the Happiest Place in Sarawak

With Heather's scrap still pretty ginger, we decided to take it super easy the next day, and hit the local tourist trap... the Sarawak Cultural Center.
Borneo is made up of 4 states, Sarawak, Brunei, Sabah and Kalimantan.
We are in Kuching, which is in Sarawak.
The state has a number of distinct cultural groups, both indigenous and immigrants.
The centre is the government's attempt to showcase all the cultures in one afternoon.
People from each culture are paid to live their culture for the amusement, err education of tourists, mostly mainland Malays and Chinese.
Sort of like the Asian section of the It's a Small World ride in Disneyland.
Bottom line, no root covered trailed, spiky palms, or crocodiles... easy day.

The long houses are built on stilts to protect from predators, both animal and man.

More ladder than stair, allows the natives beautiful asses.

Nothing says I appreciate you boss, than a tiny monkey carved from coconut, Merry Christmas Steve.

Riad's inherent gift for music wow'd the natives...

Kill 3 balloons with the blow gun, win a fabulous prize. The native manning the exhibition had the same expression of carnies everywhere...

And we were wondering what the heck happened to all those Malay kids due to the school holidays... they're at the Happiest Place in Sarawak.

Like a Vegas show...

except someone loses their head by the end...

Heather had her face painted...

and was able to find the one stop in the whole place making sweets, tiny sago and cocoa cakes...

Soo Lee, was suppose to be there representing the Chinese immigrant influx during the late 19th century, instead she deftly represented awesome.
After telling her we live in Cali, she started talking and talking and talking... she is planning a trip there one day, and it gets hot in the house, and there are lots of bugs, and her cousin gave her this miracle Lavender lotion that stops the itching, oh and she also gets "wind in her tummy" and the lotion helps with that too...

You are truly building cultural bridges when you can chat about farting with the locals... lesson learned Ambassador Lee, everybody farts.

We met up again for dinner with our new crew, who are all officially invited to come over and hang with us any time in Southern California.
Are the Bacchus's shrinking or are Australians and Dutch generally giant people.
We look like pygmies next to these freaks...