Sarawak Cultural Village or popularly known as SCV is located near Damai beach. To get to here, one needs to either come by car or bus, as it's a 40 odd min drive from the city centre itself.
For us, as we stayed in Tune Hotel, we just went to the Riverside Hotel concierge and book our bus tickets to get here. It's RM10/way and RM45 for admission fees. These shuttle bus runs every few hours, so it's best to find out what time to go...
As Sarawak is made up of many different indigenous tribes, the SCV showcases all of their attributes in one location. Pretty nifty in that it saves you time from laking those long boats and visiting the real deal... although this would come close.
The SCV is also home to the famous Borneo Rainforest Festival...
After entering, one of the 1st things you gotta do is to walk across this bridge... built of bamboo...
Yes dear. I am behind you...
But 1st, one gotta climb up these steps ...
River... what river??? :P
Great way for a kid to learn balancing here...
And we come to the 1st tribal house - Bidayuh. Click on the image to open in full size and read...
What else would you expect? Microwave oven???
The house, when view from the outside resembles a round pancake design with a high roof. A fire sits underneath the hole in the roof. If you notice, there are 2 ... skulls hanging up there...
There isn't much between the floor mats and you... and the ground beneath.
The fire that is now, filled with embers and ashes...
"Ohhhhhh... I can't bear to look. He's carving another one..."
This is what the house looks like from outside. One thing you would notice is that all tribal houses are built on stilts; both as a form of protection from creepy crawly's on the ground (you wouldn't want unintended visitors right) and also from water, as in flood, etc...
Self explanatory on the board.
Next, the largest tribe in Sarawak, Iban.
Their house is looooong. It's more like halls, than anything else!
Musical instruments.
Farming equipment.
Am sure they still pretty much use these stuff up there in the jungles...
More musical instruments.
And this is the house taken from the opposite end.
From another angle... Airy isn't it?
What got my missus interested was the fact that the stage had tree's growing right through it. No, it's not a design flaw, but one that takes the environment into consideration.
Penan's.
Not much as the are nomads... So the houses are small as they tend to move a fair bit.
And here's another biggie.
Can you spot my missus up there? :)
Yep, it's a tall tall house...
Interesting flooring design.You wonder whether it's for aesthetics or for traction?!
Old meets new... I'm playing with the times brother!
"Come on, let's have a jam session..."
And what's he carving?
A wall ornament!
As this house is situated high up compared to the rest (as in hill slope), you get a nice view of where you are in the SCV.
View of the Iban house from waaaaay across.
Yes. We are going a climbing up that stairs!!!
Yes dear, no TV, Hifi, Computer... :P
They use mangrove wood and as you can see, gaps are there. Although it does it make the house airy... Maybe that's why our houses are so darn hot. Zero ventilation!!! All these houses have tons of it!
The bedroom chambers.
More steps Luv...
Big and tall best describes it.
What you get from Sago. We were hungry and so the food that was made by her, Sago Pancake was walloped by us in no time... and then we realised that we forgot to take a picture of it!!!
The common Malay house which we didn't enter but for any foreigner, I would encourage you to take a look.
And finally, the Chinese house.
I think if the missus could, she would be envisioning herself as the slave driver and me having to work this grinder... :D
There are 2 live shows that are staged at the auditorium @ 1130 and 1630H. These are free, and you shouldn't miss them at all. Heck, even the people in SCV will shoo you to head towards to auditorium! :)
And that's next, the stage performance.
