From The Rock

Part of the south state of Malaysia is called Sarawak, which is joined by the border with Indonesia and Brunei. The capital city of Sarawak is Kuching, which is the largest city on the island of Borneo and has the seventh largest population in Malaysia (population 580,000), behind Kuala Lumpur, Subang Jaya and a few others. The status of “city” was given to Kuching in 1988.

The capital of Sarawak is Kuching which has a population of around 600,000 people – mostly Malays and Chinese. The name Kuching literally means ‘cat’ (kucing) in the Malay language, although there are two other lines of thought. Kuching comes from an Indian word which means port; or Kuching comes from Chinese Cantonese word for “old place”.

Back in 1841 Borneo was ceded to the British by the then owner and ruler – the Sultanate of Brunei. The new ruler was named James Brooke, who was known as an adventurer of the time. I suspect thats a bit of an understatement. James Brooke helped the Sultanate to over-throw a rebellion, thus gained the lands for himself as a gift. The Brooke family ruled there for almost all of the forth coming 112 years.

On December 24th in 1941 however, Kuching and Sarawak were given up to the forces of the Japanese during World War II, under the control of whom it remained until September the 11th 1945 at the end of the war. The territory and city were handed back to British control.

In 1946 once the British regained control over Sarawak, the last Raja – Sir Charles Vyner Brooke ceded it to the British Crown. However, Indonesia, which was governed by President Sukarno, wished to regain control of Sarawak and there was an undeclared war fought with the British to do so.

Sarawak became an independent state in 1963, and along with Sabah – its neighbor, and Singapore it joined to form Malaysia. Singapore was then expelled from the Malaysia and became its own Republic, which it still is now. The union between Singapore and the other Malaysian states was rocky from the beginning. Distrust and ideological differences between leaders of the State of Singapore and the federal government of Malaysia resulted in frequent disagreement in politics, economic, financial and social policies. The conflict spread to the populace, resulting in major racial riots in 1964 in Singapore. In 1965, Malaysia Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman decided upon the secession of Singapore from the Federation, leading to the Independence of Singapore on 9 August 1965.

Highly successful with regards to financial control and extremely low crime rates, its hard to believe that before European rule which began back in the 1600′s, Singapore was a simple Malay fishing village.

Learn more about the city of the cat – Kuching, and stay at one of the Kuching Hotels. Do also check out one of the very best hotels at Damai with ocean front views that you will adore!