Sarawak, (14-17)-12-2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A Dutch friend of mine was going to marry a Bidayu lady and invited us to attend the ceremony, which would take place in Kg Taee, near Serian. A good excuse to visit Sarawak again and also add a few more waterfalls to my list! We arrived in Kuching in the afternoon and had a pleasant walk along the waterfront. There are many food stalls along this promenade and we decided to have some simple food in one of them. Mistake! Those stalls are tourist traps, we paid RM 12 for two bland-tasting watermelon juice, the kolo mee had no taste and the satay had seen better days. To be avoided at all cost! We walked back to our hotel through Chinatown and had a meeting later with some friends in a nice cafe, where they served tuak :-). Of course the discussion was about waterfalls. The two girls had information how to go to the Julan fall, the tallest, most impressive waterfall of Sarawak. See the picture! Hopefully it will be possible to organise a trip to this remote fall, next year. The next morning we drove to Serian, 60 km south of Kuching, for the church ceremony. Next we went to Kampung Taee where the newlywed couple was welcomed by traditional dancers. In the afternoon we first visited the nearby Ranchan Recreational Forest, with a nice series of waterfalls and cascades. Next stop was the Semenggoh Orang Utan Rehabilitation Center, where we were fascinated by the huge and gracious "Forest People". There was even time to relax at the Panchor Hot Spring Resort! Hm... resort? Back to the kampung, where we had dinner together with ~ 1000 other guests! It was a modern party with more beer than tuak. But there were traditional elements, as the pictures show. The next day we visited the Gunung Gading National Park. It is the Home of the Rafflesia, but we were not lucky, a few days earlier there had been a flower, but it was already gone. However, there are beautiful waterfalls and the park is very well maintained. After a short visit to the Pandan beach, we felt hungry and went looking for a seafood restaurant. And we found one, in the middle of nowhere, near Lundu! Good food, fish, butter prawns, soup, paku (young fern shoots), beer and that all for RM 38. Unbelievable..:-) It was already night, when we drove back to Kuching, using a secondary road, where we had to use a ferry to cross the Rambungan River. An interesting experience. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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