We pushed off to Sarawak Cultural Village on the very next morning after we've had our breakfast and a quick yoga session at the yoga studio (yes, Nanga Damai has a yoga studio with a breathtaking view! I love the fact that I'm able to still have a little bit of proper yoga practice during my trip, so thank you for booking this place, Mun)

Yoga studio in Nanga Damai. Image taken off it's website

We paid RM60~ for the entrance fee into Sarawak Cultural Village each. The fee is a little expensive to our agreement, for foreign tourists and even for us Malaysians. We were given a small (passport-like) book that has a map of the area and some information of each tribe in Sarawak.

Beautiful landscape overlooking mount Santubong in the beackground.

Bidayuh crossing

Entering the Iban longhouse

"Dulu bunuh orang, tengkoraknya dibawa balik, diraikan dan dipuja. Sekarang, bunuh orang terus masuk lokap!"

Sape done by the Penan tribe

Soothing sape music at the orang Ulu longhouse

Melanau Tallhouse

We ended our tour trough the Sarawak Cultural Village with a 40minutes cultural show in the amphitheater. All in all, it was definitely an amazing educational visit to get to know a little if not more about the backgrounds and history of Sarawak tribes and cultures. I used to always get confused with the tribes in Sarawak and Sabah back in high school so this is kind of a refresher on my poor knowledge of Malaysian history.

We decided to walk back to our homestay after spending the whole morning in the cultural village and a quick stop for lunch at the food court in Damai beach central. Somewhere in the midst of our journey, we stumbled upon a group of local boys enjoying their weekend off by the river. We decided to stop by for a little while to get some shade off the scorching hot sun and at the same time cringing ourselves watching the boys jumping off the cliff into a small lagoon-like in the middle of the river bathing pool - Pandalela's style. Salah terjun sikit memang flat jatuh atas batu!

Damai beach central right opposite the Cultural village where we had our lunch and dinner the previous night.

Walking towards Santubong National Park's entrance from the main road

We continued our journey towards our homestay but not forgetting to stop over at Santubong National Park for a little trekking adventure. Not that we're up to doing the difficult trails, nor that we're capable to do the advanced Santubong hiking; we decided to only do the shortest (15minutes) trail towards a small waterfall with a clear bathing pool. That'll do.

At the registration canteen.

Not in the best pair of shoes to go trekking. It wasn't even in our itinerary in the first place.

The clear bathing pool at the lowest part of the waterfall

We did not regret a single bit having to walk back to our homestay even in the middle of the sunny afternoon. We wouldn't even stumble upon these findings if we were to just take the car to and fro the cultural village and our homestay. Sometimes you just have to let loose a little and go off track from your plans to experience such things that you least expected. It was undeniably the most memorable and amazing experience we've had during our trip to Sarawak.Experiencing nature at its best.  No doubt.