1. Introduction
Kuching is the capital and the largest city of Sarawak state in Malaysia. It is a city that is becoming more and more popular with tourists, but today, you will only see a few foreigners on the streets of Kuching. So if you want to experience really authentic local life and culture, this is the time to visit. In this post, I will give you lots of tips and recommendations on what to do and see in Kuching.
Kuching is one of the very few cities where I actually could imagine spending long years without feeling the need to move on. I only stayed there for four months, but never felt bored for a moment. The city has lots of options for entertainment, things to see and do, and the people are extremely nice and welcoming. I actually rated Kuching very high in my Digital Nomad City Ratings series.
If you are not a digital nomad, and only want to visit as a tourist, I recommend at least 4 days, but if you want to enjoy the city and its surroundings and don’t want to rush, you could consider a longer stay, perhaps a week or even more. You can visit any time of the year, because you can expect a lot of rain anyway, although the dry season is perhaps better for hiking in the jungle around Kuching (see below).
2. The riverfront
Kuching lies on the banks of the Sarawak river. The city centre is to the south of the river, near the Golden Anniversary Bridge. The promenade between the Grand Margherita Hotel and the Bridge is locally called the Riverfront. It is a very good place for a stroll any time of the day, but most of the cafés and restaurants will only open in the evening, when you will see crazily beautiful sunsets.
During the weekends, there will be various programmes, too, including free concerts on a small stage. Every evening, the riverfront is filled with people, and there are sometimes programmes for children too. There are a lot of benches, but you can have dinner or a drink in one of the many open air restaurants, too.
A walk across the bridge is also interesting. Note that it will be closed for the night.
There are also cruise boats with dinner and live music, which I never tried, but I suppose, it would be good fun for a family or a group of friends. I as a solo traveller don’t usually fancy such programmes alone.
3. Festivals
Kuching is a city of festivals and programmes. During my 4 month stay, I always had something interesting to do or see during the weekends (when I was not working). Below, I will highlight just some of the more interesting or more famous events that I can recommend to any visitor. For an up-to-date list of events, the Sarawak Tourism website is an excellent source.
3.1 Kuching Food festival
Every July-August (for precise date, see the website linked above), Kuching city organises a Food Fair. The food festival lasts for several weeks, and besides the hundreds of food stalls, you can also enjoy performances on the park stage. There’s a wide selection of food available, including local specialities and foreign fare, too. I found (and tried) Japanese, Chinese, Thai and Vietnamese food, and there was even a stand which sold a Hungarian special street food, Kürtőskalács – a huge surprise to see my own country’s food a thousand kilometers away from home.
Besides the Food Festival, there is the Kuching Festival, too, which also includes cooking shows and lots and lots of various food to taste. Go to India Street to see the programmes and try out some of the delicacies. When I was there, there were even cooking competitions for anyone wishing to join in: first a chef showed us how to prepare the food, and then every participant got a frying pan and a gas cooker plus ingredients to reproduce what they have just seen – with various degrees of success.
3.2 The Kuching Rainforest World Music Festival
The Rainforest World Music Festival is held annually in July or August, at the site of the Sarawak Cultural Village near Kuching. The word “World” refers to the musical style on the one hand, and to the fact that the festival features performers from around the world on the other hand. It is a 3-day-festival, and you can buy tickets for individual days or the whole event, too. The festival site has all the necessary information you may need.
When I was there, they had just introduced a free transport option from Kuching, but you have to register for that. I bought the ticket at a local shop (find the list on the website), but you can also buy it online. When leaving the festival sight at night, prepare for a huge crowd wanting to board one of the free buses. But the organisation and management was surprisingly professional and efficient, so we no-one had to wait too long (more than half an hour perhaps).
It is a great festival in a wonderful environment – it is called a “rainforest festival” for a reason… During the weeks preceding the festival, Kuching is already in a festival mood: the Rainforest Fringe Festival offers free programmes every day, mainly on the Riverfront, but grab a program guide in the tourist office to learn more. The office is in the Old Courthouse building in the city centre.
4. Sights and museums in Kuching
There are a lot of sights that tourists may want to visit in Kuching, but not all of them are awfully interesting or memorable. Below, I will list the most famous ones, and it’s up to you to decide which you think is worth visiting. I have listed the sights in random order.
4.1 The Old Courthouse
This building was the courthouse that James Brooke built in 1874. Today, it serves as a tourism complex, with a few elegant looking restaurants and the Tourist Information Office. This latter is a reason in itself to visit the place. The staff are very nice and helpful, and they also have information about when the rafflesia flower is blooming in the Gunung Gading National Park. In front of the building, there is yet another cat statue, which I think is the only one out of the many that looks more or less acceptable.
4.2 Fort Margherita and the Brooke Gallery
Fort Margherita was built in 1879 by Brooke, the English person who was the governor (officially the Rajah) of Sarawak. Brooke named the fort after his wife, Margherita. Both of them are respected by Sarawak people today – there is even a café on the Riverfront called James Brooke Bistro & Cafe (coffee was awful, prices are higher than elsewhere, but the view is nice). You can learn more about the history of the Brooke dynasty and Kuching during their time in the museum housed in the fort: the Brooke Gallery.
The fort/museum is on the northern bank of the river. You can get there by one of the small boats that wait for passengers all the time, for 1 ringgit. After you cross the river, you will need to walk up the small hill among small local houses – an interesting sight in itself. Walking across the bridge is not a good option – you would have to walk too much to reach the fort.
The fort is nothing spectacular. The museum is also a little strange: most of the objects on display are photos that illustrate what is written on the framed posters displayed on the walls. So this essentially means that you will have a 3D collection of Wikipedia articles rather than a museum proper. If you don’t mind this, it will be an interesting visit, the articles are informative and interesting, and instead of clicking with your mouse or swiping with your fingers, you will have to actually use your legs to move on the the next page (an unusual thing today). Yes, I read most of it ?.
The northern bank of the river is not a touristy part at all in Kuching, but it is interesting. Once you are there, it is worth walking around a little, after you’ve enjoyed the fort and the museum (entrance fee 20RM).
4.3 The Anniversary Bridge and over the bridge
The bridge is a fantastic sight, especially at night, when it is lit up with color-changing lights. It is a 300m-long pedestrian bridge inaugurated on 11 November 2017, and has been a favourite among locals and visitors since then. Open from 6am to midnight (free). Good photo opportunity, with two of the most iconic buildings of Kuching in the background, the Astana (the official seat of the governor) and the Sarawak Parliament.
When I was there for the first time, on my very first day in Kuching, three young people wanted to take a photo with me – what a nice welcome! Here it is, the third person, a guy is taking the photo – but he was as cute as these two young girls.
4.4 The Sarawak Orchid Garden
If you walk over the bridge to the northern bank, to the left of the Parliament building, there will be a small garden, the Orchid Garden. Open until 6pm, free entry. This is a very beautiful garden with lots of nice flowers and plants. An hour or so can easily be spent there, especially because you can sit around a little on the benches, should you get overfilled and overjoyed with all the marvellous tropical plants and flowers. Make sure you visit the glass house too, there you will see lots of rare orchids.
4.6 Cat monuments
The name of the city is Kuching, which is pronounced exactly the same way as the Malay word for “cat”: kucing. There is agreement though, that the name has actually nothing to do with cats, but no-one knows for sure what the exact origins of the city’s name are.
One theory is that on the site of the city centre, there used to be a small hill, which was named “Bukit mata kucing”, i.e Cat’s eye hill. Mata kucing or cat’s eye, is the name for the longan fruit in Malay – and it is supposed, that there were a lot of longan trees growing on this hill. This is one of the many theories (made up) to explain the origin of the name Kuching. In any case, the city today is called by many “the city of cats” or “cat city”. One of the most famous local radio stations is also called Cats FM. Tune in, if you are there, they play very good Malaysian pop.
This also explains why there are innumerable cat statues all over the city. Most of them look so terrible that they will make you either laugh or cry. Just walk around the city centre to find them, but here are some of them for you to enjoy (and see the one above, in front of the Old Courthouse – which, as of yet, still hasn’t been renamed “Cathouse”):
5. Accommodation
Kuching is not an expensive city, and you will find plenty of cheap accommodation in the city centre, if your requirements are not very high. Also in the city centre, there are bigger hotels catering to people who need more comfort or luxury (Grand Margherita, Hilton etc), and there are also quite a few mid-range hotels, the prices of which will strangely be higher than elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Airbnb doesn’t seem to offer many options, but there are some, so check it out.
I stayed in a room in a shabby looking apartment (Airbnb) not far from the centre, in the Padungan district. I liked the neighbourhood, and I soon became a regular in some of the restaurants nearby. You may also check out this district, because it is probably cheaper than staying in the very centre, while not too far from the Riverfront, and Grab is cheap. I actually always walked to the centre from Padungan, it takes about 20 minutes lazy walk.
Except during the Rainforest World Music Festival, Kuching doesn’t have an awful lot of visitors, so it may also be a good idea to only book a room for the first night, if you plan to stay longer, and then walk around and ask the hotels that you like. Walk-in prices may sometimes be lower than online, and if you plan to stay at least a week, you can even get a discount.
On the map below, the area within the red circle is the heart of the city, but staying within the blue circle should also be fine. Anywhere outside the blue circle may require a longer taxi ride to visit the centre, but those neighbourhoods can also be very nice, you need to check before you book.
6. Food and drink
Kuching people are very proud of their local food, and Kuching is generally regarded as one of the best destinations in Malaysia for a culinary adventure. I am a little apprehensive to confess, that I didn’t think Kuching was any more special than other places in Malaysia. Yes, they do have special foods like laksa Sarawak (the best laksa I have had anywhere) and kolo mee (simple but nice food), and they have lots of seafood options. But otherwise, I found other places in Malaysia more satisfying, for example Ipoh or Penang.
You will find innumerable small restaurants and food stalls along Jalan Abel, Jalan Padungan and Carpenter Street – try the curry mee there, it is delicious. There are also food courts, among them TopSpot food court, where sea food lovers will find lots of options. I often went to Life Café (try the spinach noodles and the homemade chicken soup there) and Mom’s Laksa in Petanak for the laksa. For dinner, you may want to try some of the millions of small restaurants and food stalls on the Riverfront.
Food prices are very low everywhere. For a kolo mee, you very rarely pay more than 5 ringgits, and even in Life Café, a little more expensive place, I usually paid 15 ringgits including my drink and coffee. People who are not satisfied with small Asian portions, may double this amount, and order two different plates ?.
Kek lapis (layered cake in English) is very famous in Sarawak, and you can buy them everywhere in the street, prepackaged for 10 RM. They look beautiful, but the taste is awful. But I tried kek lapis once at a food festival, where a chef was showing us how to make it on the spot, and later we could all taste the end product – and oh my god, it tasted so different! “Delicious” doesn’t do it justice. So maybe you could find a shop rather than a street stall, or a restaurant perhaps, to buy authentic and really good kek lapis.
7. Around Kuching
There are a lot of options for day trips from Kuching, most of them national parks, jungle or trekking. Here are some of the most popular.
7.1 Bako National Park
Bako National Park is one of the most famous major sights around Kuching. There are in fact a lot of tourists who primarily travel to Kuching because they want to see Bako. So what is Bako good for?
You can see the big-nosed monkey or Proboscis monkey, which can only be seen on Borneo. There is a very good chance that you will see them in the wild (OK, where else? – Bako is a jungle). Then the bearded pig is another species endemic to Borneo, and again, you will see them everywhere even on the beach the very moment you arrive. Besides these, Bako is very good for jungle trekking, and you can see large areas of mangrove forests, too. You can also spend one night in the jungle if you want to do a night walk, or of you want to hike more. Read more about Bako in my separate post here.
7.2 Semenggoh Nature Reserve – Orangutans
If you want to see orangutans in the semi-wild, Semenggoh is the place to go. It is not very far from Kuching, you can do it during a day trip. I have written a separate post about it, see more details there.
7.3 Sarawak Cultural Village
If you are interested in the culture, traditions and way of life of the natives of Sarawak, you must definitely visit the Cultural village. A day trip is perfect for that, and besides the open air museum with the houses, you can also see a cultural show with music and dances. A hundred ringgits will cover all the costs including transfer there and back to Kuching. See more details in my post about the Sarawak Cultural Village.
7.4 Fairy Caves and Wind Caves
Update from the Sarawak Tourism Board: “Kuching, 3 April 2019 – We are pleased to announce the redevelopment project kickoff for both Wind Cave and Fairy Cave Nature Reserve effective 18th March 2019 until 18th July 2020.” – This means in simple words that the caves are closed until about August 2020.
The two caves are popular destinations among locals and visitors alike. I only saw the Fairy Caves, and even that only because I was on the way to native Bidayuh villages in the jungle (see below). I wasn’t particularly impressed, but then, I am not a fan of caves. It is a small one, and there is nothing particularly interesting to see there. Plus, it is rather far from Kuching, and the nearest town, Bau is nothing special either. Anyway, if you are a fan of caves, or if like me, you are travelling in that direction anyway, it is worth stopping there for a short break (toilet is available at the entrance ?). Entrance fee is a few ringgits, but I have forgotten the exact amount.
7.5 Further away – Bidayuh villages
Not a usual tourist destination, but one of my most memorable adventures was two trips to Bidayuh villages. The Bidayuh or Dayak are the largest group of native people in Sarawak, and they have a unique culture, traditions, music and dances. Although there are Bidayuh and Dayak festivals in Kuching, too, if you want to experience the authentic Bidayuh way of life, you must definitely visit some of the villages in the jungles of Borneo.
I once visited a village which is already on the Indonesian side of the border. During an other trip, I visited several other villages, this time in Malaysia. Both trips were very much like you were in the middle of a National Geographic documentary about native cultures somewhere in an unknown land. If you want to do the same, see the info in my separate posts about the Bidayuh villages.
8. Getting there and away – recommended next stops
Kuching is very easily accessible from many places in the region. From Kuala Lumpur, the cheapest option is Airasia, which has numerous flights every day from KL to Kuching. Note that when you arrive from Kuala Lumpur, you will arrive in Kuching at the international arrivals, and you will have to go through passport control and immigration, and you will get a new stamp in your passport for Sarawak. When you leave Kuching for KL, you will also have to go to the international departures. Yes, Sarawak is like a different country.
If you want to go to Mulu, there is a direct flight from Kuching with Maswings airlines (I paid 167RM).
You can also discover other parts of Sarawak if you take the boat from Kuching to Sibu. From Sibu, you can continue your journey by boat up the Rajang river to Kanwit and Kapit and even further if you want. The boat ride is picturesque, and Kapit is a cute little town to spend a day or two.
There are also flights to other cities in Sarawak and Malaysia, and a few international flights to Indonesia and elsewhere. Check Airasia or Maswings for details.
