sarawak tourism

Sarawak homestay is the effort done to promote the local villagers to be involved in the tourism sector.

There are about 10 homestay villagers who had been registered with the authority.

SARAWAK HOMESTAY
KAMPUNG MALUDAM, BETONG	KAMPUNG PUEH, LUNDU
KAMPUNG BENUK, PADAWAN	KAMPUNG PANGLIMA SEMAN LAMA, KUCHING
TELOK MELANO, SEMATAN	KAMPUNG TELAGA AIR, PADAWAN
KAMPUNG SENAU, OYA	KAMPUNG MONGKOS, SERIAN
RUMAH PATRICK LIBAU, NIAH	RUMAH LULUT TISA, KAPIT

Featuring: KAMPUNG PANGLIMA SEMAN LAMA, KUCHING

The village is situated across the Sarawak River, offering the traditional Malay experiences for the staying tourists. The program that started in 2003 with the collaboration of Tourism Ministry, made the effort to treat all guests like a member of the family.

Amongst the features of the programs are:

a. 'kek lapis' fresh from the oven

b. traditional fishing and picnics

c. traditional games

d. learn to do the traditional handicrafts

e. join the villagers in the daily activities.

The villagers are encouraged to product handicrafts to be sold to the visitors. The program has managed to atract guests from many countries such as Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, German, USA and France.

Transportation

To reach the village, take the 'perahu tambang' from Waterfront Jetty to Kampong Boyan Jetty. Then there will be 30 minutes walk to the village.

The village is also accessible by road. See the Google Map.

We hope you have a beautiful experience with sarawak homestay.

Bidayuh Homestay Kuching

Bidayuh is also known as land dayak found in the west part of Sarawak. They actually are made up of a number of similar tribes.

One of the village of the Bidayuh is Annah Rais, situated about 65 km from Kuching.

The map below gives a better description of the location.

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The homestay program offers 2 basic packages, 2 days three night for RM 298 and the 3 day 2 night for rm408.

The Activities.

- The hot spring -bathing in the villages hot spring can be an refreshing experience

- participate in the hunting trip.

You can try the blow pipe, but they say the darts are not sharp and not poisonous. May be they think that you are going to kill the animals for fun, not for food. You can also join them in spearing the fish. It can be fun, and it not that easy. First we need to build a bamboo raft, cut the bamboo trim them and get some rattan to tie the bamboo up to form a raft. Then we had to learn to ride the raft and peddle it. It is not that steady and a not so experience person can easily fall into the water. Then you have to spear the fish, remember the angle of refraction, the fish is not where you see it.

- You can enjoy the trekking in the forest and learn about the plants that can be eaten. Some can give you drinking water.

- You can try cooking the fish that you speared in the traditional bamboo, or easier to barbeque it.

At night, you can join in the cultural show.

More information on Annah Rais Homestay -0168552195

Christmas in Sibu

Christmas in Sibu is one of the events of the year. Thousands of Christians marched the city of Sibu, in Sarawak, Malaysia to celebrate the coming of christmas.

It is known as Yutetide parade, and standing in the parade are several floats, lanterns and school bands. More than 150 school children perform carol at the concert at Town Square.

Among the floats were the ethic float of the Iban Christians. Iban is the largest ethnic group in Sarawak, who was known for head hunting. The practice is no longer followed.

The other floats was the colorful Masland Methodist Church, with mainly Chinese members, as such the writing on the float is in Chinese.

The float organised by St Teresa Church was in the shape of a boat. It seem to float along with the 1000 of worshipers.

In the message of the organizing committee, he urged the political leaders to have the wisdom to implement just and fair policy, so everyone will benefit.

The Christmas in Sibu is a celebration that brought the color to city. Sibu, the second largest city in Sarawak has a large predominant Christian population.

Appreciation:

The article was written in the local paper the star and the photos were by Philip Hi,

Semenggoh Wildlife Centre in Sarawak

Location

The wildlife center is located in Kuching, in Sarawak Malaysia. It is located about 25 kilometres from Kuching, outside the municipality of Padungan

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The Attractions
The center was established in 1975 to rehabilitate injured or orphaned wild animals from the jungle all over Sarawak. These animals will be undergo an adjustment program to prepare their return to the natural habitats. So it is not exactly a zoo per see.

The interesting time will be the feeding time. The times are 0900hrs–1000hrs and 1500hrs–1530hrs daily. These are the times where you have a better chance to see the animals. However sometime you may not be lucky. While recuperating, orang utans prefer to come down to the wildlife centre for the free food, they can also find wild figs, durians, young leaves, insects, flowers, eggs and lizards in the surrounding expansive forests. In fact, the occasional disappearance of these orang utans is certainly a good indication that these adorable primates are slowly adjusting to the real wilderness and are able to forage for food on their own.

Below is an extract from a local paper about the center:

THE number of visitors to the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre (SWC) in Jalan Puncak Borneo near Kuching is increasing rapidly and is expected to reach more than 190,000 this year.

The manager Jen Sangel said: "In 2008, there were 77,220 visitors and last year we recorded 89,226."

The increase may be due to air fares that were affordable for travel to Sarawak, he said.

Local visitors comprised 60%, including those from Sabah and Peninsular Malaysia, while foreigners made up the remaining 40%.

Natural setting: Jen explaining some points to Waever and his wife at the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre near Kuching.

The foreigners were mainly from Europe, Britain, Australia and the Middle East.

Entry to the centre costs RM3 for adults and RM1.50 for schoolchildren, Jen told StarMetro after briefing Danish Ambassador to Malaysia Svend Waever and his wife Karin Gunilla Waever who visited the centre on Wednesday.

Most of the visitors want to catch a glimpse of orang utans, which are found in the rainforests of Borneo.

Jen said there were 27 orang utans at SWC and two other centres in the state.

The orang utans had names like Aman, Manap, Saddam, Selina, Annuar, Nora, Ritchie, Doris, Delima, Murray, Angku, Sedudu, Baka, Mamu and Ting San, he added.

He said that Aman was blind, but regained her sight after successfully undergoing an operation last year.

Other activities at SWC include jungle trekking (three trails) and bird watching.

The Waevers were in the state capital for a three-day tour and visited various tourist spots and landmarks in the city.

On Thursday, they paid a courtesy call on Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Alfred Jabu at his office in Wisma Bapa Malaysia in Petra Jaya.

Waever said he was gathering potential business ideas and propositions for the state.

"There are no Danish companies in Sarawak, but I see potential. Palm oil will be an important product," he said. The ambassador left for Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Getting There

It is about 25 km from Kuching. You can go by:

1. Taxi, the taxi driver will wait for at the entrance for you to complete the visit. The waiting time will add to the cost.

2. By the Kuching local bus. You can take the Sarawak Transport Company (STC) bus #6 is on the main bus stop along Jalan Barrack. Here you can find most of the STC buses waiting for passengers before proceeding with their scheduled journey. It only cost RM3.

appreciation: this posting is based on:

Story and photo by KERNI PUAH
sarawakstar@thestar.com.my

Kuching Tourism

Kuching has the potential to be the center for tourism in Borneo. The main attractions are in the following areas:

a. The rich multi-culture of the population. Each of the ethnic has their own unique culture, dress and celebrations and festivals. What make it more attractive, the different groups are able to live harmoniously with each other. We have the dayaks with the Gawai, the Orang Hulu with the kenyah dance

b. The unique animals had been attracting a large number of tourists. Where else people are able to play with orangutan or the long-nose monkey. They can do it in Sarawak.

c. The festive mode of the people will draw a certain group of tourists. We had recently held the rainforest musical festival, The Sibu festival and recently the Sarawak Boat Race or popularly called the Sarawak Regatta.

Sarawak was once famous for the headhunters. They dont do it any more. However in some areas, the tradition dies rather slow. They still take pride in the forefather's collection of the heads and are ever willing to show what they have.