Getting to Kuching

Even before I ran my Kuala Lumpur marathon I signed up for another race in Malaysia - Kuching Marathon.

I was looking for something I could run in August and there were a few different options, and for some reason all of them in tropics. In the end, since I was about to travel alone again, it came down to the places I alredy knew. That's why I decided on Kuching.

For those who don't know yet. Kuching is a capital of Sarawak province in Malaysian part of Borneo. It is a beautiful, multicultural city with rich history, amazing food and nicest, and most relaxed people in Malaysia. There is plenty to do in Kuching and around, like visiting Semenggoh Nature Reserve to see orangutans, interesting textile museum, cat museum, Fort Margherita, Annah Rais longhouse settlement, Bako National Park, Sarawak Cultural Village... but I've done most of it 4 years ago, when I came here on holidays with my family. This time it was all going to be totally different, because this time I was about to run a marathon here.
There are 3 significant marathons in Kuching: Sarawak Marathon Kuching in March, The Cat City Marathon in July and the biggest - Kuching Marathon in August that I picked.

I thought it will be super easy to sign up. They had a well established website with step by step sign up process and the same payment system as KL Marathon. Sadly, I was wrong... and then one day I got super distracted by that awesome AirAsia sale and booked my flights before signing up. Big mistake!
As soon as I paid for my flights I got on Kuching Marathon website www.marathonkuching.com, put all my details and proceeded to payment... tried with Paypal... tried with a credit card... tried again... and again... then got lots of 'We are sorry!' emails, but doesn't matter what I did, my payment was not accepted

What to do? Email organisers, of course. That's what I did, and waited, waited, waited and there was no response from support@marathonkuching.com for almost three days. Then I found another email address to use - kuchingmarathon@gmail.com and sent all my questions to this one. Finally, the next day got a short response - "Hi Joanna Which category you intend to register? KMA". I replied and got another email with Kuching Marathon Association bank details. Simple? Oh not really. Payment for the marathon was 'only' RM 127.20 (Malaysian Ringgit) which is about AUD 38 (Australian Dollar) and my Australian bank, after couple of long conversations with different departments, informed me that does not transfer amounts lower than AUD 100...

Bummer! Went back to square one and emailed the organisers again, but they had no other solutions to this problem. And just then when I was seriously considering just putting the money in the envelope and sending via ordinary mail, I've found Cynthia. As it turned out my husband's ex boss was from Kuching and I just remembered that he said his sister-in-law still lives there. Eureka! Got my husband to get her contact details and soon we were both chatting on WhatsApp.

She is the nicest person ever and surprise, surprise... an avid runner herself. She said she will sign up and pay for me as she was about to register for her half-marathon any way. And she tried, but... for some totally strange reason the system didn't accept her payment either. There was really one option left, she had to just go to the organiser's office and pay in cash. That's what she did and soon I could finally say 'I'm going to Kuching to run a marathon! Yay!'

Thank you Cynthia, without your amazing help this adventure just wouldn't happen.

P.S. This is how I registered and totally doesn't mean that you will encounter the same problems or any problems at all while signing up for Kuching Marathon. However things like this happen... somehow quite often to me... but you should not be discouraged. There is always some kind of solution and it is so worth it in the end!