Just a few days before Tiger ended its service to Kuching, I finally made it there. But as it turns out, there aren't many cats. Just, for some reason, cat monuments.
The city looks, feels and operates pretty much like just another Malaysian city, despite the distance between East and West. Even though it was primarily a hiking trip, which I thought would leave quite a bit of time to go poking around, things didn't turn out as planned. In fact, by the fourth day, the 6.30am alarm every morning schedule was beginning to remind me of the kind of packed Chan Brothers tour that the old folks used to sign up for.
It's fabulous, though, to have people to go hiking with on a multi-day excursion in a foreign land. It's fabulous to be able to go to places in a rented vehicle but not have to be the one to drive. It's also fabulous to be able to go for a meal and eat a whole bunch of different food in one sitting.
Not so great - group photos. Countless group photos. And people who, for whatever reason, feel the need to compel everyone in the group to pose for them. Of course, no one else minds except me. Which, of course, makes me the person who always spoils the photos. Which of course, leads to some sort of nickname, some labelling. Group dynamics. Democracy. Let's all be lemmings.
Not so great - finding out the map provided to your lodgings is wrong. Lugging luggage up and down the same street in the rain for an hour in the night time in search of the right location. Finally getting there and the fat lady at the counter smiles and says, 'I was just about to give your room to someone else.' Keeps her plastered smile when you complain that the map provided to her place was WRONG. Total apathy. And that no one even picks up the telephone at the number provided. 'Oh, prob'ly because we were all downstairs.' Fake smile, 100% apathy. Then you get the feeling it'll be a different attitude if you were an ang moh, so you decide not to waste your time with this woman. Then she shows you to the room, which is not so much a room as a cubicle. The answer to why there was no picture online of the purported 'single room'.
And the final not-so-great - one fellow in the group starts to get touchy. I begin to wonder if I need to adopt a more icy demeanor generally so I don't give off any touchy-feely vibe or ask-me-out vibe that I'm not aware of. I thought I was already unapproachable to begin with. Apparently not. Or maybe I've got the clueless vibe so people think they can just do what they want. Perplexing.
Rants aside, a productive trip, including picture generation with both mountains and Bako National Park offering fab views to rival even shiny Tasmania. Still can't really get the auto macro under control but still too lazy to learn how to do it the manual way. Or should I say I prob'ly learnt it in class in university and promptly forgot? I forget, it was too long ago. Oh, and I just got older too. Boo.
