Sungai Sarawak serves as the main highway for many dwellers who live in the coastal villages outside Kuching. Sungai Santubong where one of Kuching’s most popular seaside resorts, Damai Beach is situated joins the Sarawak River at the river mouth. Ancient Hindu and Buddhist influenced rock carvings have also been discovered around the river delta.

Locally built wooden boats called sampans were the usual mode of transport at the Kuching Waterfront. This traditional means of travel called tambang is one of the state’s major tourist attractions.

The Sarawak River is the best way to view the city. The river cruises and the tambang give you an unobstructed view of the city and its surroundings that is impossible to experience from dry land.

It will take you past a host of fascinating sights to get a close-up view of traditional life on and around the river. The boat glides past colourful Malay villages, the elegant City Mosque, the Astana, Fort Margherita and the Kuching Waterfront, stopping-over at an Orchid Garden.

Along the way you will see brightly-painted tambangs ferrying passengers, villagers going about their everyday activities, and fishing boats and wooden cargo vessels plying the river.