Visiting a Bidayuh longhouse

Now it’s time to blog about my 5-day trip to Kuching. (even though I have not finished blogging about my working trip to Europe last year :P ) I hope that after this, I can go back and write about Europe.

We landed at the airport at 9:15am, and drove our rental car immediately to the Annah Rais Bidayuh Longhouse.

The "tourist information centre", where we buy our tickets

We paid RM10 each to enter the longhouse village. There seemed to be nothing to stop us from just walking right in without buying tickets...but I guess it wouldn't be good if they came chasing after us (it was obvious we were tourists!) The table beside the entrance had small glasses (shot glasses) and a bottle of tuak; my father asked what it was and we managed to try some. I had read some reviews saying that they would let us have a glass when we purchased our entrance ticket, but they didn't offer us any before we asked about it.

As for the taste of the tuak...we didn't find it very good.

They actually did not give us any "ticket", just a sticker each. I asked whether we needed to stick the sticker onto our clothes, but they said no. After paying, we just walked in.

steps leading up to one part of the longhouse (on the right are more "normal" steps)

something curious being dried out in the sun

then we found that curious thing that was being dried

It was some sort of potato crackers...very thin and crispy! The seller let us try some, and we bought a packet to eat immediately. Unfortunately we didn't see it again after we left the longhouse; there seemed to be none in Kuching town.

They had this small room which seemed to be like a mini-museum; the door was closed, but a resident nearby told us we could go in, saying that it contained history.

See the skulls?

there was a sugarcane crusher, though I have no idea how it works

overall view of the longhouse village