My uncle took us to the Satok Market, a Kuching weekend indoor and outdoor farmers market where all kinds of food are sold. And the breadth and depth of scale is an eye-opener—nothing in Canada or US can compare to it. To look at everything, one would have to take at least half a day. We didn’t have time to see it all—we covered only a third. So here are the photos we took: Cleaning fish for a customer
The DBKU Orchid Garden is across the river, just opposite the Astana. It is a bit of a hike from the hotel in late morning heat. What a pleasant surprise! Sometimes a garden in this part of the world can be disappointing, but this 15.4 acre garden can rival most orchid gardens in the world for its breadth (over 75,000 plants of 82 genera). And free admission. Here are some photos from the visit.
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. Here’s the river ferry Another rural roadside stalls—they are everywhere on rural roads It is good to see how people live, how simple their lives are, how little they have,…
So many changes, so many new things. Western food chain eating places (KFC, Starbucks, McDonald, Subway, etc) are huge and popular now. Sad to say that they are every where. Tougher to find authentic Sarawak food at downtown mall food courts; they are still around at street coffee shops (kopitiam) and in the suburbs. Extremely cheap and flavourful. Again, we are spoiled by our hotel breakfast buffet here (Malay, Indian, Chinese and Western) so we are often too full to…
We can go back to our places of birth but not to the past. Things constantly change and sometimes memories are what we have left. Unlike Singapore, we really feel the heat and humidity in Kuching(Cat Town, population: about 850,000), the steamy rainforest of sweats. It feels like being in the sauna. Fortunately we have rain every day we are here. Downpours for half an hour or two and then it’s done. Quite constant in its timing—usually between 1…