Three days in Kuching: the town one English family ruled as their own for a century

Two nights on the Sarawak river, with the old waterfront on foot, a fort across the water and the longhouse village up the coast.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Kuching
Places
6 across 3 days
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In 1841 the Sultan of Brunei handed a slice of northwest Borneo to an English adventurer called James Brooke as a reward for putting down a rebellion, and the Brooke family then ruled Sarawak as a private kingdom for a hundred and five years. Kuching was their capital. They built a fort, a palace, a courthouse and a museum, kept the place deliberately underdeveloped, and handed it to Britain in 1946 only because the last of them had no money left after the Japanese occupation.

What that produced is a small river town that looks nothing like the rest of Malaysia. The waterfront is low white colonial buildings on one bank and a Malay village of painted timber houses on the other, joined by wooden sampans that cost a ringgit to cross in.

The name means cat, or so everyone says, and the city has taken it far too seriously: there are cat statues at the roundabouts and a municipal museum of cat memorabilia. The other thing Kuching does seriously is breakfast, and Sarawak laksa is worth building a morning around.

Highlights

  • Crossing the river in a wooden sampan for one ringgit, which is still how people commute
  • Fort Margherita, built in 1879 by a rajah who named it after his wife
  • The oldest museum in Borneo, founded on the advice of Alfred Russel Wallace
  • Sarawak laksa at seven in the morning, from a shop that sells out before noon
  • The longhouse village up at Santubong, where seven ethnic groups each built their own

Where to stay

Kuching, two nights

Stay on the south bank between the waterfront and Carpenter Street. The old Chinese shophouses there have been turned into small hotels, the temples and the museum are within five minutes, and you can be on the river walk in thirty seconds.

The chain hotels a few streets back are cheaper and perfectly fine. What you want to avoid is anything out towards the airport or the malls, because the whole point of Kuching is that its centre is small enough to walk and pretty enough to want to.

Day by day

Day 1 in Kuching

The waterfront, the temple, and a fort across the water

The old town runs along the south bank for about a kilometre, and it is the only stretch of riverfront in Malaysia that has been left to pedestrians rather than sold to a mall. Start at the Chinese temple at the east end, which has been there since 1843 and predates almost everything else in the city.

Then cross. The tambang boatmen work from wooden jetties all along the front and will take you over for a ringgit, standing up, in a boat with an outboard motor bolted to a hull that has not changed design in a century. On the far side is the fort the second rajah built to stop pirates coming upriver, and behind it the Malay kampung whose houses are painted the colours of boiled sweets.

  1. 15:30

    Tua Pek Kong Temple

    Religious

    Built in 1843 on the rise at the end of the waterfront, and the oldest Chinese temple in the city. The birthday of the deity is celebrated here with a procession and Chinese opera in the street outside.

  2. 16:45

    Fort Margherita

    Other

    Completed in 1879 and named by Charles Brooke after his wife, with a crenellated white tower over the river. Now a Brooke gallery covering the whole strange dynasty, and the roof gives you the best view of the waterfront.

  3. 18:30

    Kuching City Mosque

    Visit

    The city mosque, built in 1968 with gold domes on a site that has held a mosque since the 1850s. Best seen from the water on the way back across, when the sun is behind it.

  4. 19:30

    Lau Ya Keng Food Court

    Eat

    A covered food court by the temple that has been running for decades. Kolo mee, satay and Sarawak laksa under one roof, and it is busy from breakfast until late.

With more time: The waterfront promenade is lit after dark and the walk from the temple to the Chinese History Museum takes twenty minutes. Carpenter Street, one block back, is where the older coffee shops and the clan houses are.

Day 2 in Kuching

Laksa first, then the longhouses at Santubong

Get up for the laksa. The two shops everybody argues about are both a short ride east of the old town, they open at about seven, and the good stuff is gone before eleven. A bowl costs eight ringgit and it is the single best thing you will eat in Borneo.

Then go north to Santubong, forty minutes up the coast under a mountain, where seven full-size traditional houses have been built on one site: Iban and Bidayuh longhouses on stilts, a Melanau tall house, a Chinese farmhouse, a Malay townhouse. It sounds like a theme park and it is much better than that, because the people demonstrating the blowpipes and the sago processing come from those communities.

Back in town for the late afternoon and the museum, which the second rajah founded in 1891 after Alfred Russel Wallace, who collected in Sarawak for over a year, told him a museum was what the place needed.

  1. 08:00

    Choon Hui Cafe

    Eat

    Get here before ten. Sarawak laksa with prawns and a squeeze of lime, and a glass of teh c peng to put out the fire. Cash, shared tables, no menu worth reading.

  2. 09:30

    Kampung Budaya Sarawak

    Culture

    Forty minutes north by Grab or the shuttle from the Hilton. Allow three hours including the dance performance at eleven or two, and try the rice wine and the sago worm if it is offered.

  3. 15:00

    Sarawak Museum

    Culture

    Founded in 1891 and the oldest in Borneo, with Iban textiles, ceramics traded up the rivers, and the natural history collection that started the whole thing. Free, and an easy ninety minutes.

  4. 19:00

    Dinner on Carpenter Street

    Eat

    Midin fern fried with belacan, umai raw fish salad if it is on, and a plate of kampung chicken. The old shophouse restaurants here put tables in the street after seven.

With more time: Swap the cultural village for the orangutan centre at Semenggoh if you would rather see animals; feeding is at nine and three, sightings are likely but not guaranteed, and it takes half a day.

Day 3 in Kuching

Kolo mee, the cat museum, and out

Kuching means cat and the city has committed to the joke completely, up to and including a municipal museum of cat objects on a hill north of the river. It is four thousand items of porcelain, advertising, taxidermy and Egyptian replicas in a government building, it is entirely sincere, and it is the strangest hour in Sarawak.

Before that, the other breakfast. Kolo mee is a small bowl of springy egg noodles tossed in shallot oil and lard with slices of char siu on top, eaten in about four minutes, and every Kuching family has a shop they insist on.

  1. 07:30

    KY Cafe

    Eat

    Three brothers, one dish, and an orange plastic bowl. Kolo mee with char siu, about six ringgit, and they are done by early afternoon.

  2. 09:00

    The Cat Museum

    Culture

    On the hill inside the north city hall, which is itself worth the trip for the architecture. Twenty ringgit for a taxi each way, an hour inside, and no irony anywhere in the building.

  3. 11:00

    Last laksa, then the airport

    Eat

    Pick up a slab of kek lapis layer cake near the mosque on the way, since it travels well and nowhere else sells it. The airport is twenty minutes south.

With more time: With a later flight, Bako National Park is the one worth the effort: a boat across from Bako village, proboscis monkeys on the shoreline trails, and half a day gone. Book the boat and the park entry the day before.

Before you go

Getting there and around

Kuching International is eleven kilometres south of the centre with direct flights from Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Kota Kinabalu. Grab into town costs about 25 ringgit and takes twenty minutes.

The old town is walkable end to end in twenty minutes. For the north bank, take a tambang, the wooden passenger boat that crosses on demand from several points along the waterfront, costs a ringgit and runs until about ten at night. Everything further out is a Grab ride.

Eating, starting at seven

Sarawak laksa is not the coconut laksa of the peninsula and not the sour one of Penang. It is a prawn and sambal broth with coriander, omelette strips and rice vermicelli, and Anthony Bourdain called it breakfast of the gods, which is why some shops now have queues. The famous ones open at six or seven and sell out by eleven.

The other local dish is kolo mee, dry egg noodles with char siu, served in a small bowl and eaten fast. Sarawak also has its own layer cake, kek lapis, sold in bright geometric slabs near the mosque, and midin, a jungle fern fried with belacan, which appears on every dinner menu and should.

Getting out of town

The two excursions Kuching is really known for are the national park at Bako, reached by a boat along the coast and good for proboscis monkeys, and the orangutan centre at Semenggoh, half an hour south, where semi-wild animals come in at feeding time. Both are half-day trips booked through any hotel or agency, and both are weather dependent in the wet season.

The cultural village at Santubong is the reliable one: it runs whatever the weather and it is the fastest way to understand who lives in Sarawak.

Kuching is the most likeable town in Malaysia and hardly anybody goes. It has a river you cross in a wooden boat, a fort named after somebody's wife, a museum that Alfred Russel Wallace talked a rajah into building, and a bowl of noodles that people fly in for.

Two nights is enough to fall for it, three if you want the monkeys as well.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

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Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

How long should I spend in Kuching?
Two nights for the town itself, three or four if you want Bako and Semenggoh as well. It is a small place and the pleasure of it is unhurried: a river crossing, a bowl of noodles, an afternoon in a museum.
Who were the White Rajahs?
James Brooke, a former officer of the East India Company, was granted Sarawak by the Sultan of Brunei in 1841 and made himself its rajah. His nephew Charles and then Charles's son Vyner succeeded him, and the family governed the territory as a personal possession until 1946, when it was ceded to Britain. Their fort, courthouse, museum and palace are all still standing in Kuching.
What is Sarawak laksa?
A breakfast noodle soup with a base of sambal, tamarind and coconut milk, topped with shredded chicken, prawns, omelette and coriander. It is unrelated to the laksas of Penang or Singapore and Kuching considers it the better dish. Eat it before ten in the morning.
Can I see orangutans from Kuching?
Yes, at Semenggoh half an hour south, where rehabilitated animals come to feeding platforms at nine and three. Sightings are usual but not guaranteed, and they drop off in the fruiting season when the forest feeds itself. Go early and go on a weekday.
Kuching or Kota Kinabalu?
Kuching for the old town, the river, the museums and the food; Kota Kinabalu for islands, a mountain and seafood. They are an hour and a half apart by plane and a week covering both is the standard Borneo trip. Copy this into the planner and add the Sabah leg to it.