Bus Trip to Sri Aman

Sri Aman, the 2nd division in Sarawak is a small town located about 276km from Sibu. It is only accessible through land transports as there is no airport in the town.

Last weekend I went there with family members to visit my maternal grandparents. We went there by bus express. Actually there are not many buses from Sibu to Sri Aman. Only a bus company, Borneo Amalgamated provided such service and only one trip per day which is at 12 noon everyday.

[A view from bus driver's seat]

But you do have alternatives. You can drive your own car or use Sibu-Kuching bus, but the latter method is more troublesome as you need to stop at Sibu-Sri Aman-Kuching junction, then take any available car to Sri Aman town. The journey from the junction to town only take about 15 - 20 minutes of driving.

However, for some reason we used another alternative to reach Sri Aman. We first used bus from Sibu to Sarikei, a small town located about 1 hour of driving distance from Sibu. From there, we transit a Sarikei-Kuching bus. Sarikei-Sri Aman is about 3.5 hours driving journey.

[A view from Sarikei bus station]

[A view of Sarikei waterfront from bus station]

The Borneo bus we rode previous day was quite a new one. Comfortable seats and there was a flippable LCD screen monitor in front of the bus! Well, for quite some times I didn't encounter buses with tv provided inside the bus. For this trip, I really couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a LCD tv in front of me. I guesses this must be the latest solution for buses who wish to provide some entertaiment for a long journey bus ride. This technology looked to be more space saving and advanced looking for a bus.

[LCD screen in front of the Borneo Bus]

However, the bus driver didn't switch the tv on throughout the first 3 hours of bus ride. This certainly quite disappointed me, but nevermind... I just concentrate in my sleeping because I didn't sleep well in the previous night! Furthermore, sleep made the journey feel shorter!

[A view inside the bus]

After about 3 hours of ride, the bus finally stopped at a rest place. You can visit toilets or if you are hungry, you can get varies of foods as well as snacks here. If you are a muslim, don't worry.. there were few malay stalls provide various kind of muslim foods here. I guess that's one of the reason why this rest place attracted quite a lot of people to stop here before resuming their journey further.

[Rest stop]

[The grocery store at the rest stop]

[Muslim foods stalls]

[Sibu-Sri Aman "highway"]

After about 30 minutes of stop at the rest place, the bus then continued its journey. The bus reached the junction to Sri Aman-Kuching, this is where we gonna stop. We stepped down from bus, then waiting for somebody (relative) to pick us up and then headed into Sri Aman town, which is just about 25 - 20 minutes of driving journey from the junction.

[This is the junction to Sri-Aman or Kuching]

In the next post, I will review more about the town of Sri Aman. Please stay tune! ^_^