Ingenieers Just Wanna Have Fun

This traffic junction serves road users from three directions - Bintangor, Sibu and the Pan- Borneo Highway. It is eerily quiet for most part of the day and night.

The planner has too much time at hand and enthusiastically ends up making a very complicated design with traffic lights, traffic islands, safety markers, line drawings etc. when a simple roundabout could have served the purpose better with minimum cost and maintenance.

Danger seems to lurk at every corner.

This traffic junction gets Daisy and Inul's "Hav Paws Will Travell Award" for the " MOST INCREDIBLY COMPLICATED TRAFFIC PLANNING IN SARAWAK''.

Ping My Trip Award

Wow! I'm up in the clouds and am seeing stars! Thanks Jay and Harry for this wonderful award.

Ping My Trip is a website dedicated to building the world's largest catalogue of inspiring travel blog posts. For an interview they did on me please follow this link here

Serikin street scenes - "Little Indonesia"

There are hundreds on stalls and the street is crowded with Malaysian shoppers.

On Saturday we took to the road to visit the little border town of Serikin. It is about less than an hour drive from Kuching city center. The road to Serikin is all paved and is very safe to travel even alone in your own car. Serikin is where Indonesians bring and trade their goods to Malaysian tourists and visitors. It would take about a day or less for Indonesians to travel by road to Serikin which sits on the Malaysian side of the Indonesian-Malaysian boundary line. Here trade in Indonesian made products are brisk and keep on expanding yearly. It seems to me that the place thrives due to private sector dynamism. Indonesians provide the goods that are produced at relatively cheap cost and sold to Malaysians in Malaysian currency. Transaction-wise, Malaysians are bound to benefit due to the high value of the ringgit ( Malaysian currency) vis-a -vis the Indonesian rupiah. At the same time Indonesians find a captive market for their products. But the attraction of Serikin lies also in its ample and wide range of products from household items, personal attire and accessories, food, furniture, handicrafts and souvenirs, herbal medicines, toys, etc. Today the sun was pouring its heat and the tiny road that tugs the stall on both sides were shyed-off by visitors as they preferred to walk under the sheltered canopy of the stalls. Despite the heat I thronged together with hundreds of other eager Malaysians to savour a little of Indonesia. Probably this place may turn out to be " Little Indonesia " in future.


A collection of rattan furniture under shade - book shelf, easy chair, sofa and blinds are available.

Foreground: Rattan winnowing pans, food covers

In Malay or local native culture ( Iban, Bidayuh , Kelabit and other Orang Ulu) the rattan is very much ingrained into their daily lifestyles. Rattans are used for ties or fasteners for scaffolding and timber building construction, strings for various purposes e.g. rafts, carrying baskets for industrial, domestic and personal uses, cultural artifacts, furniture, handicraft or souvenir items e.g. bangles, handbags, food covers, mats, chairs, fish traps,etc. Such is the versatility, robustness, intricate as well as bold applications of this forest plant. ( Inset: rattan mat in cu)

You can be spoilt for choices. Rattan mats of varying sizes, patterns and material mixes ( e.g. rattan plus tree bark) catches up with Malaysian tastes and fads. The prevalence of these mats indicate the richness and sustainability of the rattan plants in Indonesia while in Malaysia these plants are a declining and dying species in large part due to conversion of virgin forests to oil palm plantations and acacia plantations for the production of pulp especially in Bintulu area.


I tried some free samples of chips ( see inset) before I decided to take home a packet of spicy tapioca chips . On the plate were chips from the breadfruit, yam, banana and tapioca. They were all very crispy, tasty ,fried and without any preservatives. In Malaysia now there is a growing interest in the processing of chips as a cottage industry because the rural entrepreneurs produce the basic material plus many of them enjoy some micro -credit assistance from banks and other financing institutions. Many of them are eyeing the export of chips to overseas countries especially Arab nations where consumers are concerned with 'halal' food products and Malaysia is only one of the few Islamic countries that is pursuing 'halal' manufacturing hubs on a global scale. However, for export purposes the products are rigorously manufactured and packaged to meet international standards of quality, safety and longer shelf-life.

The wordings in Indonesian Malay indicate the type of chips available. "Bandung" is tapioca, "Pisang" means banana and "Keladi" is for yam. A packet above costs RM 5 .

Needless to say, today was a fun outing. A closing chapter for my holiday season in Kuching because come Monday I'll need to concentrate on my assignments and they aren't as palatable as chips.,,think confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modelling, multivariate data analysis, SPPS... the list goes on and on and on.....Therefore from Monday onwards I'll be more invisible from the blogosphere radar. Bye for now.

We are Kucing, going to Kuching

Inul (front) and Daisy changing places and seats during the journey.

On the 5th of August, Inul and Mama Daisy teamed with us on their 22nd trip back Kuching. Kuching is 600 km away and would normally take us 10 hours to reach from Bintulu using the singular Pan -Borneo Highway. On this trip Inul appeared to be 'acculturised' i.e. taking the journey well by sleeping most of the time. As for Mama Daisy ( inset) the long journeys have always been her opportunity to indulge in her marathon beauty sleep.

At around 8.45 am we left the farm and after one and a half hours of travel we made a pit stop at Selangau to cool down the engines and tyres. Typical of pit stop places in Sarawak are roadside cafetarias that offer a range of snack and cooked foods for travellers who come and go throughout the day and night by the busloads or individual cars. The most common table offering is the hard-boiled eggs and ketchup .

Hard- boiled eggs and ketchup reminded me of travel along Sarawak roads and rivers. At many pit stops these seem to be a familiar offering, indeed a welcome snack. I ordered thick black and iced coffee to keep me alert while driving, though I normally take chewing gum that could help with excercising the facial muscles and therefore making one less sleepy and boring while at the wheels.
Three hours from Bintulu is Sibu. Here we took a longer time to rest as we decided to have our lunch break for about an hour or so. The dolphin scultpure caught our attention and story about the dolphin and Sibu is narrated on the plaque below. In the background, the tall building and annex is the multi-storey car park and central market complex. A few yards away from the sculpture was where we had our lunch and a meal cost only RM 4.00, which was reasonable.

While the dolphin is the mascot of Sibu, our family of cats (in Malay 'Kucing' = Cat ) is the mascot of Kuching City.

Motorcycles or motorbikes parking area like these are uncommon in Bintulu. This parking place is next to the Sibu Central Market which to my mind is the biggest open market area in Sarawak.

Having arrived in Sibu is a signal that we've just covered a third of the journey to Kuching. Inul ( see inset) is taking the wisdom from Mama Daisy. Just enjoy the long journey by sleeping! Daisy would normally wake up to take some food and drinks just like we do at the many pit stops . On this journey the pit stops were at Sibu, Betong and Serian which are roughly a three hours journey in between them.

Inul enjoys her beauty sleep at 90 km at hour.

Finally we arrived Kuching at around 7.30 pm. Daisy has a sixth probably a seventh sense. On such long journeys she knew well in advance whenever we are about to reach Kuching by jumping to the dashboard as if she instinctively knew ( I guess ) that Kuching is a few miles away.

Note: On this 22nd trip back to Kuching City, our cats have added to their record a cumulative distance of 25,800 km traveling on the Pan- Borneo Highway. Catch more of their record breaking journey by following the link here and even earlier version here.

Remembering PENANG Botanical Garden

The year was 1971. I found myself in a strange land. Coming from a tiny fishing village , very much undeveloped Bintulu was light years of different from Penang. In the middle of 1971, I was enrolled at the University of Pulau Pinang, later named Universiti Sains Malaysia and became the second batch of students from Sarawak to study in the newly created university. On 23rd October that year, I ventured to go places and see Penang like a tourist would do. My destination was the Penang Botanical Garden. Here I share some memorable pictures of the garden then. By the way, the picture above shows how Penang Road looked in the 1970's. Here a trishaw rider pedals a family of foreign tourist around the not- so busy street of Penang. The trishaw with its rider pedalling from behind, has replaced the old man-pulled rickshaw. At the back of the postcard is stated that the printing and publication was done by John Hinde Limited, Cabinteely, Co. Dublin, Republic of Ireland. Obviously it must be a rare thing to see colour photographs made in Penang. As evidenced from my photos, it was the era of black and white. To take the pictures below, I used the services of a photographer who was on standby at the entrance of the Botanic Garden. It took him a couple of days later to send the photos to me prepaid.

Penang Botanical Garden in 1971

Yes, monkeys were every where and they loved to be feed with ground nuts. The early 70's were the " Hippie Days " in Penang and it was fashionable for students to sport long hair.

This monkey kept on following my footsteps, but what a pose she threw in for the remembrance.

The waterfall feature within the garden.

Standing behind a Palms Collection area of the garden. I wouldn't know the name of the big palm tree just behind me then. But judging from its form and leaves, I know now that it must be the Chinese Fan Palm ( Livistonia chinensis)

Finally a pose in between shrubs and a long hedge at the background.

I always think that Penang is my second home and how I wish to settle there in future or maybe just keep a home for an occasional return and remembrance of the good old days. I guess I just need to keep on dreaming.