MangoVine
Adventures in East Asia

Entries in Malaysian Borneo

 19 September, 2009
Saturday Longhouse Visit Part 1 - Annah Rais Longhouse Adventure
The reason for Linh and I to fly over to Malaysian Borneo was to visit and stay over in a traditional Longhouse village. We didn't need it to be a long (!) intense stay, just a short experience to see what it was like, and so we found the Annah Rais Longhouse Home Stay adventure. It seemed to be the most popular and well known Longhouse experience and was also mentioned in our guide book.

Annah-Rais-Avenue

Longhouses are the traditional buildings and homes of the inhabitants of Borneo. They are the very centre of communal life, and built on stilts, may contain up to one hundred individual families in separate units built under one long roof.

Read more... 19 September, 2009
Saturday Kuching Part 4 - Hungry Ghost Festival in Kuching and the Tua Pek Kong Temple
On our second day in Kuching, at the elaborate Tua Pek Kong Temple (the oldest Chinese temple in Kuching) opposite our hotel, a scaffold construction was put up and across the road from there, a stall was set up with lots of food and ancestral worshipping items.

Ghost-Festival-Day-Temple

Read more... 18 September, 2009
Friday Kuching Part 3 - The Sarawak Museum
We had high expectations for the Sarawak Museum in Kuching. We'd read that it's regarded as one of the best museums in the whole of Asia, and there are amazing competitors for that title elsewhere.

Sarawak-Museum-Main-Exterior

Sadly, we should have disregarded that description and just gone with an open mind. As it happened, we were distracted by the aged presentation of the first building we explored, which might otherwise have been interpreted as "charming".

Read more... 18 September, 2009
Friday Kuching Part 2 - The Streets and Markets of Kuching
Our first full day in Kuching, in contrast to our arrival the previous day, was a pleasure! With brighter skies and bustling stores along colourful streets, Linh and I spent part of the day sifting through shops and markets as well as explore the streets.

Kuching-St-Shop-Fronts

I'd made a mental note to return to Kuching in the future purely to get wooden ethnic crafts, furniture and decoration for my home. The best place for this appeared to be Jalan Main Bazaar (photo above), which was historically the centre of town and is the oldest street in Kuching dating back to 1864.

Read more... 17 September, 2009
Thursday Kuching Part 1 - Arriving in Malaysian Borneo and the Kuching River
After our excursion to the lovely beach resort at Pulau Tioman, we took another three night trip from Singapore, this time to Malaysian Borneo. We had to fly over to the island of Borneo and stay over in its largest city, Kuching. The main reason was to experience a stay in a traditional Longhouse but more on that in later posts.

Kuching-River-View

It didn't take long to fly into Kuching and once there, to get a taxi to our hotel, which took less than half an hour. We stayed at the Harbour View Hotel, which as the name hints at, was next to the Sarawak River. Kuching is actually the state capital of Sarawak and sits on the banks of the river.

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