Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Roti chennai
One of the redeeming qualities of the hotel. Good chennai (prata). Especially fantastic when you get them to custom it with cheese.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Santubung
Post-trip note:
For those who don't know, there's a story to Mt. Santubong. There's even a song on it.
I'm too lazy to type, so I'll just lift it from a Googled site.
Long ago when Borneo was a young island, giants and spirits were known to humans, moving back and forth between earth and kayangan, the celestial kingdom. One day the King saw that there was fighting among the people down on earth. So he sent two princesses, Puteri Santubong and Puteri Sejinjang, to make peace between the villages. These two lovely princesses used their charms to get the people to finally stop fighting. Peace returned and the area was called Damai, meaning ‘tranquil’.
The people were so grateful that they begged the two to stay, which both graciously did. Puteri Santubong took up cloth-weaving, while Puteri Sejinjang pounded rice padi. Their beauty remained and they were known far and wide. But Puteri Santubong became more sought after by handsome suitors throughout the land due to her delightful cloths. Soon she got married and became pregnant.
Puteri Sejinjang unfortunately became jealous, claiming she was more beautiful than her sister. Santubong would not agree and a huge argument ensued between the two. In the end Sejinjang became violent and hit her pounding pestle on the head of Santubong, who fell to the earth and grew into the mountain that bears her name. But just before Santubong fell she threw her weaving loom’s beam at Sejinjang, breaking a part of her body, which scattered into the sea, creating the islands in the area (Pulau Kera, Pulau Burong and so on). Meanwhile, the rest of Sejinjang’s body also fell to the earth and became the other mountain near Mount Santubong.
The villagers had also taken sides instead of helping to make peace between the dueling princesses, who had then placed curses on each other’s supporters, turning them into the monkeys and other animals that now roam the mountains, jungles and islands.
Today, if you look at Mount Santubong from the sea, you can see the outline of a pregnant woman, and even the gully or crevice where Sejinjang hit Santubong’s head with the pestle.
Guess who conquered this?
The feeling you get after conquering this...
Post-trip note:
Each step is narrower than a foot. I've discovered that the best way to climb down would be to climb down sideways. It goes up to around 1.5 storey's high. Inside the house, there is another set of stairs to the equivalent of attic, where newly-wed couples are allowed to "honeymoon".
The honeymoon suite
For those not too adventurous, they had normal staircase at the centre of the building.
Rumah orang Ulu
Post-trip note:
We spent a good half of the fourth day at the Sarawak Cultural Village.
This tourist attraction is located at the foot of Mt. Santubong, and is basically like a brief summary of all the indigenous people of Sarawak.
You can see the different types of long-houses and some offers "home stays" as well.
In my mind, this is a circus. I wonder if it's just me.
2nd & 3rd day summary
2nd day:
We headed to Pasar Serikin, Bau, at Sarawak-Borneo border, 1.5 hours' drive from Kuching.
The road passed by one of the tourist caves (wind or fairy, can't remember which), and got kind of bumpy towards the end.
There were some interesting goods, and if you know what to look for, there's some cheap stuff.
It was sweltering hot, and there were many people, which made it a formula for a headache. I gave up after an hour.
We stopped at Spring for lunch (ah... Air-con), and bought dinner to go as well.
A little bit on Spring - Spring is the biggest shopping centre in Kuching.
It has some standard mall shops like Starbucks and the ubiquitous department store.
3rd day: Morning was at Semenggong Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre where we saw orang utan.
We had a try at clay, which was kind of fun, but hard. They sell a fair amount of goods as well.
Followed by lunch at a random hut somewhere. I've finally know what's the deal with "Mee kolok". It's like fried Maggie with Soto as soup.
City tour was next and we saw a few main attractions such as Kuching museum and the Brooke castle.
Monday, December 17, 2012
The poor throat needs a break...
Dinner was at Ipohtown across the road. We were going elsewhere but it it rained pretty hard, thus the change of plan.
Mee kolok
Post-trip note:
Mee Kolok here tastes like friend maggi / maggi goreng with soto soup. I tried mee kolok from another shop and it tasted like boiled chicken noodles.
So I guess, we'll never really know what Mee Kolok tastes like...
Pepper is a thing
Apparently, one of the things that they push to tourists is the Sarawak pepper. There are pepper sweets and pepper butter biscuits...
Post-trip note:
And pepper tea, pepper coffee, pepper chocolate...
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Ever the news bug
I was quite delighted when I opened the door to find a complimentary copy of the newspaper.
Post-trip comment:
Unfortunately, complimentary copies of the local newspapers are really random.
Borderland market: pasar serikin at Bau
The Rambutans were awesome looking.
Post-trip note:
The 3G sort of failed me towards the border. And yes, we really went all the way out to the border. Serikin is physically really Borderlands.
The driver actually entertained us with stories of how "Bau" (lit. smell) was given its name.
I'll try and appraise my memory. Somehow the story is along the lines of this:
When some of the people rose up against the Brooke Monarchy (or government), the soldiers chased the rebels to the mountains. The rebels hid in the caves in the mountains (Sarawak is full of caves).
The soldiers set the surroundings on fire, and killed the rebels through carbon monoxide poisoning.
Days/Weeks later, the remains of the bodies started to rot, thus, the smell, and the name "Bau".
Kuching in my eye
Caption: inspired by the charming rainforest in Sarawak, this sculpture uses round bronze plates to form the dense foliage of the rainforest. This "foliage" stretches into a shape like an eye. It signifies that Kuching will always be watched over by Mother Nature.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
1st day Kuching
And thus the sun sets on my first night in Kuching, Sarawak.
Dinner was fried prawn with rice at a coffeeshop around 10 minutes walk away from our lodgings.
This was followed by a little shopping at Parkson beside Riverside Majestic Hotel.
Note: Grand Margherita does NOT provide toothbrush.
Note 2: Swimming pool is bloody small. There's a jacuzzi pool though. Or what looks like it.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)