When we first lived in Sarawak, we often used to ride the local buses to neighbouring towns. When the plague arrived, however, bus travel seemed a bit dodgy, and we took to using hire cars to get out of the city (when we were allowed to travel at all, that is...).

Now, having survived two intensive bouts of public transport, in Japan and in Europe, we're totally up for bus (and boat) rides in Sarawak again. And we decided Bau should be our first destination.




More homework would have been a good thing, however... We rocked up to the bus stop for 0800, which was the kind of time buses used to go to Bau. But everything was terribly quiet. There was a bus to Serian (there always seems to be a bus to Serian); there was a bas pekerja, waiting to take a consignment of workers somewhere; and that was it. Not encouraging.

Plus, it was already stupidly hot...

OK, this won't do, we said to ourselves. Let's postpone our trip until we have INFORMATION. The Tourist Information Centre at the Old Courthouse opens at 0900. But you can easily fill in the intervening time having coffee and kaya toast. You can do this pretty much anywhere in Kuching, of course, but we decided the Wind Meal Cafe on Jalan Carpenter was where we wanted to be.

I'm not sure queries about bus timetables are exactly FAQs at the tourist office, but the people there are always friendly, and do their best to help. Someone rummaged through a sheaf of papers, found a timetable (replete with lots of pencil corrections), rummaged a bit further, and located what purported to be a more recent version. Which we duly photographed.

So now it's nearly time for the Black Bean to open (also on Jalan Carpenter), and we hadn't had a Sarawak Liberica coffee since getting back, so that took care of the next half-hour or so.

And finally, home via what used to be called Reservoir Park (it's now Unity Park). It looks as though all the work they've been doing (which we've been charting, and -- huh-hm -- complaining about, since September 2020) is finally completed. And it does all look very nice indeed:








So that was a pleasant morning, and we'll head for Bau again on Friday...