Ian’s curiosity got the better of him so we pulled over to check it out. The tubes were filled with rice that had been soaked in some sort of green liquid and then roasted over the fire. We purchased one which the woman removed from the fire and then she peeled away the bamboo with pliers leaving the rice intact and held together by a very thin almost paper like layer of bamboo and then sliced the tube of rice into segments, just like sushi. The rice was tasty and I cannot begin to describe it or think of anything with which to compare it. Ian greatly enjoyed the novelty of the whole experience.
We made our way to our resort which is lovely, but the rain makes even the most impressive resort seem downright depressing. So we dropped our bags and went to explore the area. We drove through a couple of local villages ‘kampungs’ and found our way to the little gem that is Buntal. Locally quite famous, Buntal is a tiny village full of nothing but homes, fruit and veg stands and seafood restaurants.
We picked a restaurant at random for our lunch and were richly rewarded. The crab was clearly a local speciality so we asked the woman at the restaurant which was best, she didn’t speak much English but knew what we meant so she pointed to crab with egg. We also ordered some salt & pepper prawns and sat back and waited for our food to arrive. Shortly thereafter we received a huge pile of prawns fried and served on a heap of sea salt and the famed local Sarawak pepper.
Our crab came next, a mountain of cracked crab stir-fried in some sort of sauce which definitely contained egg and 5-spice, but after that I’m lost. It was delicious and messy. Fat and happy we returned to the hotel to digest and have a quick siesta. When we awoke it wasn’t exactly sunny, but there was at least a large patch of blue sky over the beach so we took a stroll and spotted some sea otters and decided that we should most definitely return to Buntal in search of our dinner.
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