Messing about on the river

Flying in over Kuching, we noticed the place is very green and jungly, with rivers winding all about. We thought a bit of a river cruise would be nice.

Foster (the hotel concierge who was so helpful on the first day) did not seem keen. He suggested we should just walk along the path by the river ... but, no, we really wanted to go on a boat. So in the end he told us about the (one and only government-sponsored) River Cruise.

We hopped into an air-conditioned taxi, and headed on down to the river-front part of town.
We stepped out of the taxi and discovered ...

... the humidity!

Sure enough, there was the River Cruise boat tied up - we were still a bit early, but it was starting to rain so we were keen to get on soon.

Well, we nearly made it, and then this chappy jumped out and offered us a (slightly shorter, very much cheaper) cruise up and down the river in his little boat, leaving almost immediately.

We decided that sounded like fun ... unfortunately he didn't have enough passengers yet, so we sat a few minutes.

That's his little boat - well, at least it has a roof, and we would be out of the rain.

In the end, no more passengers showed up, so there was just us and this New Zealander couple - so very pleasant. We realised after we had been puttering along the river for a while that the boat was not powered by an outboard motor - that was a generator  under the driver chappie's feet, powering the little electric motor that was driving the boat.
















So we puttered our way down the river, looking at the various interesting buildings, such as this government building, ...

 

 ... and this palace ...

... and of course a mosque (certainly not nearly as plentiful here as in Kuala Terengganu!).

But this building was the one that really took Peter's fancy.

That's where he'd like to live. :)

There were other little boats on the river. These are quite different from the boats we see around Kuala Terengganu and Pulau Kapas.

And then there are the obligatory fishing boats.

Oh, did you notice the sky??

It started pouring in rain just as we finished our lovely little cruise.

We popped a few ringgit in the driver's tips box, and grabbed a taxi back to our hotel.

 Then we headed out, skipping through puddles and trying to stay under verandahs, to the delightful Thai restaurant that is very close to the hotel. (We have had tea there every day since we arrived!)

I had some stir-fried mushrooms and baby corn with shrimp, and Peter had these things that are a bit like dumplings with sweetish beef inside.