Hidden Gems and Local Secrets in Kuching (Sarawak)
Part of the Kuching (Sarawak) travel guide — see every topic in All Kuching (Sarawak) Guides.
Kuching's visitors mostly do a fixed circuit: the waterfront, Semenggoh, Bako and a longhouse. That is a good circuit and it leaves out a great deal, both within the city and in a state that is larger than peninsular Malaysia and has almost no roads through the middle of it. What follows is the local list — some of it a five-minute boat ride away, some of it a flight into the interior.
Across the river
The tambang crossing costs a ringgit or two, takes three minutes, and almost every visitor uses it only to reach Fort Margherita. The Malay kampungs on the north bank — Boyan, Gersik, Surabaya — are villages of timber houses on the riverbank that predate the modern city, quiet, walkable, and where several of the best kek lapis layered-cake bakeries are. Walk them in the late afternoon and take the boat back at dusk with the waterfront lit.
The coast and the river mouth
Kampung Buntal, a fishing village on the coast towards Santubong, has a row of seafood restaurants on stilts over the water where Kuching residents drive out for dinner — crab, prawns and fish priced by weight, at a fraction of city restaurant prices. Bako village itself, before you take the park boat, is a working fishing settlement worth twenty minutes. Sungai Santubong's estuary cruises for dolphins and fireflies are cheap and consistently better than expected.
The interior
Bario, in the Kelabit Highlands at around 1,000 metres near the Indonesian border, is reached only by a small aircraft from Miri and is a plateau of rice fields, homestays, salt springs and cool air, with the Kelabit people and some of the best trekking in Borneo. Ba'kelalan is the neighbouring valley. The Rajang river express boats from Sibu upriver to Kapit and Belaga are one of the great river journeys in Asia and see essentially no foreign visitors. Niah Caves, near Miri, hold forty-thousand-year-old human remains and rock paintings.
In the city
The Chinese temples along Carpenter Street, particularly Tua Pek Kong on the waterfront, which is the oldest in Kuching. Satok weekend market, a large produce and jungle-produce market where the interior's food arrives — wild ferns, bamboo shoots, forest fruit, live catch. Kuching's cat statues, which are unironic and everywhere, since the city's name is the Malay word for cat. And the old Chinese coffee shops that open at six in the morning, where the laksa is best and gone by ten.
Hidden Gems and Local Secrets at a glance
| Cheapest good thing | The tambang river crossing, RM 1–2 |
|---|---|
| Where locals eat | Kampung Buntal seafood, on stilts over the water |
| Market | Satok weekend market — jungle produce from the interior |
| The interior | Bario, Kelabit Highlands — reachable only by small aircraft |
| Great journey | Rajang river express boats from Sibu to Kapit and Belaga |
| Archaeology | Niah Caves — human remains ~40,000 years old |