July 3rd, 2016

Day 95: Semenggoh Orangutan Reserve & Sarawak Cultural Village

For our last full day in Kuching, we made the most of the day by packing in two day trips, each in different directions from the city. First stop was the Semenggoh Orangutan Reserve. Honestly, we only visited the reserve to see how it compared to Bukit Lawang in Indonesia – it came up short, as we knew it would. After all, it was a more legit wildlife refuge, where tourists were told to keep a safe distance from the orangutans – unlike Bukit Lawang where semi-wild orangutans held your hands hostage for food.

 

Catching the No. 6 bus from the city center at 7AM – full of fellow Westerners, all headed for the Semenggoh Orangutan Reserve

 

From the Semenggoh entrance, it’s a 2KM walk through the reserve to the wildlife center.

 

The feeding platform does not open until 9AM, so we spent an hour wandering around their education area, where we read up on orangutan behavior in general, as well as the specific information on the animals in the reserve. This is the one aspect we felt was done better than Bukit Lawang – the data tey kept on the individuals in the park was really cool to know.

 

The wildlife reserve also housed two – rather large! – crocodiles. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any information on these guys, so we have no idea why they were there. In fact, we initially thought the second croc was a plastic fake – he looked too big to be real! On second glance, however, we realized his mouth was suddenly open, when it was closed before – freaky!

 

At 9AM, a park ranger corrals all the tourists and tries to announce the guidelines for the viewing platform. Igor’s face says this is going to be a shit-show

 

About a hundred tourists gather on the platform to see 3 orangutans (young male, and a mother and baby) come and pick up food from the platform. Since orangutans are not “social” apes (they are solitary, rather that travelling in family groups), it’s rare to see more than one at a time. Also, all the food is left on the platform all day long, so the orangutans know they can return later in the morning when other orangutans (and the tourists!) have left. Seeing 3 in an hour is actually a really good day for this place.

   

Walking through the Bamboo Garden on our way back to the return bus at 11AM

 

Lots of pretty flowers along the road – the reserve actually had several different gardens on the premises (Orchid Garden, Ethnobotanical Garden, and a Fernarium!), but for some reason they were all closed.

Once we got back to Kuching, we booked it across town to the Grand Margherita Hotel, which runs a minibus shuttle to the Sarawak Cultural Village, which is next door to their sister property, the Damai Beach Resort. We made it just in time for their 12:30PM shuttle.

The Sarawak Cultural Village is a “living museum” showcasing the traditional homes, clothing and crafts of the 7 main ethnic groups of Sarawak, Malaysia: the Bidayah, the Iban, the Penang, the Orang Ulu, the Melanau, the Malay and the Chinese. Igor kept calling it “Disneyland” – I would say it was a little closer to Epcot Center. It was a very cute, educational activity (each guest got a “passport” book where they could collect stamps from each cultural house), with a big dance performance finale schedule for 4PM, right before the park closed.

 

Taking the shuttle bus from the Margherita Hotel to the Sarawak Cultural Village – where everyone gets a “passport” to Malaysian culture!

 

The village is set up a lot like a Disneyland, with “performers” set-up at each cultural house. There is a morning and afternoon “performance”, each culminating with a dancing spectacle. We arrived at 1PM, early for the afternoon performance at 2PM, so we had time to grab lunch. While Igor got his trusty Nasi Goreng, Lindsay got adventurous with a banana-leaf chicken and lychee bubble tea – yum!

 

First stop on our cultural tour – the Bidayah Longhouse

 

Inside the Bidayah Longhouse we see (and hear) traditional wooden flutes, and “war gongs”, which the tribe would use to signal an alert

 

The second cultural home – the Iban Longhouse

 

The Iban Longhouse is basically a whole village on a raised platform – as you walk along the corridor, each door leads to a different artisan. One woman showed us how her people make clothing out of the bark of a tree, by pounding the fibers into “barkcloth”. In the next room we see a short dance demo.

 

After the dance demo, we see another artisan creating the beaded collars the dancers were wearing

 

The last craftswoman we meet is using a traditional loom to weave a ceremonial belt – or Pua Kumbu

 

The Penang hut was the least interesting to us, mostly because this tribe (which is nomadic and uses poison darts for hunting) is so similar to the Orang Asli that we saw in peninsular Malaysia, the faux recreation could not compare to the real thing.

  

The Orang Ulu house was the prettiest of all the traditional homes, decorated with beautiful designs

 

Visiting the Melanau Tall House, where some performers are practicing a dance

 

Lindsay joined in with the Melanau Bamboo Dance, where dancers have to jump in between bamboos sticks that are slapped together in a rhythm. If you are out of beat, your foot will get caught in the sticks – ouch!

 

Taking off our boots to visit the Malay Town House

 

Two Muslim women sing and play the drums for us in the main room of the Malay house. We definitely get the sense that this is more of an “aristocratic” or wealthy Malay house- not a “typical” house

 

The final house – the Chinese Farmhouse

 

A Chinese woman explains that her people originally came to Malaysia as farmers – two very successful crops were pepper (stealing share from India imports!) and swiftlet bird’s nests

 

At 4PM, we headed over to the theater (which thankfully was air-conditioned, as we were really sweaty by this point), for the big dance show! Each of the cultural group presented a traditional dance – it was very professionally done – to the point where it felt like a commericial for visiting Malaysia.

This song was seriously stuck in our heads for the rest of the trip

 

Just before the final number, the dancers asked for volunteers from the crowd to join in – poor Lindsay got suckered into going on stage – a bit of a joiner today!

It was an activity-packed day – by the time we returned to Kuching, we were exhausted. We ordered Nasi Goreng room-service, paired with a bottle of Prosecco we picked up the night before.