Day 62 (7 August): Cat City

So I woke up this morning in Kuching (whose name means 'Cat City' in Malaysian) after arriving very late last night on what I expected to be the very exotic and wild island of Borneo. It turns out that Kuching despite being on a fairly remote island shared between Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei is actually a very modern and very clean city. It is still surrounded by jungle, has a nice river flowing through it, and plenty of palm trees though.

The first thing I did was head to the city's Sunday Market which I found to be rather quite, calm, and clean compared to what I expected. On the way to the Sunday Market, I met a group of Scottish Medical Student who have been living and working in the hospital in Kuching for the past month on a rotation for their Med School. I went with them to the Sarawak (the state within Malaysia) Cultural Village where they were headed again as one of their sister's was in town visiting. In the Cultural Village, we spent a couple of hours seeing traditional-style houses and talking to locals about their local tribes' lifestyles for about eight different groups that inhabit Borneo who do everything from head-hunting, fishing, and basket-weaving to having pepper farms.

Returning to Kuching in the evening, I had dinner in a seafood-only hawker food court (that the Scots recommended) where I had one of the best meals I've had on my trip so far including some huge prawns and some tasty jungle vegtable at one of the best prices as well.

Observations:
1) Cleanliness. At the Sunday Market many of the propietors had fly swatters to protect their food from flies. This is unheard of in any 'third world' market, let alone outdoor markets in 'first world' countries.
2) Fixed prices. The Sunday Market also had fixed prices. This also seems to be a sign of a first-world country, which is making me wonder if Malaysia really is a 'developing' or 'third world' country.
3) Sunday is off. Things in Kuching are actually closed in Kuching with the exception of the Sunday Market. I didn't realize there were still places that operated on such a schedule, but its kindof nice that there are.
4) Diseases in Borneo. The Scottish Med Students said that when they came to Borneo they expected to see lots of tropical or third-world type diseases like malaria in the hospital, but said that the hospital only sees such things about once every two months. They said that more common they will see 'Western diseases' that have progressed further than they usually do before people come into the hospital. They also said that first-world type problems such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes are on the rise in Sarawak.
5) Electric instrumentation. In the Cultrual Village, one of the tribesmen, had an electrified version of his local instrument. He explained that this was just part of modernization. A number of the older people thought that it was nice to keep the 'Cultural Village' despite its touristy feel because in the villages things have modernized to the point that children need to come to the village to see what life used to be like for them.
6) In the local newspaper here, I saw articles about the educational acheivements of townspeople and other general promotion of education much like in India. To see such articles, education must be highly valued and regarded.
7) The local governor's brother had died and in the newspaper there were a number of condolence notices published. What was interesting about these, however, were that they were all signed by 'Chinese' sounding businesses. There must be a lot of value to having an 'in' with the local government. Either that or people and businesses here are particularly friendly.