Day 6, 7 & 8 Bintulu, Sarawak

Day 6

What a wonderful night I had!! I was clean and I had a comfortable bed!! No mosquitoes and there was air-con!! Nevertheless, my thoughts of the people at Rumah Rajang was with me the entire time as I took my bath, slept on a comfortable bed and enjoyed the air-conditioner.

The day was pretty mundane as we went around town, visiting the pesticides shops, doing our monitoring. As we went about town, I realised that ever since I stepped into Bintulu, I have not seen any Indians!! I've seen Malays, Chinese, Indonesians but not any Indians!! Then I realised that maybe Chandrika (another colleague of mine) and I may be the only Indians in Bintulu!! There wasn't even an Indian temple in sight!!

Anyway, like I said, Day 6 was spent entirely in town, with us surveying the pesticides shops. After dinner, the group dispersed and Mel and I went back to our hotel.

Day 7

Today was a busy day as all the groups were to gather back at the hotel and hand in all the questionnaires. Chandrika and I had the task of going through every single questionnaire to make sure that everything was filled up and that the handwriting was legible. After doing this, all the group leaders had a meeting to report back on what went wrong, the problems they faced..etc. Once this ended, we all headed for lunch. By then, it was 4pm!!

That night, Michael, Nyumbang and Chandrika made me go down to the hotel lounge as they had a surprise for me. When I reached there, the one-man band started playing song after song from the Alleycats' repertoir!! And I had Michael to thank for that as he was the one continuously requesting for the songs!! During the singer's break time, he even came over to our table to chat with us as Michael had excitedly told him that my dad was once in the band!! And, as usual, I was asked to sing!! OMG!!!

Day 8 - Leaving Bintulu

After breakfast, Mel and I had our final tour of Bintulu Town. We walked from the hotel to one end of the town, took some pictures and took our final look of Bintulu. We experienced so much during our 9 days in Bintulu and the friends we made.... was the best part. Though Michael, Nyumbang, Mujah, Niko and the rest were all older and wiser than us, we never once felt as though we were being treated like kids. Instead, we all worked as a group, bonded as friends and as we left Bintulu, I felt that I had left a piece of me there. I know that if I ever went back to Sarawak, I'll have friends there.

The end.....