犀鸟之乡

Xue Min’s translation for the title:
Footprints on Bumi Kenyalang


This is the title I wrote on everything about Sarawak trip, my organizer, my calendar, my alarm title, my planner…I was so excited when I talked about Sarawak trip with my housemates before Raya break last sem, editing the plan during end-of-sem 1 break, discussing with yaya on the day of Academic Briefing this yr, before/during/right after Finals. Even on the 1st and 2nd day in Kuching,I still possess this extraordinary High mood! The day I m mentioning below was a fulfilled day :)

5月22日

13th destination: Semenggoh Wildlife Centre


I feel so thankful to Roland’s parents for sacrificing their weekend spending with us. Early in the morning, after having another bowl of Kolo Mee in Kuching, we headed to Semenggoh Wildlife Centre to see Orang Utan. As we know, Orang Utan, Hornbills and Rafflesia are the MUST see “living things” in Sarawak. During this trip,we were lucky to see many Orang Utan in the wildlife centre. An additional scene, Uncle drove Ten, Douglas, Yaya n me in his car during the journey. At the back seat, three of us were sleeping like a pig until we was awakened by a huge bump. What’s a great alarm! Haha..Uncle said we managed to see many orang utans this time than he could before. In the wildlife centre, the staffs just located some fruits like bananas and coconut on a platform and the orang utans would come to pick themselves. We also walked in 200m into another feeding site where we saw an enormous orang Utan (“Hot Mama”). There were many foreigners, taking photos, amazed by the smart creatures we have in the tropical rainforest of Malaysia. Haha..the two clever things I saw from the orang utans are: 1. They are flexible gymnast; 2. They stucked as many bananas into their mouth before leaving the platform so they could enjoy them on the rope.

14th destination: Annah Rais Long house, Padawan

This could be a more “valid” longhouse compared to the longhouses we visited in Cultural Village. Although it is commercialized (which we have to pay to visit), there are still ppl (probably bumiputeras) living, but with TV and Astro. We got a small glass of Tuak (Ibanese Rice wine) at the entrance and we walked past the houses until we reached the headhouse. 顾名思义，there are SKULLS inside the house. However, they weren’t that scary. They were just there in a white metal cage. Later, we walked on a wooden bridge which Matt shaken it. We also had our another experience walking on a single wood stair up the house. Haha..it was just fun!

15th destination: Hotspring

I gotta scold yaya about this, she is totally a Blur Queen! We went back to the car THRICE and everyone had come up when we finally settled and wanted to dabble. 1st: “Oh, we should bring our slippers and change”; 2nd: “aiya! I left my handbag in the car!” walao..i just reminded her before that. We met Roland and he followed us back to the car; 3rd:”I think I didn’t lock the car...”!!! this time I was not following her back into the car. When she came back, she said “actually I did lock the car.haha..”felt like boxing her.

Undoubtedly,everyone has come up when we reached. Roland didn’t want to go into the water, yaya’s wearing skinny jeans. Playful me wouldn’t miss the chance and I dragged Ming to follow me down the water. The place was quite cool!i mean, there is a river flowing with cold water and there are three areas surrounded which are the Hot Springs!haha..i can stand with both the temperatures. Near my house at Bkt Belacan and Ulu Langat, the water is cooler and hotter.hihi..Uncle took some nice photos of me and Ming.thx,Uncle!

16th Destination: Jong’s Crocodile Farm


Jong’s Crocodile Farm is located quite far away from the Hotspring. It’s at 17 miles, near Ming’s house.we had our late lunch at Sugar Bun, a fastfood restaurant that could not be found in West M’sia. I couldn’t even finish a Fish Burger,what happened to my gastrointestinal system?? Luckily I have Ms.Vacuum Cleaner… ;) after all, when I visited Jong’s Crocodile Farm, I really gotta shout:

“I Hate CROCODILEs”    but I like my crocs slippers :p

The first thing we rushed for was the Jumping Crocodile Show. It was actually crocodile feeding session. The staff (敢死队) hang a half chicken from the pondok and used reels to move the dead meat above the pond full of crocodiles. So now it’s Jump & Eat. The hungry crocodiles have to jump up to reach the meat. Two outcomes:

If they succeed, you could see the crocodile bites on the dead meat and pulls it down from the rope. Splash, the crocodile’s heavy body falls into the dirty pond water and it swallows the meat.

If they fail, you could also hear the splashing of water, but now with an additional voice of bloody mouth closing of crocodile. It simply sounds like knocking two wood planks. Plus, you have to worry that crocodile becomes too mad and start to attack person (though there was a fence between us and the disgusting crocodiles). I sincerely don’t think that it’s a suitable way to “feed” the crocodiles in a Joking way.btw, crocodiles are ugly creatures.

Jong is also a zoo. We saw many different animals in the huge compound there, for instance long fat fish during feeding session, sun bear, monkeys (common relatives), sambar dear (Roland’s relatives), peacock, an ostrich like bird (Chinese name:新几内亚食火鸡), otter, porcupine and a lot more. There is an exhibition showing crocodile pictures outside the zoo. I almost vomited when I saw the photo which a boy corpse missing one leg was found inside a crocodile body.(feel 恶心now). Luckily I am not going to be a doctor, cuz I heard someone said “你以后要成为医生，不可以怕这个的。” another excuse for not choosing Medicine ;P

17th destination: Ming’s Orchard

We have been talking about his orchard since sem 1, in INTEC and in Kuching. We oways say Ming is the Tauke Kia and now the Tauke Kia invited us to his orchard. The tauke (his dad) owns an orchard at 17 miles. He plants mainly honeydew and corns. There, tauke gave us briefing about the honeydew grows and taught us some basic how to pick the ripe honeydews. The technique is to choose the honeydew which has yellow area on its head and many rings on the skin. That will be the sweet one! According to tauke, his honeydew planting technique is imported from Taiwan.

Here’s a LAME truth:

Q: Why honeydew is known as 哈密瓜(har-mi-gua)?

A: Honeydew is actually a species arises from several species of melons. If a person doesn’t know something, what would he or she say? “Har Mi? (in Hokkien, means What) so,the name of Har-Mi gua is beautified and become a nicer name of 哈密瓜.hahaha..

Plucking Jagung is another fun process!everyone of us had the chance to pluck jagung using the scissors. It is relatively easy to pick the Jagung, just pick the one with big size! Eventually, everyone plucked more than one and we had more than enough corn for our BBQ dinner at Luke’s house at nite.

18th destination: Luke’s (babe) house

Luke’s parents invited us to their house at Kuching for BBQ dinner. Indeed, Luke’s dad had BBQ for us and what we gotta do was EAT n EAT n EAT!it was also a very sumptuous meal. There are fried noodles, lamb chops, fried squid, chicken wings, prawns, tapioca leaves, fruits and definitely Corns from Ming’s orchard.haha.. before the dinner ends, there’s a suprising moment. Luke and Matt prepared a birthday cake for Ming who is going to be 19th on the next day. Haha..i supposed Ming and his gf were surprised a and Ming blew all the candles in a breath! I spent my most formal party night at Luke’s house.Why did I say that?

Ming

Usually we would have an entertainment session for a party. For this party, we have awesome musical concert, performers starring Roland the violinist and Luke Ming the guitarists. Before they start, the rules are mentioned: pLz turn ur handphone to silent mode & all electronic devices, photography and videography are prohibited. (that’s how it became so formal) Roland the Pro started playing his pieces from pre- level to ATCL while commenting on how boring they were. He would be perfect without the talkings and luckily he cancelled out the “snoring” part he had during the “rehearsal” yesterday. Luke Ming, plus a radio (Luke’s bro) and a laptop (Luke’s cousin), theirs were more modern songs. Matt finally sang along and it ended up everyone sang. Wai Yee was so miserable that she hugged Jie Hui and cried.. I suppose everyone was sad at that moment cuz 6 of us were leaving the next day. We left before 1am (the radio and laptop shut down automatically at 12.30am). The moody feel made me more tired and sad.

第4天，

这么快，计划了这样久的Bumi Kenyalang trip就要结束了。第一天还担心自己不能适应，转眼间第五天就要回家了。愉快的时光总是过得特别特别快。我们不能阻止它流过，只能把握当下，珍惜与朋友在一起的每一刻。

Johor的朋友明天就要回了，5个小时后，又轮到我飞，离开在Kuching的朋友。我会超想念、超想念你们的，虽然一个月多后我们又会在INTEC见面。我很认同Ek Wei讲的一句话：“在很大压力的INTEC，我们彼此依靠着对方。虽然回去会见面，但在INTEC和现在的感觉很不同”。虽然我是PBSM，我还有家庭的寄托，但她的话也让我感到很伤感~

more photos available at FB awesome-cool-SHUAI