If you’re travelling between Sibu and Bintulu and beyond or to Mukah, you would pass by the Selangau bazaar. Long long ago, it was just a row of wooden shophouses and the buses would stop beside it and you could just enter any one of the shops and go straight to the back to answer nature’s call…and you could grab something to eat or stock up on snacks for the rest of your journey.
I was on my way to Mukah once and I did what everybody else was doing and went into a shop there. There was a woman doing the laundry and she said that the toilet downstairs was occupied and asked me to use the one upstairs. Gee!!! I really felt uneasy as I would not be accustomed to having strangers coming into my house and going upstairs to the living quarters some more, no way!
Well, eventually, they built some nice concrete shophouses at the location where the bazaar currently is and all the people there were asked to move. If I remember correctly, there were objections from left, right and centre at the time – I guess they would lose the business of the passengers on the many buses that passed by every day as those huge vehicles would not be able to turn into the bazaar proper for people to go and patronise the shops there.
These days, they have what they call rest stops – two big ones…and some smaller ones like this one…
…where we stopped for brunch that day when we were sending Melissa back to her rural/jungle school, some 20 km. or more from the bazaar.
Of course, they’re nothing as nice as the ones along the highways in the peninsula, not even close but at least, one would get to use their VERY CLEAN toilet, free of charge…and have something to eat. They even serve western cuisine at this one such as, according to the menu displayed, mix grill and lamp chop [SIC] but I guess it is most convenient to have the chap fan (mixed rice) and since we were quite early, everything was all still hot from the wok…
I particularly appreciated their effort in placing everything in a covered cabinet like this…and not in the open, all exposed to flies and what not like what I have seen in some places.
Melissa had this…
…while the mum had this…
I did not want rice so I opted for the fried noodles instead…
…but they turned out to be not particularly tasty – I guess it was cooked Foochow-style which would pale in comparison with the much more flavourful Malay or mamak ones. The chicken wing was all right and I liked the long beans – crunchy and sweet and not overcooked till so very soft.
The bill came up to RM23.00, inclusive of drinks, so it certainly seems that things are not all that cheap at such places…or not at this one, at least. After all, we only had chap fan mostly unlike what we had here and I did not expect it to go beyond RM20.00.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 