View of Sri Aman

Sri Aman is the 2nd division of Sarawak which formerly known as the name Simanggang. The name later changed to Sri Aman as this is the place where Kalimantan communist signed the Memorandum of Understanding with Sarawak government in year 1973. That's why the word "Sri Aman" was chosen where "Aman" means peacefulness. Sri Aman brings the meaning of "Town of peace" and therefore pigeons became the symbol of Sri Aman as pigeons symbolized peacefulness.

[Pigeons sculpture which became the symbol of Sri Aman]

A lot of you may not realize that this small town in Sarawak actually serves special meaning to me and my siblings. We actually had a lot of sweet childhood memories here because this is the town where our lovely maternal grandparents as well as relatives stay. Since we were still small, my mother used to bring us here to visit our grandparents especially during year end school holiday.

Therefore, even though now we were all working, my siblings and I always try our best to steal some times visiting this small town and find back our valuable childhood memories here. This time around, I only managed to went there for 2 days and 2 nights. Certainly it was too short but I had a good time there!

For those who never being to Sri Aman before, I shared some photos here to give you some idea on how Sri Aman town looks like. It is a place worth for short visiting, but long staying may bored you.

[Hoover Hotel - one of the tallest building in Sri Aman town center. Ground floor is Everrise Departmental Store, the only supermarket in Sri Aman.]

[Former cinema building now being used as a hotel]

[Yayasan Sarawak building along the main Sri Aman Bazaar]

[View of some colorful and unique buildings]

[SESCO building in Sri Aman]

[Old shop lots]

[A row of old buildings in town]

[Old Simanggang Foochow Association building near town center]

[Old Standard Chartered Bank building but being fully renovated to be modern-looking ]

[A big temple near riverside of Lupar River]

[The one and the only traffic light in Sri Aman]

[KFC and CCK also available in Sri Aman]

[Another newly built building]

[Some street views]

Sri Aman is famous for its Benak or tidal bore. Tidal bore is a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave (or waves) of water that travel up a river or narrow bay against the direction of the current. This natural phenomenon only happened in few location of the world and Sri Aman is one of them.

This is one of the tourism attraction point of Sri Aman. Therefore, every year there will be a carnival called Pesta Benak held in Sri Aman which attracted a lot of local as well as foreign tourists visiting the place during this carnival.

In conjunction with tourism efforts, government are now building a tidal bore observation station near the riverside. The construction just started and still in the early stage and I guess after another 6 months to a year, when you visit Sri Aman, you will be able to see this observation center near town center of Sri Aman. It is a positive development to the small town especially in tourism area.

[Signboard showing tidal bore observation station construction]

[Construction in progress]

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! ^_^

Finally... My Receipts Are Here!

[Letter of payment approval and balance]

Finally! I got my receipt for my study loan payment! In the previous posts, I mentioned that I called SPANS (Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Awam Negeri Sarawak) to ask for my status of payment as I paid twice but there was no single feedback to me. Then, the lady in charge told me that they did receive my payment in the form of demand drafts and she already prepared the receipts, just that they will only send them once after I made 3 or 4 times of payment.

[December 2008 receipt]

Luckily the lady really keep her promise! This afternoon I received 3 receipts (one for each payment, starting December last year, then January and February this year) and also a letter of payment approval from SPANS. My first reaction when I saw the letter on the table was... "Finally!".

[January 2009 receipt]

Now I can be more relief and can continue making my payment from month to month. If possible, I would like to pay more if I have extra money. But then got rumors saying that this year there will be no increment to our salary!!*_* What a sad news yet I still fingers cross it wouldn't be the case! Looks like I may not have extra money to pay more if the rumors is true!

[February 2009 receipt]

Mana Itu Sangat SMART Punya Tunnel?

Malaysia was so proud of its world-class infrastructure called SMART tunnel. The more than RM 2 billions worth construction even once being reported in Discovery Channel which made Malaysians' nose high to the sky!

"SMART is an acronym for Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel, a project under the Federal Government initiated to alleviate the flooding problem in the city centre of Kuala Lumpur."

Well, I am not the one said so.. but it is stated in SMART official website.

However, I had being understand that after 2 or 3 hours of heavy downpour in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, this is what happened! Just see the photos below. Nothing much to comment... just wish to ask our dear Uncle Sam "Mana pergi itu sangat SMART punya tunnel? Itu orang tidak sempat buka itu lubang kasih itu air keluar kah?".

Want to know how SMART works? You can refer to the links below:

1. SMART in details

2. SMART Wiki

3. SMART project

Yamcha Across Igan River @ Fong Hing Seafood House

The 3 single-available guys - Sparkish, Rojak Toh and me went yamcha again! The idea was initiated by Sparkish and he was kind enough to drive from north to south then back to north again just to fetch us and made this yamcha session a success.

This time, Sparkish was crazy enough to bring us to a restaurant across the Igan river just for yamcha. Actually before this, the idea of yamcha across the river already being suggested by Sparkish for few times, yet because of some unavoidable circumstances, the plan had been forced to cancel.

This trip was not an easy one either. On the way to the restaurant through Igan Bridge, we met an extremely heavy downpour which caused driving difficult. However, after about 15 minutes of careful driving, we finally arrived at this restaurant just at the roadside, Fong Hing Seafood House.

[Outside view of Fong Hing Seafood House]

The seafood house is actually a double-storey bungalow which the owner use the ground floor as restaurant and upper floor is reserved for their own usage, probably for staying.

[The inner view with plenty of spaces]

The space for the restaurant is big and comfortable, yet only around 12 tables being stationed there. Maybe it is because of its location near rural area thus the restaurant owner didn't expect too many customers at one time? Just a guessing, but definitely the space can accomodate more than 12 tables, probably 18 would still be comfortable.

[Menu displayed clearly on wall]

The menu was displayed big and clear on the wall, but mostly are quite heavy foods. It is a good place for dinner, yet not preferable for supper.

For drink, I ordered 3-layer-milktea, one of my favorite drink! Sparkish went for wheatgrass ice and Rojak Toh tried a more special drink, something like lemon plum ice. Not quite sure what is it called.

[Drinks - Special lemon plum ice, wheatglass ice and my favorite 3-layer-milktea]

The 3-layer-milktea tasted quite nice with very thick ingredients added in. However I was not sure if they put in too much of pandan coloring or what, my drink became totally green in color after I stirred it. This not normally happened in 3-color-milktea with pandan flavor. Even my toungue was dyed with green color after I drank it which caused Sparkish and Rojak Toh kept laughing at my ghost-looking tongue!

[My 3-layer-milktea became totally green after stirring]

For foods, Sparkish ordered a claypot fish noodles. Not sure what kind of fish they used for this dish, but overall it looked nice and delicious. However, the box paper under the claypot used as heat insulation a little bit affected my appetite. The claypot fish noodles costed RM8.

[Claypot fish noodles]

Rojak Toh had not much idea what he would like to order as he just took his dinner about an hour ago. After a long thought, he decided to go for more ordinary one - sizzling fried noodles. The noodles looked not bad really, although it was ordinary, but the noodles came with quite a variety of ingredients such as red carrots, vegetables, mushrooms, eggs and some sotong as well! It costed RM4.

[Ordinary sizzling noodles]

My turn to order. Well, actually I was looking for lighter foods as I tried not to further expand my belly! Yet there was no light foods available on the menu. I was planning to consider longer before placing my order, but the big size guy - about 3 times larger than me who was writing the order sounds a bit impatient already. Therefore, I quickly scanned through the menu on the wall and first dish that caught my eyes was this - Sizzling prawn noodles! "Ok, just give me sizzling prawn noodles", I told the giant guy hopefully he won't lose his patient.

[Sizzling prawn noodles still boiling]

When the giant guy was writing the order, suddenly I thought of why not I order Kueh Tiaw instead of noodles as Kueh Tiaw has lower carbohidrate than noodles and that may minimize the impact to my belly. Thus, with scared voice, I asked the giant guy, "Halo... err... can I change noodles to Kueh Tiaw?". The giant guy replied me softly, "Of course you can". Gosh! Scare the hell out of me! Luckily he didn't kick me out! I felt more relief after that.

[Closer look on the sizzling prawn noodles]

The sizzling prawn noodles tasted quite nice with about 5 middle size white prawns, some red carrots, baby corns, mushroom and also fried bean curds. However, I think the white prawns were not fresh enough.

[Look yummy?]

Maybe a lot of you may not know I am "selective allergic" (TM) to prawns just like some people are "selective myso". (If you have no idea why I mentioned about selective myso, just forget about it.. nothing important really). Why I said "selective allergic"? Because I'll allergic and my mouth and throat will feel the itchiness if I eat prawns which are fresh enough. I didn't feel any uncomfortable inside my mouth or throat while eating those white prawns, so I dare to say that they were not fresh enough. Honestly, they didn't have much taste. The sizzling prawn noodles was priced RM10.

[Mini Kailan fried with oyster sauce]

To add more nutricious, vitamins and fibers to our supper, Sparkish then placed a side order - mini Kailan fried with oyster sauce.

Gosh! Those noodles were really big portion and I felt very full after eating it! Felt so guilty for myself and my stomach! To make myself feel better, I tried to convience myself that I didn't eat like this frequently! (I was cheating myself! How fool I am?!!).

Before we went back home, Sparkish gave us a ride to a deeper part of the rural area. We almost fly into the river when we didn't realize we were approaching the end of the road because there aren't any road sign! Luckily Sparkish didn't drive fast and stepped the brake on time. ;p We also accidentally met a Proton Wira parking at the end of the road with some people in there... well I think you can imagine what they were doing at such quiet and dark condition... we guessed so at least... hehehee... what do you think?

Thanks Sparkish for making this yamcha session a succes!