Before the sun sets…

That day, after the not-very-fruitful visit to the Ramadan Bazaar, I had one restaurant in mind for our dinner and since it was a public holiday, it was not that difficult to find a parking space – normally, we would avoid the area as trying to park the car would be near impossible unless one is really very lucky.

However, it was just after 5.00 p.m. and the place would not be open till 6.00 p.m…

…so we decided to go to the pasar malam (night market)…

…close by to stroll around. They moved it back to the original place not long ago but they are back here again now, the place where they call the Butterfly Garden, for whatever reason, I wouldn’t know. Those as old as me would remember this place as the location of the old bus terminal way back in the 50’s and 60’s and maybe right through the 70’s.

They were saying that there would be some massive renovations done to make the site much nicer, with a roof and all, but I did not notice any difference from the way it was before. For one thing, with the shops/buildings all around, though not protected from the rain, this place is well-shaded so one would not need to endure the unbearable heat of the scorching sun – this was just before the sun had set so it was still very sunny at the time.

We were early so there were not that many people around…

…and many stalls were not even up yet.

A lot of them were food stalls – one can grab a pack of chap fan (mixed rice) from this one…

…and I saw that a number of these roast meat stalls…

…were all ready to roll.

I spotted this dumpling stall…

…that I did not see before on my previous trips – probably, it is new…

…like one lok lok stall but I did not take a photograph of that one and of course, there are those stuffed kompia and Sibu-style sio bee…

…but I wouldn’t know if they are any good or not as I have never tried any of those from here before.

For some, the booze…

…and the cigarettes…

…at the pasar malam are an attraction, with some unique brands not usually available at the shops.

There is a section with all the Malay/halal food stalls…

…and another section selling non-edibles…

…including this one where I was attracted to the ethnic native Dayak prints of the sarong.

This dog…

…sure got a lot of attention but no, it was the stall-owner’s pet, not for sale.

It was way past 5.30 p.m. already when we were making our way back to the restaurant when I spotted the handsome boy setting up their stall…

– they had just arrived and thankfully, they had some pre-fried at home…

…so we were able to grab all we wanted without having to wait for them to fry and buy them straight from the wok.

After that, it was dinner time but that will be in the next post. Stick around!