MALAYSIA & SINGAPORE Continued
Sarawak, Kuching & the
Semenggok Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre, Feb 14-16
Back in Kuching, on the 15th we headed out to the Semengook Wildlife
Rehabilitation Centre where they help animals found injured or
rescued from poachers, rehabilitate them, & then set them
free back in the jungle. We were going to see the orang-utans,
however, it was fruit season in the jungle (the center is located
at a jungle's edge) so our chances of seeing any were very slim.
This actually demonstrated the sucess of the centre! The orang-utans
were self sufficient enough and could live in the jungle well
enough they did not need the humans to feed them. We didn't see
any orang-utans, but did see many jungle animals that we had
missed laong the way. Large birds (the Hornbills, eagles, and
many others) were in large cages, as well as lemurs, the sun
bear, & the long haired bear cats, which really did seem
to be a cross between a bear and a cat. The centre was very well
run and we enjoyed seeing the animals close up as well as all
the pretty flowers along the way. And we were very lucky, it
actually didn't start pouring til that afternoon.
In the afternoon we headed back to downtown Kuching. We had seen some great local stools carved with human figures at the Pelagus resort and we thought one wouldn't be too big to send back to USA. There were many stores along one road, and soon we fell under the spell of all the hand carved furniture & local objects of art. Each store was packed wall to wall with only small walkways inbetween all the incredible wooden pieces stacked on top of each other. However, many of the objects were made out of iron wood and were really heavy including the stool we found. I knew we could never afford the shipping. Then we asked the fateful question, how much was it to ship to Denver, Colorado in the USA? Turns out shipping is done by volume and not by weight, and a one cubic meter container (about the volume of a 3ft cubed container) is the smallest shipment we could send. It would take 3 months to arrive (not a problem for us) and was very reasonably priced. This coupled with the fact that each piece in the store was so inexpensive and beautiful, I suddenly felt giddy. After a quick conference outside the store, between me and Aaron ("Should we do it? What do you think?") we were shopping and filing up the container at the Bong Gallery. I was a kid in a candy store, it was awesome. Up until this time, we only bought wall art which we really liked, and that was light and inexpensive to send home. This was the first time we were buying big things and of course we gave away all our furniture before we left, so we really needed these things!
Here's a list of the objects we bought: a 7ft longhouse ladder with heads as steps, two 6ft carved doors, a carved chest, a carved picture frame, a headhunting sword (guess who wanted that item!), a rice paddy god, a carved human figure, stool, and a 6ft long crocodile. We kind of went nuts, but it was all so beautiful, at such a great price, and we had to fill up our container! The total weight turned out to be 101 pounds, and they used a forklift to put it onto my father-in-law's vehicle when he and a friend went to pick it up in late April. So we'll have lots of art in our empty home when we're back!
That night we ate at an open air, fresh seafood market and was one of our last Asian meals. All the vendors were around the perimeter displaying their fresh seafood and the head waiter at each set of tables would yell for you to come sit in their area. The food was awesome. The next morning we flew to Johor Bahru and then took a bus to Singapore.
Audio Clip - Sounds of Semenggok. Those are monkeys living wild in the jungle. The centre is right in the middle of the jungle.
Is it a bear? Is it a cat? It's a bear-cat!
Laura at a typical restaurant - flirting with the men
Picture of the Bong Gallery - a cubic meter container to fill.....
