Day 1: Kuching

It was supposed to be an usual annual trip back home to visit my family members. However, it was not the same for this year. I went back with 5 friends of mine. We booked the flight tickets together last year during Air Asia’s promotion. It was not the first time for me to bring my friends back though. The last time I did that was back in 2005. Never would I imagine to be doing the same after 9 years. The only difference was my friends went to Sibu with me too.

My baby brother was already in Kuching. Therefore, he went to the airport to welcome us. Since my parents had moved back to Sibu, we neither have accommodation nor transportation. Therefore, we booked a few rooms at a hostel as well as rented a car from my mother’s friend.

The first thing that we had was Sarawak Laksa. Initially I was a bit worried that they did not like it since Penang was famous with its own Asam Laksa. Fortunately they love it. And now they are missing it. I also ordered gongpia for them to try. Mostly I wanted it but yeah, I wanted to have a taste what gongpia is. I go crazy over it because it is one of my favourite dishes back home.

After we had filled up our stomach with food, we decided to go for some adventure. I wanted to bring them to Semenggoh Wildlife Centre but it was still closed when we reached the place. Therefore, we decided to explore the nearest longhouse.

It was my very first experience to walk on a real longhouse. It was far different from the ones in Sarawak Cultural Village. Of course they no longer use the traditional stairway. Most of the things are modernised.

When it was almost two in the afternoon, we went back to Semenggoh Wildlife Centre to witness some real orang utan. We had to wait for about one hour or more for the feeding period. Fortunately we managed to see a pair of mother and baby orang utan. At least worth the sweat. One of out friends even went to the point of taking off his shirt. The horror.

After a long, tiring afternoon, we resumed our food hunting at night. My baby brother brought to us a place that is famous for its kolo mee, For your information, I am not a kolo mee fan but thanks to this stall, I like kolo mee. Of course if, only if, kolo mee was bought from them.

We continued second round of food hunting nearby where I brought them to taste my top dish, char koay teow tomato. Yes, it sounds weird but it is really good. Not all stalls that sell char koay teow tomato are good. For this, the taste of the tomato was not strong enough.

We ended our first day quite early because we would have a longer day the next day. Stay tuned!