Our arrival in Kuching marked a return to civilisation, and I could feel my stress levels return to normal as I took in familiar sights:
McDonalds – check
Body Shop – check
Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf – check
I realise that after the ecological delights we have seen over the past two weeks, admitting this makes me a philistine. I do not care.

Kuching means 'City of Cats' in Malay, although there is no explanation as to why it was given this name in the first place. Perhaps it was originally home to a colony of wildcats. Who knows. Today the tourist board has decided to adorn the entrance to the city with “the Great Cat of Kuching,” a giant fibreglass white cat with life-like whiskers. More cat statues are visible at the centre of roundabouts throughout the city, including a lovely montage in the centre of town, featuring a whole group of cats at play. It is odd.

Cats aside, the city is a lovely place, very quiet and almost European in feel, with a riverfront promenade and lots of coffee shops and delicious eateries. This was fortunate, as our time in Kuching coincided with us developing a serious craving for western food and cafe culture. We spent a very pleasant morning in Bing, a coffee shop that would not look out of place in Soho – it was all minimalism, brushed aluminium walls and orange accessories. We also dined at Junk, decorated to resemble the inside of a Chinese junker ship, and the Living Room, where we gorged ourselves on western food served by lady boys.

Kuching has been the capital of Sarawak since the days of the 'White Rajahs.' James Brooke, a soldier from the south of England, declared himself Rajah here after helping to defeat the Sultan of Brunei's advances in the area, and was later succeeded by his nephew and his nephew's son. It was an interesting time in the period of the area's history, and as a result, a lot of the older buildings would not look out of place in Victorian Britain. Fort Margarita was built by Charles Brooke in 1879 as a defensive fortress against pirate attacks, and it looks like a small white castle on the hill, complete with coat of arms and an impressive collection of cannons. The courthouse looks like a set for To Kill A Mockingbird.

I also paid a visit to the Sarawak Museum, part of which is still housed in the original 19th century building. It's the best museum in Borneo in my opinion, filled with exhibits about the many local tribes in Sarawak and their rituals. Highlights for me included the way of dealing with sickness (solution: create a model of the spirit responsible for the illness, then say spells over it and spit at it), the addiction to tattoos and to cock-fighting, (which was eventually banned by the Malaysian government as a result of the amount of betting the tribes would indulge in before a fight) and the rules which accompanied pottery-making (no farting during production in case it makes the pots explode).

We took a day trip to Bako National Park, which is famous for proboscis monkey sightings. Our day there certainly didn't disappoint, as we saw several big-nosed monkeys, some of them surprisingly close-to, especially considering how shy the animals are renowned for being. It was a day for monkeys, as we also saw some silvered leaf monkeys and lots of macaques. The macaques were incredibly cheeky, stealing food from out of people's hands in the cafe, and even clambering onto one poor girl in order to relieve her of her Oreo cookies!