Off to be cultural today! A quick stop at Sujoy’s office, which is in the new convention centre for Sarawak. It’s modelled on the Adelaide Convention Centre which I think is pretty cool. Yay for Adelaide having an influence in an Asian country!
Driving around Kuching is possibly one of the prettiest and most serene places you could drive around. It is SO green, which pleased me greatly. My Gran loved green as “there are so many different shades of green in nature” (as she always said) – she would have loved it here!
It was raining and COOL this morning, I still managed to raise a sweat in the cultural village however, – but I was not hot. Amazing. We were told the Sarawak Cultural Village was a must see, and having a driver – Alan, made it much easier to get to! On the way, we stopped off at a secluded beach, where children were looking for sand crabs and mammoth snails apparently. It was beautiful… the endless sand with green trees and mountains in the background hidden half in the clouds made for a perfect scene!
The cultural village was nothing like I was expecting – which was a Kuching version of Mini Malaysia in Melaka. But it was awesome. There were 7 houses in total, which people actually lived in. Each house represented a different area/culture and had short performances to watch or freshly baked cookies for sale. Lunch first, which was quite delish – Air Bandong (cherry milk) and kolok (noodles).
Some of the houses were quite a challenge to get into, or to go upstairs (to be honest – going back down was the hardest) as some of the staircases were carved out of a log…
The houses were gorgeous, made from wood, with authentic furniture and fittings, such as old wood ovens and traditional… things… for making cookies, weaving beautiful cloth and such…
They were quite impressive and I would like one myself, as long as it was decked out with all the modern conveniences of a Western home!
Jess and I also tried our hand (mouth actually) at the blowpipe shooter. Our lung capacity did not make the grade, although one of my arrows made it onto the target board! Go me.
At 4pm, there was a cultural performance, which was very impressive. Different dances from the various areas each with different meanings – one was a dance performed at weddings, another was to show the strength and endurance of a warrior in which he danced holding a 20kg mortar with his teeth! There was also a pole dance, not in the Western dirty manner – it was very impressive. A man scaled the pole and spun around on top of it, on his stomach from what I could tell… ouch.
Another touristy day comes to end, we will be back in RAdelaide before we know it!
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