Arrival in Kuching
Our hotel in Kuching was quite nice. The location was excellent and very picturesque. It would be important to mention that we booked and paid for a king bed at the Astana Riverside Hotel in Kuching. We ended up with 2 queen beds. Slightly disappointing when you don’t get what was offered and paid for.
The Top Spot Food Court where we ate the first night was a bit hard to find. Especially in the sleep deprived state after sitting in the airport for half the day watching it rain. Actually, it rained so hard at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) that you could not see the runway. A plane taxiing out was barely visible. There was quite a bit of lightning so maybe we were ok being 3 hours late. We are not really sure what the holdup was. The plane was late coming in from Bangkok. Then they said that our flight had not been given clearance to board. By that time there was a full on storm. Anyhow, Top Spot Food Court was upstairs, above a restaurant. Hard to explain, but you had to walk through a dining area of a restaurant to go up more stairs to a rooftop foodcourt. It’s like the top level of a parking lot with a cover for protection from the sun and rain. Apparently they can serve over 1000 people in one night. There are multiple food stalls all around the perimeter but they pretty much have the same menu. Beverages are ordered from “beverage stalls” they are different entities from the food vendors. Between several food stalls there is a beverage stall, they all work their own section of tables.
Our first morning in Kuching started out great with the inclusive breakfast. Fresh coffee, croissants, danishes, dragon fruit, watermelon, honeydew melon, orange wedges, fruit salad with apples, raisins and walnuts, toast and peanut butter and Gary’s favourite Kuching Laksa also called Sarawak Laksa. This Laksa is a coconut based soup broth with fine vermicelli noodles, chicken, shrimp, strips of scrambled egg, bean sprouts, tiny pieces of fried shallots, Thai chilli, lemongrass, ginger, galangal, tamarind and a dollop of sambal on top. Sambal is a spicy thick red paste made from beleclan or belechan which is fermented shrimp. Honestly, you’d never know it had shrimp paste or anything else other than hot chilli peppers. A bowl of Laksa will clear your sinuses and wake you up faster than coffee.
We walked around Kuching along the river walk and crossed the bridge that took us over to the Sarawak Legislature. Basically we got our bearings. We did meet a guy from Toronto along the way. Gary’s Toronto Maple Leaf hat is a real conversation starter. Later in the afternoon it clouded up and rained. We ended up at a small bar down from our hotel and tried a local beer followed by our usual Tiger beer. After the rain let up we headed back to the hotel for a bit. We ended up back at the bar for supper, Linda had a burger and Gary had the chicken pot pie along with another beer. The meal was ok but not one of the best we’ve had. We’d rate it on the low end for bar food.
