For more pictures about the cultural village, please click here.

When I asked my friends where I should visit in Sarawak, they all gave me the same answer: ”Cultural Village”, “Cultural Village”, etc. So I made up my mind that I had to visit that place. However, the entrance fee is bloody expensive, RM60 for an adult. I procrastinated until this weekend when Barry, my new host in Kuching, told me about World Harvest Festival which was to be held inside Cultural Village on the 29th & 30th of May. The ticket is only RM25 including free entrance into the village. I thought that I was being smart, then I felt such a relief that I didn’t pay RM60 for this piece of artifact.

The cultural village is FAKE, SMALL and BORING! There are about 7 traditional houses of 7 different ethnic groups living in Sarawak: Iban longhouse, Bidayuh longhouse, Orang Ulu longhouse, Melanau tall-house, Chinese farmhouse… and well, that’s all.

Those longhouses there are not even long. Each house accommodates one family. I talked to a guy about my age who is living in a longhouse, he told me that the real longhouse is long, this one is just for showcase. It takes about half an hour to check out the entire village. And Jesus, I came during the festival so it was damn packed with people that I could hardly see over the sea of heads. Food, drinks and everything there are sold at tourist prices which is obviously not Chip-friendly. The festival is a 2 day one but we all got bored after about 1 hour, so we left before noon. Blame me for not knowing to appreciate cultural value. I appreciate the effort of the village’s management board to set up the village for the purpose of preserving and showcasing Sarawak’s cultural heritage. Yes, the village is definitely worth checking out, but it’s not worth the blooding money we have to pay to enter it.

Another thing that disturbed me at that village is a perverted 60-something man with very big ears. He was the supervisor of a small house inside the village. When I was there, he asked me a lot of questions and tried to show me around. I thought he was friendly, so I asked to take picture with him. He tried to hugged me really tight and then whispered to my ears: “Kiss me”. I was too shocked to react before he suddenly touched my boobs! People started to flock in. I don’t know if I was being nice, or I was shocked, or simply because he was old and I didn’t want to cause him trouble, I left without making any noise. I should have slapped his face!

The only experience worth noticing during my visit there is the “worm eating” show I did in the cheers of about 100 schoolboys which Ray was kind enough to call it “cheap entertainment”. I was walking through food festival at the Iban longhouse (they call it “festival”, but actually it was just a long table where they put some local food) when I saw this:

Seeing the STUPID TOURIST sign on my face, a lady came over to explain to me that it’s sago worm, a kind of food for some indigenous tribes in Sarawak. She told me that I could eat it raw, and showed me this:

Didn’t want to feel this soft slimy worm struggling in my mouth, I decided to have it cooked. I picked this one, a big fat one:

And the lady slaughtered it like this:

And I ate it: put it in my mouth, chewed then swallowed.

The lady told me that it should taste like chicken, but I felt like I just kissed the perverted old man mentioned above. Eww!

Tags: Bidayuh, Iban, Kuching, Longhouse, Malaysia, Sago Worm, Sarawak Cultural Village, Worm Eating