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We intended to stay in Kuching for three days but extended to five. We just loved the combination of adventure activities and nice urban nightlife — to say nothing of the fact that Kuching is known as “The Cat City” and even features its own Cat Museum.

The Cat Museum is on the far north end of town, quite a way from the center, but we decided to try to walk there anyhow, just to see whatever was there. It took us about an hour and a half to get there, which is a little crazy since I’d read that the place was “extremely kitsch” and “good for about 20 minutes.”

So kitsch is what we intended to see, and kitsch is what we got. I had feared that they’d try to sneak in some kind of “legitimate” exhibits about cats — maybe something about different types of cats or how cats adapt to different geographies. But I needn’t have feared anything like that. In fact, the use of the work “museum” was a pretty big stretch. It was more like a big collection of random cat junk — cat figurines, movie posters that feature cats, cat plates, cat posters.

Of course it was organized into thematic sections like “Cats in Movies” (the movie posters), “Cat Naps” (pictures of cute felines napping), and even “Cat Food” (random packages of cat food). “Cats in Cards” included a wall covered in greeting cards and postcards that feature cats, along with a description of how millions of cards with cats crisscross the globe every year.

Having hit our limit of cultural intake at the Cat Museum, we spent our final day in Kuching at the beautiful Bako National Park just outside town, where a hot, humid, strenuous hike rewarded us with a stunning beach. Then we caught a flight to Bandar Seri Bagawan, the capital of the Sultanate of Brunei, which we will report on next.