I would have felt that way back when I first came to Asia, but I’ve adjusted!

I’m overwhelmed by the menu, mostly because I want to try everything. The offerings reflect the mix of cultures with a whole section dedicated to foods I recognize from Indonesia. There’s also Chinese noodles, Indian biryani, and a host of delicious rotis and naans on offer. I’m fooled by the prices, thinking everything is going to be small, so I order canai telur for 3 ringit (about 75 cents) and Laksa Sarawak for 8 ringit (2 dollars). Because I’m dehydrated from the flights, I also get a mango lassi.

The canai telur turns out to be roti with egg and they bring a dahl curry for me to dip it in. It is amazingly delicious. The Laksa Sarawak, a local dish with a shrimp paste broth, yellow noodles, chicken chunks, prawns, and a fishball, is absolutely huge. The taste is a little bizarre at first, but after a few bites I really like it. By the end, my stomach is stuffed.

I walk around for another 45 minutes to digest my meal and then head to the hostel. I woke up at 4:30 to get to the airport for my first flight of the day, so I’m ready for bed.

Day 2:

I sleep in until about 8. It feels luxurious after yesterday’s early morning.

The hostel offers free toast and jam for breakfast so I make up a plate and sit in the lobby and do a bit of research. I already know what my priority is, but I left a lot of the logistics until last minute because the hostels are usually the best source of information for how to do things cheaply.

Once a loose plan comes together for today and tomorrow, I gather my belongings and set off into the city. I head to the waterfront, retracing some of my steps from the night before, but this time I cross the bridge and admire the floating mosque.

Walking in front of the assembly building, I climb up to the self-proclaimed tallest flag pole in Asia, which flies the Sarawak flag.

I decide to visit the Brooke Gallery in an old fort to learn more about Sarawak, and I am fascinated!

Did you know that Sarawak was ruled by an English family for over 100 years?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Borneo had it’s own indigenous people, but beginning in the 900s began to see Chinese traders. Later Buddhists from Sumatra (Indonesia) and the Hindus from Java (Indonesia) came for gold and intermarried. As those empires declined, Islamic states developed. In the 1476, the Sultanate of Brunei was created. Sarawak was part of this kingdom.

In 1835, the indigenous people of Sarawak began to rebel against the Sultan and pirates were attacking from the sea. At a similar time, a British man named James Brooke set out to find an adventure.

He landed in Kuching in 1839. The man the sultan tasked with overseeing Sarawak told Brooke that if he could stop the pirates and quell the internal uprisings, he (and the sultan) would give Brooke political control over Sarawak. So that’s what Brooke did and the Sultan kept his promise.

Therefore, Brooke became the first “White Rajah” of Sarawak. Kuching became the capital.

Somehow this family remained British citizens under the King of Britain and yet were also independent rulers of Sarawak, which was not part of the British Kingdom. (Sarawak did eventually become, after a few years under this family, a British protectorate, which is a country that is protected and controlled by the Britain, but not formally under its domain).

Anyway, you’d think having sudden British rulers would be a disaster of oppression and exploitation, but it actually worked really well. Brooke was a great ruler, making himself always accessible to his people, creating a council of mostly local leaders, and working with the four predominant races in Sarawak (Malay, Chinese, Dayak, and Kayan) to maintain their cultures, customs, and practices (although he discouraged some of the harsher punishments, slavery, and headhunting).

The museum did not say much about the indigenous people of Sarawak as it’s focus was on the Brooke family, but it did suggest that the Dayak is a broader term for various ethnic groups. One of the most well-known facts about the Dayak people is their practice of headhunting, basically taking your enemies severed head as a trophy. But this was mostly phased out in the 1800s.

The next three generations of his family were equally adequate caretakers, expanding the region of Sarawak until the Sultanate of Brunei shrank to its current borders and keeping Kuching up with modern times. For example, by 1915, Kuching had street lighting, telephone service, and a railway.

During World War Two, Japan invaded and occupied Sarawak. After the War, Britain was no longer happy to have the Brooke’s in charge and cession was forced upon the family. For a while, the Brookes argued against this (peacefully) and the people of Sarawak demonstrated to get back their “White Rajahs” but when a British governor was assassinated, the Brookes stopped their push in order to keep the peace. About ten years later, Sarawak, as part of Malaysia, gained independence from Britain.

When I leave, mind reeling from the fascinating unknown history of this region, I walk through the Hanging Gardens and the Orchid Park, both of which seem like they have a lot of potential, but it’s not really orchid season.

The sun has come out and it is scorching so I stop for some lunch at a food court. I try kolo mee, a noodle dish with savory pork, and it’s delicious!

In the afternoon, I walk down India Street and buy some sunglasses (mine had broken the day before and this was the first place I saw them. Unlike everywhere else I’ve been, there aren’t street sellers walking up and down with hair clips and sunglasses and hats, so I actually had to seek out a place to buy sunglasses). I also explored Chinatown, noting some places to eat.

It’s still hot, so I head into the mall where the air conditioner feels amazing. It’s bustling inside and most of the shops are Western Brands. I don’t really know how the prices compare to the US (probably cheaper), but most of the stuff is still more than $20 USD. Since I almost exclusively shop consignment at home, $20 USD is still expensive to me, plus anything I buy I have to carry for the next three weeks!

In the evening, I walk down by the riverfront. I really want a smoothie because I feel ridiculously dehydrated, but smoothies aren’t popular in Kuching the way they were in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. I’m actually delighted by this fact, once I get over the disappointment of not having a mango smoothie, because it means I’ve left the tourist trail behind!

Eventually I cave and end up getting some ice cream (it’s special because it has a palm sugar drizzle over the top and palm sugar is a major export of Borneo). The ice cream is actually really good with the palm sugar and peanut mixed in. The sun is just starting to set and the riverfront is busy, but not crowded, as locals hang out. I walk past an area with full round picnic tables. Three men are smoking and sitting at a picnic table. “Hello,” they call. “Where are you from?”

I am cursed with good manners, so I stop but I don’t get any closer. I’m twenty feet away so it can’t really be called a conversation, but that’s what they make it into. They ask the usual question: “Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

Followed by the other usual questions (I cannot tell you how many times I have had this conversation, generally with Asian men or African men): “How old are you?” “Are you married?” “Boyfriend?” “What’s your name?” “Oh, Mary (they don’t hear the d-sound and even when I try to explain, they can’t say it).

Since they think my name is Mary, they make the same joke: “Mary? Haha, will you marry me?” (For the hundred and first time).

I’m generally sure that these older men are just trying to be friendly (sometimes too friendly—an African man asked if I wanted to visit Cameroon, where he was from and when I told him, “yes, one day, when I have saved up some money,” he offered to buy me a plane ticket. Too far, dude. Too far.)

However, when the men invite me to sit down at their table, I am somewhat blown away. That can’t possibly be something that women in their culture would do, so why are three 40-year old men asking me to sit down at their picnic table as it’s getting dark? Then again, why would an African man offer to buy me a plane ticket after 2-minutes of conversation?

I tell them I came to walk and tell them to have a good night and move on even as they call after me. I don’t worry at all, however, because the waterfront is well lit and there are plenty of people around. We’re all gathered to watch the sunset.

I enjoy the vivid colors and then find a place to eat. I try rojak, which is another Malay dish. It has raw veggies, a boiled egg, fried tofu, and soft bread pieces drenched in a sweet and savory sauce. It seems like maybe a mix of Malay or Indonesian and Indian cuisine. It’s very bizarre but I find it growing on me. Another roti canai (this time stuffed with cheese) is a perfect compliment.

I aim for an early bed time because I have an early morning, but I get caught in conversation with my dormmates. They’re leaving Borneo tomorrow, so I ask them about their time here. It’s so interesting to hear other people talk because they tell me that Kota Kinabalu (another city I plan to visit later) was kind of boring. There’s lots to do outside of the city, they say, but not much in the city. Then they tell me it’s basically the same here in Kuching. They say: “There aren’t any people at the riverfront. There’s no walking street. It’s boring.” They came from the Banana Pancake Trail (Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam) and I can tell that what they are saying is that there is no pub street, no Koh San Road, no dedicated tourist drinking area.

And that’s one of the reasons I am already in LOVE with Kuching. I don’t think that the riverfront is empty. It’s not bustling or crowded, but people stroll and walk and play with their kids. It’s lovely. It’s real life. It’s local. I love that there is no dedicated tourist area, that they don’t separate the visitors from the real people. I don’t think Kuching is boring at all. I could be here for a month and not run out of new foods to try.

But part of why I travel is to meet new people, even ones who value completely different things than I do.

And I’m grateful for it.