Hooray it's my birthday and we’re off to Bako. Bako is a national park – effectively a hinterland, about an hours bus ride  from Kuching.  For those planning to come to Kuching. Its really easy to locate the bus in the bus station as it has" Kuching- Bako” plastered on the side, along with the fare 3.5 ringgits. Extremely good value – an hours ride for 70p. The bus takes you through the outlying areas of kuching with deviations around various housing settlements- including one we affectionately  named the Gorbals – due to its resemblance to Glasgow tenements. When you arrive at the bus terminus at the park you are required to buy a park pass (20MYR) and then commission a boatman to ferry you to the park. Most people many to find some others to share the cost of the boat – but as there was no one else waiting we decided to fork out the full hire price and have the boat to ourselves. We settled in with our lifejackets on and were soon buzzing along the South China seas in our little motor boat. It was lovely bouncing over the waves round the coastline- eventually reaching the beach at the park. Like Stanley and Livingstone John and I were soon on our way onto the trails, climbing over tree roots and through Jungle terrain. Some of the vegetation had pretty lethal thorns as you can see from the pic, and i found to my cost as i accidentally  reached out and touched one in an attempt to stop myself falling on my face. The thorns were like black PVC, making it reminiscent of something you might find in a Cynthia Payne’s establishment .   As we got further into the jungle, towards the sandstone plateau at the top, the monkeys became easier to find- either that or we were getting better at noticing the tops of the trees moving. Johnny Livingstone pointed his camera towards the trees but unfortunately these little chaps weren’t as keen as the Baku Cave thieves so on some of the pics you will find yourself doing a "where’s wally” game to spot em. We did snap a picture of one on the side of the minivan so you know what you are trying to spot in the pic. We can promise we have only included pics with monkeys- there are no trick ones.  We made our way back down to beach in time for our boat home and arrived there in time to find some Wild Boar having afternoon tea along the surfline.  There were also lots of blue fiddler crabs (at least i think that’s what they’re called.) They have one huge pincer and seem to spend all day spoiling for a fight with the neighbours.  I then got my chance to paddle in the South China Sea- as we had to wade through the surf to get back into the boat. Could have easily gone for a swim it was lovely. We waited around for the next bus, which turned out to be the school run as well so we were soon surrounded by hoards of teenagers from the Islamic school. The girls were all wearing pale blue head-dresses, and the boys had the most amazing Tommy Cooper style black hats. They obviously don’t wear 'em out at school here and we were glad when they had all reached their respective stops and we were back to the gentle tranquillity of the bus. As it was my birthday we had decided to treat ourselves to something different for tea – so having consulted the Footprints book (like Lonely Planet/Rough Guide– with a nice pic of orang-utans on the front which swung it for me) we decided to head for the hornbill corner cafe which promised an anything you can eat steamboat buffet.  We followed the map – despite the rain and just before we got to where we expected the cafe to be we found a similar place – the only muslim owned steamboat cafe in Kuching so went in there. For those of you not familiar with the concept of Steamboat – you basically help yourself to food from the fridge and cook it on your little camping stove / boiling pot in the centre of the table. John looked horrified at the prospect as he is a bit suspicious if he doesn’t know what he’s eating. He cautiously removed some grey prawns and bits of red meat (which turned out to be chicken in soy sauce) from the fridge and dropped them onto the cooking plate. Initial apprehensions over he was soon tucking in and  mastering the cooking – like a bloke with a Barbie. We left about an hour later feeling stuffed having had laksa , chicken soup, rice and all sorts of goodies we had cooked on our little cooker.  As it was still raining we decided to catch a taxi back to the homestay, and it was about an hour after arriving back when John realised he had left his daysack in the taxi. Unfortunately this also meant he left the Footprints book, a pineapple i had bought, the Deet insect repellent and his camera. He went very pale and decided to see if he could get a lift back to the taxi rank.  When he got back to the taxi rank they managed to track the driver who checked his cab and discovered the bag. Unfortunately by this time the driver was a fair distance out of town so he agreed to drop it off next day at 7am – John set the alarm on the phone and retired to bed feeling somewhat relieved that he would probably be getting his things back. Despite the fraught last couple of hours it was an awesome birthday which we both enjoyed. Hope you like the pics.