Day 01

Kuching             (D)

Upon arrival Kuching, you will be transferred to your selected hotel. In the afternoon, we will visit the Sarawak Cultural Village. Surrounding an artificial lake at the foot of Gunung Santubong, the Sarawak Cultural Village is an excellent living museum. It has examples of traditional dwellings built by different peoples of Sarawak. The dwellings are inhabited by tribe people who demonstrate local arts and crafts, including basketry and weaving, top spinning, blowpipe shooting and sago processing. There are two cultural show performances a day. After the visit of Sarawak Cultural Village, we will head back to the hotel and rest of the evening is at your leisure.

Day 02

Semenggoh-Anah Rais-Pottery Factory             (B,L)

Breakfast at hotel. Then, we will depart for Semenggoh, located a short drive from the centre of Kuching. Semengoh is one of the four orang utan rehabilitation centres in the world and it provides a unique opportunity for visitors to observe orang utans, which roam in the wild, coming in for their feeding. After the feeding of the orang utans, we will visit a Bidayuh longhouse. A feature of interest in Sarawak is the longhouse dwelling of the indigenous people. The longhouse is a communal village that may accommodate from 10 to 40 families under a common roof. The families also share a veranda or "ruai" which runs the length of the structure and is the focus of the social life for the community. The basic style of the longhouse and culture of the inhabitants has remained virtually unchanged despite their exposure and acceptance of modern values.

Day 03

Semenggoh-Anah Rais-Pottery Factory              (B,L)    

In Sarawak, there are 7 main ethnic groups with over 20 sub-tribes. The largest group is the Iban (also known as the Sea Dayaks) and the Bidayuhs (also known as Land Dayaks) are to be found around the Kuching area and represents about 10% of the population of Sarawak. The animistic rituals that the Bidayuhs practice are related to some of the Indo-Chinese hill-tribes.

Anah Rais is a Bidayuh longhouse located about 40 km from Kuching in the Padawan District and can be reached by car or coach in 45 minutes. It is probably the largest intact Bidayuh longhouse in Sarawak. The drive goes through rolling hills, pepper farms, oil palm plantations, rubber estates, cocoa gardens and padi fields. Like most of the tribes in Borneo, the Bidayuhs were former headhunters. Skulls can still be seen in the "Baruk" (the headhouse) of this village.

On the way back to the city, call in at one of the pottery factories to see how the masters of the craft have made this such a famous Sarawakian product.

Day 04

Bako National Park              (B)

Bako is situated on Muara Tebas, a ten-square mile peninsula, jutting into the South China Sea. It is the oldest park in the country and the seashore and dramatic tablelands provide a popular weekend destination for hiking, swimming and picnics. The park is indented with numerous secluded bathing beaches, most of which are flanked by dramatic sandstone cliffs covered in lush vegetation. The coastline is dotted with unusually sculpted monoliths of sandstone - the result of weathering processes over thousands of years.

Bako is also one of the best places in Sarawak to observe wildlife in its natural habitat. Easily sighted are troops of long-tailed macaques, silver-leaf monkeys, monitor lizards (often up to 8 feet in length), plantain squirrels, wild boars and mousedeer. One of the more significant animals that can be seen is the proboscis monkey, known as "The Dutchman" by the locals, because of its long red nose. The proboscis monkey is found only in Borneo and the coastal mangrove forests of Bako provides an ideal habitat that offers the rare opportunity to see this animal in the wild. The diversity of plant life in Bako is also impressive. Vegetation types range from lush cliff and lowland dipterocarp forests to the almost desert-like scrub on the upper plateau. There is an abundance of rare carnivorous plants such as the pitcher plants, as well as an impressive variety of sundews and bladderworts. We will take one of the many trails to look at the unique wildlife as well as observe the unusual plant life. Return to the hotel by mid afternoon.

Day 05

Kuching (Departure)           (B)

After breakfast, free at leisure till your transfer out to airport for departure flight