The grump from Thailand set back in on my first day in Kuching. Slick and cool Singapore seemed centuries away in my first afternoon at the bottom bit of Malaysian Borneo. Barclaycard wouldn’t give me money and then insisted I speak to everyone in their call centre in Delhi; my toe had become infected from a cut in Singapore; and catcalls from every 2nd man I walked past made me feel like I was walking around naked, selling pornography.

Feeling less scowly thenext morning, I had a wander around the town and ate far too much food (I am going to get really fat, and scurvy at this rate – can’t find any meals with vegetables that don’t involve a lot of oil). In the evening as I was taking a photo of the sun setting over the river, I heard the customary “hellowhereyoufrom?”, and started chatting to Zul, a guy living in KL and who was here visiting his family. He seemed harmless so I let him buy me dinner while he drank A LOT of beer (no food – he was on diet apparently). As he got more and more drunk he told me about his dysfunctional family then he started to cry. (That’s 2 random men crying on me in less than 3 weeks…) He perked up after a while and told me that he was very musical; I would fall in love with him if he sang for me. “Erm, oh… Right.” He then started singing Coldplay and Cat Stevens in a very high-pitched, squeal, in the restaurant / hawker centre. But not just 1 or 2 lines: he tried to sing 2 whole songs, and as he got all the words completely muddled up I focused very hard on my mee goreng, half hoping he would carry on, half hoping he would stop.

Spent the most part of the following day in Bako National Park, first walking through the jungle with a slow-walking, sweaty German man, and then managed to trade him in for a very smelly French guy (I had to walk downwind of him). Saw some Probiscus monkeys, a bearded pig and a monitor lizard, but walking through the jungle was enough – really beautiful. And no leeches! Hooray!

Had a late lunch back in Kuching and made friends with 2 little kids. I asked their names: “Abi See” and “Wantoo Ree”. Aah, what nice names, I thought. Until I heard 2 little voices from under the table shouting “Abi See, d, e, f, g, h, r, x, z!!” and “Wantoo Ree 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10!!”. Oh well.

Abi See & Wantoo Ree