Day 249 (Tue 13 Mar) - Matang National Park

The morning brought us torrential rain! Had breakfast by which time the rain had eased off.

Went to the reception office to find out the best way to get to the nearby Matang National Park. We knew there was a walk from where we were that took us over the steep hills and onto Matang, but the weather looked quite ominous and we didn't fancy a 5 hour walk soaked.

When we asked the chap at the office about Matang he looked completely surprised. 'Matang' he mused, clearly this chap didn't get out much as Matang wasn't that far away. Finally he said that there was no public transport but if a minibus was passing we could flag it down. Cheers buddy!

Set off and decided to walk along the road towards Matang, stopping now and again to see if any minibuses were coming our way. They weren't! The weather was quite pleasant to walk in; a very light drizzle almost like a mist that kept us cool.

About 1.5 hours in a van pulled up alongside us traveling in the opposite direction. Two men inside asked us where we were going and when we told them they shook their heads in dismay and said that it would take ages. Hop in they said and we'll run you there! Great.

Climbed in and soon we were dropped off at the gates of the Matang Park. We offered them some money but they refused. The only thing they wanted was a name, a telephone number and a note saying we were from London. They looked really pleased when Sarb handed over a scrap of paper with the appropriate scribbles. Nice guys!

Walked to reception and hopefully asked where the cafe was. They had one which was a start but it was closed. We asked the girl at the counter if she would call our taxi driver from the previous day (luckily he'd given us his card) to pick us up at 2pm she thankfully readily obliged. Opted to do the simple walk round the park on the wooden walkway.

Very slippery path as we pootled round. Saw a beautiful bearcat in a cage and some sun bears. One of the sun bears seemed to be in a right strop as it repeatedly tried to have a fight with any other bear that came near to him. The others seemed to be getting on quite happily.

Saw a lone orang in an enclosure that also housed some antelope. Looked quite a sad creature as he walked round on the ground. He finally spotted us and in the curious gait of orangs soon had soon positioned himself at eye level with us sitting on a rung of a climbing frame. He looked at us in a thoughtful manner and we likewise. Quite a beautiful moment marred only by the fact that during this exchange he had a massive bowel movement.

Walked back round to reception where we had to wait for about an hour before our driver turned up. We met an Ozzie couple who had decided to camp in Matang for a few days. We thought we had it bad but these poor guys had got soaked in the morning, there was no food in the local shops and they, for some reason were staying for another night! Jo dug around in her bags and handed them our biscuits and water as their need was clearly greater than ours.

Our car appeared driven by two teenagers. Jo suspected that the driver was probably the student son of the taxi driver pressed into last minute service. Friendly enough.

Soon we were in Kuching and finished off some stuff on the Internet.

Had dinner at John's Place, round the corner from the hotel. Pretty ropey food.