What I Found In Sarikei But Not In PJ & KL

I am back in Sarikei, Sarawak for a short vacation for the 6th time. This 5th largest town in Sarawak is roughly the size of PJ Old Town plus New Town. The people over here seldom walk from their home to the town, but instead move around often in their car. Kopitiam can be found in every road, and sometimes there are several on the same road.

I found many interesting stuff in this town, and some of the different ones from what we have in PJ and KL are shared below.

> Landmark of the town
Sarikei is famous for pineapple, and they have 2 pineapple landmarks in the town. The main one is located at the jetty and it is next to the Clock tower. It recently underwent a cosmetic facelift, and many locals complained about the color. It looks more like a ripe pineapple now, and this means the "ong lai" feng shui is no longer so ong.

PJ is supposed to be Bandaraya Inai Merah, but there isn't any landmark to reflect it. Meanwhile, KL's "famous icon" only appears whenever it banjir (kuala lumpur).

> Cheap pau
I was surprised that I can find cheap but delicious pau here. The Sarikei pau looks the same as those found in smaller towns around Malaysia like the Tanjung Malim pau. It is definitely different from those I bought in PJ. Our PJ pau resembles the Hong Kong type. The best part is the price, where I bought 8 pau for only RM4. You can compare the size of the "Char siew" pau with my Blackberry.

> Clean river
Sarikei has 3 main rivers surrounding it; Sungai Rajang, Sungai Sarikei and Sungai Nyelong. I can say that I am impressed with the cleanliness of the rivers. Not only the river, even the town itself is much cleaner than PJ. At least their rivers look and function like a river. Sungai Penchala, which is near my house used to be a river filled with rubbish. After cosmetic restructuring, it became a longkang with rubbish.

> Turn left sign
This is an example of a simple thing being intelligently used. I think this kind of sign can be found easily in many towns in Sarawak. But this thing is non-existing in PJ and the supposedly intelligent MSC city KL and Putrajaya. That is why we lost a lot of useful time waiting unnecessarily at the traffic light, and also resulting in long queue during peak times.

> Wedding wishes ads
The locals like to place their wedding well wishes in the newspaper. There is no way someone can hide his marriage from his neighbours or the kaypoh uncles and aunties. I'm not sure if it's popular in Sabah also, but so far I only hear about this from Sarawak people. I also have mine appearing a few years back. But to me and my friends in the Peninsular, it is a surprise because what we usually have in the classified section is the "different" kind.

> License plated bicycle
This is no longer enforced, but you can still find old bikes with a license plate on the front. Don't laugh, but they did pay for the plate last time.

> 1Malaysia kopitiam lifestyle
This will NEVER EVER happen in Klang Valley. All I can say is come to Sarawak, go into a kopitiam and observe.