Flawed-Democratic Federation of Malaysia
Malaysian Borneo
Sarawak aka Land of the Hornbills
New Hong Kong Hotel +6084319168
Clean double room with air-con for MYR 40.- or US$ 11.30 per night.
Click below for an interactive road map of the New Hong Kong Hotel in Sibu and for directions:Exploring down-to-earth Sibu, a rugged frontier town and busy trading post between the coast of the South China Sea and Borneo's hinterland, with a plethora of well-assorted hardware stores, timeless newspaper stalls, rowdy bars and cafes, textile wholesalers, CD/DVD sellers, food and fruit juice vendors, cheap Chinese hotels, and interesting markets: (i) the recently refurbished Central Market aka Pasar Sentral Sibu (where Foochow poultry sellers offer their live chickens and ducks neatly wrapped up in tubes fashioned from old newspapers), (ii) the vibrant and exotic Night Market aka Pasar Malam (where we could buy a package of four cans of ice-cold Tsingtao beer for as little as MYR 10.-) and (iii) the many colourful "floating supermarkets" (berthed right opposite the Tua Pek Kong Temple) which service the riverside kampungs and longhouse communities along the Batang Rajang and its tributaries.
Leaving our reliable Vietnamese Deuter backpacks in the reliable New Hong Kong Hotel, teaming up with our reliable friends Jessie & John from Singapore and Australia respectively, taking the rugged, torpedo-shaped 20-knot Ing Choon express boat (MYR 12.- or US$ 3.40 per person) for the 90-km long ride on the wide and stately Igan River from Sibu to Kampung Kut, then sharing a Toyota van for MYR 3.- each (with a boozy and/or stoned Malay driver who was driving under a lot of influence...) to the Melanau town of Dalat, situated by the Oya River, and eventually hiring a boring Proton taxi (MYR 45.- or US$ 12.70 for the four of us) from Dalat to Kampung Tellian Tengah near Mukah, nicknamed The Melanau Heartland.
Click below for more blog posts about Sibu
14 Aug - 16 Aug 2009 Sibu
30 Jul - 03 Aug 2009 Sibu
Click below for a summary of this year's travels
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