Our uncle and aunt took us on a Sunday ride in the countryside, going through small towns and villages, coconut, banana, and palm oil plantations, pepper (as in white and black peppercorns) and rice fields, and longhouse communities to visit my cousin and his wife in their rural convenience shop.
Plane view over Kuching and surroundings—still lots of vegetationOn a rural roadRural vegetationWaiting for the river ferry to get across
Here’s the river ferry
Roadside stalls on a rural road (very common in the rural areas—just a roof and a table to sell fruits, vegetables, drinks, or cooked foods—just look past the surroundings and it is fine)Having fried bananas from one of the stalls on the roadside—these are finger bananas and they are sweet-tasting
Another rural roadside stalls—they are everywhere on rural roads
In front of Lucas’s cousin’s rural convenience shopInside the convenience shopGoing through the aisle to get to the living quarters at the back of the shopBird’s nest (raw and unclean)—ready for export to China for bird’s nest soup—usually fetches around CAD $1,300 per kg)Driving through narrow rural road and kampong (village)
It is good to see how people live, how simple their lives are, how little they have, yet they seem happy with kids playing in the dirt and the adults gathering over cold juices or teas.
Old style longhouse on stiltsNew style longhouse (the entire community live in this longhouse which is divided into between 30 and 50 family quarters, headed by a penghulu—a chief)Another version of today’s longhouseSimunjan, a small rural townSimunjan town centreSimunjan’s main eating centre (food court)One of the downtown streets in SimunjanOne of the rural Malay houses (they are colourful and so many different colours that they remind me of the houses in Newfoundland)Another Malay houseMore rural Malay housesOur cousin gave us finger bananas from his plantation (see how small they are when compared to the orange)
It was a long day but we enjoyed seeing a part of Sarawak only the locals get to see.
