Kuching & Bako national park

Our final stop was Kuching in Sarawak. After all this time spent in the forest I was surprised to discover a super cute town (700,000 inhabitants, not that small) with beautiful heritage buildings and trendy bars and restaurants. The change was very welcome. After all, one can only pretend to be an explorer for so long before craving air conditioning and a good G&T. 

But we didn’t entirely become urbanites again, we did go to the Bako National Park to see yet some more rainforest. It’s funny because when I describe it to people it really sounds like all there is is forests but in truth each forest is different with different vegetation and wild life. In that one, for example, they were mud skippers (they basically look like fish who can crawl on the ground), water snakes, carnivorous plants BUT no leeches which was an achievement in itself. We trekked for a few hours, almost died in the heat and humidity but finally made it to one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. Oliver decided to ignore the potential presence of snakes, walking fish and jelly fish and jumped in for a swim. I stayed safely on the side to, you know, save him. Or something. 

enjoying a well deserved drink at Speak Eazy

into a new kind of jungle

another snake

and a carnivorous plant

the forbidden beach

oliver going for it, some other swimmer found a jelly fish minutes after he came out

luckily you can't see how tired we actually look in that photo

what the ground looked like during the entire trek