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On Tuesday we had a leisurely morning, as it was pouring down with hot rain, then as it brightened up we headed out to the Sarawak Cultural village (SCV). The long bus ride took us out to the Damai and Santubong area north of Kuching home to beaches and the Santubong mountain, which features in our photos of the Kuching waterfront. The SCV is an attempt to recreate Borneo longhouse living. Set round a lake with the mountains and rainforest as a backdrop, there were 8 longhouses/traditional houses representing the different ethnic groups of Sarawak, Bidayuh, Iban, Orang Ulu, Penan, Melanau, Malay and Chinese. The experience is designed so that you can visit each house and see how the tribe lived or still lives. You can watch traditional skills such as weaving, blowpipe hunting, pepper and sago processing. We got there on a quiet day and after the morning cultural show. This meant that there was not much activity in the camp. The blowpipe guy was off on leave, the sago processor had taken a sickie and the weaver had a duvet day...still the houses were very interesting and gave us a flavour of rainforest life.
Wednesday involved yet more culture, a trip to the Sarawak art and ethnology museums. Not much to write home about really, but we did enjoy the air conditioning. We had hoped for some good conditions to enjoy the evening sunset cruise along the Kuching waterfront and further up the Sarawak river and Wedenesday evening was perfect. The cruise started at 5:30 and lasted one and a half hours. It was a relaxing, scenic trip with english commentary, free refreshments (orange juice and Malaysia layer cake) and finished off with a cultural dance show featuring presumably the blowpipe guy, the sago processor and the weaver doing a bit of moonlighting. There were dances by the Iban, the Biduyah and the Orang Ulu. Paul got some great photos of them in their costumes. A very enjoyable evening. Thursday would be our trip to Bako national park, home to macaque, carniverous pitcher plants and the rarely seen proboscis monkey....
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