Alongside all the jobs and culinary experiences, our little hire car enabled us to do two modest sight-seeing trips.

The first, yesterday, was to the Paku Rock Maze Garden, which is situated alongside the Shiwang Temple, between Siniawan and Bau.




While the karst formations have been around from time immemorial, the area was cleared for visitors only in 2021.

It's a really attractive place to spend an hour or so:









We didn't have time to further investigate Paku (the mall-opening hour was approaching). But we did grab some coffee and noodles from a little eatery close to where we'd parked. You need sustenance for shopping, after all...

Today we were due to hand the car back, and for our now-customary early-morning finale, we returned to Muara Tebas (last visited way back in December 2019).

We arrived just as the sky was starting to lighten, and walked out to the end of the rickety old jetty. There we stood, in the (very cool) morning breeze, watching the return of the daylight, and listening to all the ambient sounds: birds starting to twitter, roosters crowing, a far-off muezzin singing the call to prayer...






If you have more time, I think you can hack your way to the top of Bukit Lasak, behind the temple. But we just walked up the road to the communications tower (the Vessel Traffic Management System that facilitates the operations of Kuching Port). Even this little distance gives you good views:






Having been away so long, we're still making rookie mistakes (you need to remember, for example, not only to take insect repellent with you, but to put it on BEFORE the hoards strike...). More adjustment time is definitely needed...

But we're in a charmed period at the moment, with a lot more freedom to explore, and nice weather to do it in. Long may it continue...