Kuching

And I could feel my throat, my eyes drying up, stinging at times.

Although the air quality fluctuates, the readings were hovering above the hazardous level, over 300 in and around the state capital, Kuching, and neighboring Suryang district as well was declared emergency for five days.

And people were told to work from home, schools were shut.

You know, it's something very difficult for the locals because many of them work in the fields, in the farms and markets.

So we got backpacks on and flew to Malaysia and had, you know, the usual backpacking experience, and there was one point in the trip where we had to take a very long bus ride.

I think it was either to Kota Kinabalu or Kuching.

It was like a 12 or 13-hour bus ride.

It was all night, and they played the whole bus ride Asian karaoke very loudly, which everyone on the bus seemed to enjoy greatly, but we did not enjoy it 'cause we just wanted to sleep 'cause it was an all-night...

Marudu Bay is actually north Borneo or what we see as, uh, present-day Sabah, north of it.

So he dropped by, uh, paying a courtesy call, and the British governor told him, "Since you are in that route, on the way, could you just drop by at this place called Kuching on the northwest coast of Borneo, and please, on behalf of the British government, uh, at Singapore, bring these gifts to a local ruler there who had been very kind to help our seamen who were shipwrecked and send them home back to Singapore with a craft as well as food, water, et cetera." Of course, Brooke agreed, and he went over there to Kuching.

The Royalist sail up the Sarawak River, and for the first time, he saw Kuching.

Kuching, of course, was a very small, little settlement, and it was there that he met the Raja Muda, Pengiran Hashim, who was heir to the throne, but he was actually the uncle to the current sultan, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin II.

What he did was he gave the gift on behalf of the British governor of Singapore, and of course, Hashim welcomed him with open arms.

And at that time, why was Hashim in Kuching? Back in 1823 or in the early '20s, antimony was discovered in what we call Sarawak, the Bau area.

It's kind of-

That's in the Bau area

And Selangor will compete with-

...

Kuching for it.

And I think the frustrating thing from a Selangor point of view, you look at how they're playing now, you look at the squad composition.

If only they were in Asian competitions this year-

So they just became, uh-

It's not Kuching, become Pocing, huh? [laughs]

[laughs]

Pocong Kuching lah.

Yeah.

Pocing.

In the Iban worldview, the puakumbu weavings were an interface between the community and the ancestors.

Most of the Iban people in Sarawak are based around the capital, Kuching, and in the upriver and eastern coastal region.

Many live in the city, but others are still living in communal longhouses, like an old-fashioned terrace street but under one roof, traditionally made of thatched palm leaves, although nowadays often of metal.

The puakumbu are made using a tie-dye technique, but if that suggests some brightly coloured hippie t-shirt, think again.

At the end, all the raffia is untied and the white shapes which haven't been dyed are revealed.

The whole process is shrouded in ritual and is immensely time-consuming.

Many of the secrets of Pua making were only revealed as recently as 1988, when a workshop was organised in Kuching, at which many master weavers discussed their techniques.

Hand weaving still goes on in some of the longhouses, particularly in the Kapit area on the Rajang River, which flows down to Cebu to the east.

I pity those with young children and those with toddlers because the weather like that is very bad.

I empathize with my friends in East Malaysia right now, especially those in Kuching.

400 api is no joke.

It's no joke.

Mask up guys, please.

I was quite shocked because my staff Her daughter is actually studying in Kuching and the university sent them home last week because of the bad weather.

But today, the poor girl has to go back to the campus.

So authorities, with such weather, with such air pollution index, please decide clearly what you want to do.