My Longkang

We left Sibu at 0730 and arrived in Kuching at about 1500. The road throughout was great. No difficult stretches. Kuching is the capital of the East Malaysian state of Sarawak. Being the most populous city in the state of Sarawak, Kuching emerged as one of the most vibrant cities in the region and it is the largest city on the island of Borneo and the fourth largest city in Malaysia.

Kuching was elevated to city status on 1 August 1988 and carries the nick name of Cat City.

The origins of the city’s name have never been clear. “Kuching” does translate into “cat” in Malay and “kuching” is an old Malay spelling. However, the new official Malay spelling today would be “kucing,” but both of them are pronounced the same. There is a separate theory whereby it may actually be a variation of the Indian name for “port” - “Cochin”.

Kuching was first settled by Indian traders who set up base at Santubong. Artifacts of Hindu origin can today be seen at the State Museum.

One highly unlikely theory is a story based on miscommunication. According to the story, when Rajah James Brooke arrived in Kuching on his yacht, the Royalist, he asked his local guide what the settlement’s name was. The guide, thinking that the English adventurer was pointing towards a cat, said “Kuching.” However, Sarawakian Malay for cat is “pusak” and this theory does not hold much credibility.

Another theory is that the city was named after the “mata kucing” or “cat’s eye” fruit. Trees bearing this fruit used to grow in abundance by the river banks - where the city’s commercial heart, is located. There is a hill in the heart of the modern city called Bukit Mata Kuching, and was named after the fruit. Also, at the foot of the hill, there was once a stream called the Kuching River.

The stream, located in front of the Tua Pek Kong temple, had large amount of silt deposit and during the 1950s, was filled in to make way for roads and the city’s expansion eastwards.

There is another more credible theory and that Kuching actually means “Ku” - Old and “Ching” - Well or “old well” in Chinese. During the Brooke’s rule, there was no proper water supply and water-borne diseases were common. In 1888, there was a Great Cholera epidemic.

However, water from a well at the present day China Street in Main Bazaar area saved Kuchingites from the disease. Clean supply of water from the well helped water-borne diseases became a thing of the past. Evidence of the well is still found at China Street. As Kuching expanded and the population and demand for clean water supply increased, the well was not adequate to supply the clean water and it was replaced by clean water supply from Matang area later.

After Lanchau we stopped over at Serian. Upon arrival at the bus terminal, peddlars boarded the bus to sell their wares.

I went down to have a look around. The bus ‘terminal’ wasn’t busy.

I wasn’t the only one taking pics

A typical street scene.

Hopefully some one will tell me what building this is.

Public toilet was very clean. 20 sen per entry

This is an interesting sculpture. To me it is interesting that they chose durian to represent the town.

Serian is a town, and the capital of the Serian District (2,039.9 square kilometers) in Samarahan Division, Sarawak, east Malaysia. It is located about 40 miles (65 km) from Kuching.

The district population (year 2000 census) was 84,800. About 65% of the population are Bidayuh. The other main ethnic groups are Iban, Chinese, and Malay.

I started my journey from Sibu at 7.30 in the morning. All along the journey we were assailed by the aroma of ripe durians. There were durian sellers all along the way.

Our first stop was Jakar near Sarikei.

We had noodles or was it prawns? There were at least 10 prawns but so little noodles.

We didn’t turn into Sri Aman but stopped at the junction. It was a piss stop. Momentarily lost my nerve for taking pics when I overheard remarks from some Ibans about how only a fool would take pics of common trees and hills.

The nezt stop was Lachau. This is a lovely small country town. It is somewhere between Seri Aman and Kuching.

Sign board.

I finally saw kolok mee. A sure sign Kuching is not far off. I was tired. I was exhausted. I was glad the journey would soon be over.

Durians, durians, every where.

Durian isu. This is different from the normal durians put up for sale.

To be continued……….

After lunch we decided to cool down at the Sebangkoi Country Resort waterfall.

It is about 20 minutes from Sarikei by car and we enjoyed scenic views along the way.

Don’t be fooled. These giraffes aren’t real.

It was a short leisurely walk to the waterfall but I was sweating buckets. The humidity perhaps.

The canopy overhead did help to filter out the sun a little. Thank God for that.

I was overjoyed when I saw this stream. It meant we were near the waterfall.

We saw a local man waving hands to us. But my friends were reluctant to strip off.

It must have been wonderful to cool off in the water.

It must have been freezing cold. This local man must have enjoyed himself so much.

It took me quite a few hours to reach Kuching. Whenever I reach Kuching, I realize how laid back my own life style is. Every body I see seems to be in a hurry. Perhaps it is because it is office hours. At 4p.m. there are already signs of a traffic jam in the forming.

I had already told a friend to help book for me an economical room. He said he found a great room for RM40.00. I was so pleased.

It looked cool enough from the outside. He had already paid for the room on my behalf. I went to the lobby and I was asked if I would like to buy a towel or soap. I was stunned. For RM40.00 I got a room. Full stop. Towel was available for RM3.50. Toilet paper was available at 50 sen a roll. Blankets too were not provided. The lady smiled and said I could save RM5.00 if the room was without windows but all windowless rooms were fully booked.

It consisted of a small bed, a mirror on a wall and a small bin for rubbish. The room is very small and the bathroom has just enough room for me to turn and wet my back The room itself had peekaboo curtains. If I pulled it to the left, it would leave the right hand side of the window exposed and vice versa. Anybody from the other side can just look into the room and to just change in the presence seems so rude. I had to change in the bathroom. The curtain just wasn’t big enough. I couldn’t open the windows as the aroma from the dustbins downstairs was overwhelming.

But I am excited to be in Kuching. There seems to be so many varieties of food in Kuching. This sitting on the bed and doing everything on the bed ( no chair or desk in room ) makes me realize how much we take our own homes for granted.

Homeless person

I have another four days in Kuching. I really don’t know how I am going to survive. I am not really a shopping guy although Benghui made me promise to buy him something or anything at all. He didn’t mind he said.

He hugged me tight this morning and said he would miss me. He then solemnly swore he would pray for me every night until I came home. I told him thanks but it was not necessary. Again, he affected that look he has when he looks at a younger child and insisted he would do it and he said God would listen to him and protect me. Sometimes this child is too complicated.

It made me uncomfortable a little as it was so early in the morning and being a superstitious person, such talk is believed to bring negative vibes. But so far so good. I am blogging from a cyber cafe which is very slow and it is not convenient to reply comments or visit you all. I will do it when I reach home.

wuching I am not here for my second wife. I am here because I have an assigned task to perform and I will return when I have performed my task.

I will post pics later.

After the blind centre it was goodbye Sibu.

Hello Sarikei.

What were we doing in Sarikei?

We had especially come to Sarikei to have lunch at Hung Kiew Kee Restaurant. I recommend every body who visits Sarikei to drop in here and experience the gold coin three layered pork dish.

Looks appetizing?

It tasted great. It is basically made of pork liver squeezed in between cha siew roast pork and fatty pork. It was fabulous.

This bitter gourd didn’t have a trace of bitterness to it. A little like cantonese cooking.

I do not know the name of this vegetable in English.

This is ‘oh dear I do not remember the name’ soup I had three helpings. I knew I was on a diet but what to do? I am a glutton by nature.

Unexpectedly they served us this dessert dish. We were stumped as we didn’t order it. We were then told it was on the house. The best was yet to come. When we left , we tried to pay the bill, the owner told us the whole meal was on the house. His child surfs the internet and knew we were bloggers

How wonderful Thank you lau pan. We enjoyed the lunch very much.

I will be away in Kuching for a few days. There will be a few auto published posts though. I hope you will continue to come back and read them. In the meantime, have a great week ahead every body

It was a typical Sibu community affair all the way. The whole community chipped in to ensure enough funds be raised to help the blind in Sibu and its surrounding regions. For those not familiar with the set-up, the blind inmates also provide massage services and weave baskets among other things to raise funds.

On the whole it was a great day. I don’t have the exact figures. About RM160 000 was raised just RM20 000 short of the target

This is Lai Meng in a scene from Money Not Enough 2. What shall we do with our parents when they grow old and feeble? Will you sign them up in an old folks home? Would you like to be assigned to an old folks home? Remember what goes around comes around.

But real issues are discussed in this movie. A Singapore producton, it is a hard-hitting jab at the realities of modern living and our evolving modern day values.

Lai Meng as usual is at her best in front of a camera. I can remember her back to the days of the weekly series, Empat Sekawan or Li Kor Bo Wa Eh Kor literally translated meaning your troubles are not mine. She has outlived most of her own peers on television. I wonder what happened to Ah Ying. Does anybody know?

Lai Meng is on the list of artistes who receives pension under a scheme for ageing artistes.

Mrs BB’s old laptop has finally given up on her after heaving its last. So I have had to share with the Mrs. As Mrs BB needs a laptop almost all the time I had to dig deep into my pockets to get another one It wasn’t easy to make a choice but the price tag was a major consideration. I finally chose an Hp520 laptop notebook.

It came with a free webcam. Videochat is made easy with handsfree audio. It is capable of 640×480 video, 800×600 photos and a built in microphone.

A delightful, responsive hp Invent mouse

4GB of memory.

I had not realized how slow and unresponsive my old mouse and laptop was until I bought this hp520.