Sibu & Miri 1

27/8/08 & 28/8/08.

I left my home yesterday and took the LRT to KL where I took the Putra Line to Sentral and then the ERL to KLIA. I boarded the MAS flight and reached Sibu at 10.30 in the morning.

On the LRT I met a politically interested school boy. He was in the sixth form, I think. I don't remember how I we got talking, I think he started by asking where I was going and then the conversation promptly went to politics. It was a short conversation because I think he was unprepared for my answers. I think he was expecting the usual 'how bad the government is' or 'those bloody oppositionists' sort of talk but what he got instead was my brief 'politics is not just about power, its is also about responsibility and our people have only learnt one half of the equation' position. I admit it was a little amusing to see the "errrr, what was that again?' look on his face when he found himself unprepared for the answers to his questions.

At the airport, there was a young man, an executive, from the looks of it, begging the counter staff to let him onto a plane because he had to attend to meeting somewhere and his boss, he says, would not understand the concept of him missing the plane. He said he was only a few minutes late due to traffic jams. Personally, I am not sympathetic: I have been in that situation before, when you know you are going for I've been there before and if he's a Malaysian he should know that the just-in-time approach doesn't work in Malaysia… then again it doesn't work anywhere in Asia for that matter. Oh what the heck, it doesn't even work in Europe and the US if you are post-colonial enough to admit the truth. The folks I know there are constantly complaining of missing things just because they hang on to this myth with surprising tenacity.

I am writing this in the Sibu airport cafeteria while I wait for my 4.45 flight to Miri on the 28th of August. Its 3.40, I have already checked in and ordered my ice-lemon tea with no sugar.

So what have I learnt in Sibu this time?

First and foremost, if you are dining at the Tanahmas Hotel, avoid the minestrone soup… it is not a minestrone soup like you would have anywhere else. Here it’s a clear vegetable soup with broccoli and cauliflower. However, I strongly recommend the Laksa Sarawak at the hotel. It is by far the best Laksa Sarawak I have ever had at a restaurant in Sarawak and, by far also, the most generous helping. Okay, admittedly it is also relatively expensive but it was worth it. So squeeze the lemon into the grave and have the accompanying sambal belacan. Perhaps, it is not something about which one would wax lyrically but it was definitely notable. In short, I returned to my room last night with a smile on my face after the laksa.

On the plane, I noticed that the head-steward spoke Malay with a Mat Salleh sengau (nasally accent normally associated with Westerners and taken by locals as a sign that the speaker supposedly spoke English more than Malay but that is not usually the case) and he spoke English with a distinctly Malaysian accent. He even mispronounced a few words and used distinctly Malay based phonetics). So, in effect the man butchered both languages in a brief moment of microphone fondling. I wonder if it means that they need better language training at MAS.

28/8/08

My first Fokker flight. I left Sibu on a Fokker 50. All flights I have taken before have been on Boeings. The twin turboprop jet propelled plane sits 50. The stuff inside looked somewhat aged, I have the impression that they have been pulled off the Boeings. The plane still felt solid though. What was interesting was that it flew much lower than the Boeings. I could see the landscape all the way from Sibu to Miri: green, green and more green. I guess if the weather was bad the plane would be really shaking because when we flew into some clouds, it shook quite a bit. The landing was smooth enough. All in all I enjoyed my first trip on a Fokker and I was so thankful that we didn't have to go through the bad weather that I saw from a distance.

29/8/08

Work at the Miri teacher training institute.  the rest of the day was spent in a room at the Grand Palace Hotel.  I sampled the Laksa Sarawak at this hotel too but I would have to say that the Tanamas one was better. 

When I arrived at the Miri airport that night at seven, the weather was clear but it began to rain later.  when it was time to take off, it was raining cats and dogs and various other animals. 

We arrived at 11.15 a little shaken but none the worse for wear.