Morning comes…

When morning came that first morning when my missus and I were in Bintulu, we had to go to the airport…

…to pick two aunties of mine from Kuching, one Ah Ee (mother’s sister) and one Ah Kim (mother’s brother’s wife), as my cousin was busy and I offered to do that for her.

The Bintulu airport is nice…

…smaller than the one in Sibu but it is as good as new, unlike the one in Miri…

It was very cold inside when we were there that day, a welcome change from the hot and dry weather that we are experiencing here currently.

When the two ladies had landed, we took them to the hotel to check in and then, off we went for breakfast here…

…which was in the same commercial area as the hotel where we were staying. I could not see any name anywhere so I do not know exactly what it is called. Most of the stalls were closed (on Mondays) except for one bak kut teh stall and since we did not fancy that, we settled for this one…

…instead.

I had the piansip mee, dry (RM4.00)…

…which was in fact, kampua mee plus pian sip…even though on the stall, it was listed as mee wanton which it definitely was not, not at all!

My missus and aunties had their chao chai bihun (RM5.00)…

…and all in all, we thought that what we had were all quite good but yes, things in Bintulu are obviously more expensive than in Sibu and I did think that my noodles had too much msg in it, so much so that I had to endure the lingering taste for quite a while before it disappeared.

After breakfast, we dropped by this bakery…

…which was right across the road from the coffee shop.

I remember my very dear friend, the late Jimmy, bought these pineapple cakes…

…from there for me when he was still teaching in Bintulu. Good grief! They’re RM2.40 each!!! The ones in Sibu are selling for RM1.50 and I already feel that is mighty expensive. I certainly would not want to fork out all that money for that one small mouthful when I can go for a nice plate of kampua noodles in Sibu for the same amount or maybe just a bit more, depending on where you go.

They do have the mini ones as well now…

…and a whole lot of stuff that people would go to Taiwan and buy and cart home…

…to give to their families and friends.

I loved the sun biscuit that my friend, Alex, gave me many years ago when he came back from Taiwan after a trip there so I bought two boxes of these (RM2.00 a piece)…

– one for my parents and one for my mother-in-law though I do not know whether they are any good or not as I did not get myself any to try.

My missus bought these panggang sambal (RM3.00)…

…and we had it in the hotel that afternoon for our afternoon tea. It was very nice – the sambal was very fragrant and spicy but of course, the pulut had none of that panggang fragrance…and at RM3.00 each, I certainly would think many many times before buying one.

After that, we headed to the market…

…to see if there was anything we could buy and take home.