Borneo Break: A Day Out in Mukah

Mukah is the centre of Melanau culture and there is a place called Lamin Dana Water Village, which houses a Melanau Cultural Center just near town. By the way, Melanau refers to a group of people who live on the island of Borneo, in Sarawak and in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Melanau are among the earliest settlers of Sarawak, and speak a Northwest Malayo-Polynesian language and just as many of them are Muslims as there are Christians.If you are not visiting the Melanau Cultural Center, it would be nice to pay a visit to the wet market at the town's waterfront. You could find delight from watching the various types of fishes sold there, traditional cookies too especially those made from sago. If you do get tired of all that, just hang around to watch the ships and boats that harbour at the estuary and if you are lucky like us, you'd get to see the locals practising rowing their boats for a dragon boat race. Apparently, there was to be a water regatta in Dalat some 15 km the next day and much though that I would like to visit that little town which I had heard about from a short story How Dalat Got its name, I was sorry to say that we would be making our journey back to Miri the next morning...

At Mukah's waterfront...

Practising for a regatta...

Fishmonger with his wares..

Visiting the Melanau Cultural Centre...