Monkeys, Monsoons, and Mee...Part 3

 "Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town."

-George Carlin

The last stop on my trip was to Kuching. Unfortunately the first day it poured, and by poured I mean monsoon flooded.  First decided to go to the Sarawak museum, thinking that after walking 15 minutes in the downpour that I would seek refuge inside.  Unfortunately this was not the case as the museum has major roof leaking problems and I could have used my umbrella inside.

Kuching is the wettest region in Malaysia getting 170 inches of rain each year.  I'm pretty sure they received 100 of those inches in the three days I was there.  

In this day, I went to three museums, spent two hours walking around a mall, and saw a movie by myself in a creepy almost abandoned movie theater.

This is a memorial to James Brooke who was the British leader or white rajah of Malaysia from 1842 to 1868.  

 Kuching means cat in Malay.  No one is really sure where the city's name came from but the city has grabbed onto the cat theme.

 The architecture in the city actually really surprised me.  A lot of the buildings were built during the British Colonial period.  This white building was the old courthouse. 

When it finally stopped raining, I found this cute tiny bird cheeping in a flower bush.

Thank god the next day the sun came out.  I was able to go to Bako National Park.  I spent the next two days here taking millions of photos of monkeys!!! So get prepared the next 200 pictures are of monkeys that I saw.  

This little guy is a silver leaf monkey.

These guys just hung around the park headquarter, they are bearded pigs.

In order to get to Bako, you have to take a very tiny boat through very large waves to get to either the jetty, if it is high tide, or to the beach, if it is low tide.

Super cool one giant armed crabs!

This was the "path"

This was the reason I came to Borneo! This guy is a proboscis monkey.  They look like the old beer bellied man hanging out at the local bar.

Look at that nose!

He's such a model, look at that pose.

The second day that I went to Bako, I got up at 6:00AM, yes 6:00AM to get there early enough to see the animals.  I was so excited to see this mom and baby right next to the jetty.

Soon there was a swarm of monkeys coming down the boardwalk.

As they swarmed the boardwalk I tried to scoot to one side to get out of their way.  This little guy came walking right up to me and JUMPED ON MY PURSE!  He hung there for probably only 10 seconds but it felt like forever and I was terrified.  How many people can say that a monkey has jumped on them?

How cute is this little guy?

This monkey is in monkey heaven.

If only they had this sign up where the monkey attacked me.  There were signs everywhere to warn of no swimming at any of the beaches.  Apparently a crocodile had been spotted on one of the beaches.

There were also giant hermit crabs everywhere.  I do not like seeing my weird second grade pet in the wild.

 I discovered the panorama mode on my camera.

And then the monsoon came back.  

I ate at this restaurant 4 times on my trip.  It was gorgeous, open on three sides so you could see the river and it had delicious food.  I ate Mee, which is a Malay fried noodle.  

The most delicious thing I ate by far though were these banana fritters.  Ice cream and deep fried battered bananas are the greatest inventions ever.

And one more time look at this guy!!!!