Cogito ergo scribo

(This post is gonna be full of pictures and with lesser writing. I went on the trip more than a month ago and frankly i couldn't remember much of the details already. No thanks to my bad habit of procrastination.)

The Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV)was about 40 minutes drive from Kuching city. There were several scheduled trips each day from the hotel to the SCV, which cost RM60 per person (inclusive of entrance fee). The tourist van would pick up tourists from several hotels, but there were only 贝 and i for that particular trip. We reckoned that most people would have the trip in the morning, unlike us who only went in the afternoon.



At the entrance, we were given a booklet that they called it the Passport. The booklet contains the locality map of the SCV and all the information that one may wanna know about the place.



The SCV lies on a big piece of land located at the foot of Mount Santubong. It showcases different ethnic houses and staged cultural performances for tourists to appreciate the diverse cultures in Sarawak.

The first architecture at the entrance was a Chinese-style pagoda.



Then we came to this wooden ladder rising up to the restaurant and theatre, where the award-winning cultural dances were performed.





Coming down from the other side of theatre brought us to a path with another two totem poles.



Then we came to a Bidayuh bamboo bridge.



There was a sign beside the bridge that invited the visitors to cross the bridge to the Bidayuh Longhouse.



We did so and then came to the houses of Bidayuh ethnic group.







Next stop was the longhouse of Iban.




In the longhouse, we saw a makcik weaving yarn into colourful fabric with a traditional handloom.



The interior of the longhouse was decorated with ethnic ornaments.



At the back of the longhouse was an open field with an outdoor performing stage near the woods.



We walked along the planked walkway and came to the Function House, which was nicely decorated with hanging lamps that looked like some bamboo baskets.



The next ethnic house was the shoddy hut of the Penan people.



The Penan shelters were not well-built as other ethnic groups. Looking at where they lived and based on the information in the booklet, we got to know that Penan people lead simple nomadic life in the jungle.

On the other hand, the Orang Ulu, despite the name that makes them sounds like a backward group of people, actually build solid high-rise houses, with the stilts and walls painted with beautiful motifs.









It was then almost time for the cultural show and so we headed back to the theatre. There are two cultural shows everyday at 11am and 4pm, where cultural dances would be performed in the air-conditioned theatre.















Frankly, i felt that this so-called award winning show wasn't really that fantastic, as except the music and costumes, the dance moves looked almost the same to me. I guess it was probably because we, as Malaysians, have seen it all before. There were a few groups of ang mo visitors and perhaps they would find it more interesting. I did like the blow pipe stunt thought. I thought it was rather skillful of the performer to be able to hit the balloon hanging high on the ceiling with his blow pipe, even though he missed the target a few times.

The show lasted about 45 minutes and we continued our touring of the rest of the ethnic houses after the performances ended.

The last ethnic house we visited was the Melanau tall house.







We couldn't go into the house as the door was locked. We then skipped the Malay and Chinese houses, which were something we could see everywhere in West Malaysia.

As we left the SCV, we saw that there was no one at the ticketing booth. It was then we realized that the operating hours were 9am to 4.45pm, which means that the operation ended right after the end of the cultural show. No wonder the door to the Melanau tall house was closed.

A friend of mine was supposed to pick us up at the nearby Holiday Inn Damai Beach Resort at about 6.30pm. He was my university mate back in Canada. We were good friends back then as we used to be house mates and he helped me a lot in my school work, in the sense that he would lend me all his notes whenever i skipped classes.

So 贝 and i had more than an hour to spend at this remote place. We walked to the Damai Beach Resort and hoped to take a rest in an air-conditioned cafe that served cold drinks while waiting for my friend. To our disappointment, the cafe in the resort wasn't open yet, and the lobby was open air without air conditioning. It was a hot day and the air was stale. Both 贝 and i were sweating profusely.

There was a sign at the lobby stating that the beach was only open to their guests. Well, we couldn't care less at that point because we really couldn't stand sitting in the airless lobby anymore. So we went out to the beach hoping to get some fresh air. Unfortunately, there was no wind even though we were by the seaside. Even the leaves of the coconut trees weren't moving at all.

There was nothing we could do except trying to relax and wait. We took some pictures at the beach to amuse ourselves while waiting for my friend.



After a while, we decided to have some ice cream from the little convenient store in the resort. As we were savouring the coolness of the ice cream, my friend finally arrived. He took us to a place near the sea too for a sumptuous seafood dinner. The food was nice, and i especially like one particular dish, bidin in belacan, a kind of wild vegetable found in Sarawak.

After dinner, he told us that the city was having the yearly Kuching Festival and he brought us there to have a look. The Festival was held at the Kuching South City Council, just beside the Fu Jian Garden that we had stumbled upon the day before.

There was actually nothing much to see at the Festival. It was just full of stalls selling all kinds of food and products. More like a huge pasar malam and fun fair. I only took notice of one particular stall that sold cute balloons of animals.



We walked around for a while and then left the Festival. My friend then drove us to his tuition center to have a look. I hardly kept in touch with this friend over all these years and i didn't know that other than being a manager in a listed company, he has also ventured into the tuition business. He told me that he started this business with a partner 5 years ago, and it has grown into a big tuition center with 800 students. His dream was to expand it into a private school. I think he's doing really well, and that kinda made me look really bad looking at where i am now.

He sent us back to the hotel and said that he would meet us for dinner again the next day. He said since he came back to Kuching, he has never had any university mate visited him before. I was the first one after 10 years since graduation. Indeed, our university friends had met up several times at West Malaysia, but none has ever thought of going to the East Malaysia to pay him a visit. He was really happy to finally have someone going over and he really wanted to be a good host to show us around his home town.

And so that was our second day in Kuching, a day that we explored and appreciated the history and cultures of Sarawak. As we turned in for the day, we were looking forward to the next day, as we would rent a car to explore and experience the natural side of Sarawak.

Labels: travel