Last weekend I made a trip to Johor Bahru with my friends to see for myself the Iban Market or Pasar Tamu that I’ve been reading in several articles before this. Waking up at 5.30am on a Sunday morning is unusual for me but because I was very excited to go to the market in search of exotic wild animals I manage to get up. It took me about 25 minutes from my hotel at Taman Tampoi Indah to Taman Megah Ria at Pasir Gudang.

It was still pretty much dark when I arrived at the market but there was already a huge crowd buzzing the market competing with each other for the limited selling items. Stepping my foot in the market quickly transported me into virtual Sarawak. Traders and buyers were bargaining in Iban language. Friends and families were chit-chatting in the familiar Iban language and Malay Sarawak.

Basically you can find almost everything like what we have back home. Items on sale are mostly jungle produce such as bamboo shoots, wild ferns (including midin), buah salak, asam paya, umbud (palm-cabbage), cucumber and pumpkin leaves, tapioca leaves, daun sabung etc. There’s also traditional kuih such as penjaram, kuih cuan, kuih sarang semut and kuih jala.

A friend of mine, who lives in JB and frequent the market for his weekly supplies of vegetables told me the night before that there are also exotic wild animals such as fresh wild boar meat, deer meat and fermented wild boar. There are also live water terrapin, civets, and many other wild animals being sold fresh catch from the night’s hunting. Unfortunately, much to my disappointment, there were no exotic items on sale that morning.Besides vegetables, you can find fresh water fish, kasam ikan (fermented fish), ikan salai (smoked), belacan Bintulu (shrimp paste) and even the famous Sarawak’s terubok masin. The only exotic item on sale were the sago worms and live frogs.

The flash from our camera attracted the crowd. A man was observing us from far and slowly, he finally approached us. He introduced himself as John Chendang, the chairman and the responsible person behind the success of the market. He thought that we were from the press. John gave us a quick statistics about the population of Iban in Johor which is now around 30,000 people, mostly commuting daily to Singapore to work.

When I asked John why is there no exotic itmes on sale that morning, he further explained that the market only allow traders to sell halal items because there are also Muslim customers from the local community actually visiting market. Those traders who came to sell exotic meats are not registered under the programme and are considered illegal traders, who took advantage of the market.

(Seen here Macmi from tukanggambar.com with John)

Apart from the jungle produce, on sale in the market were local Iban/Sarawak magazines and newspapers such as Senawah, Pegari, Kenyalang and Utusan Sarawak.

At around 7am, a VCD peddlar put up his stall and played Iban hit songs to attract the patrons. The karaoke VCDs and audio CDs on sale are all imported from Sarawak. Mostly are Iban songs and some Bidayuh songs as well.

There’s even customized T-shirts from Sarawak on sale but very limited choices.

There are room for improvements! I would suggest as an immediate action, the traders should setup proper stalls with table and canopy instead of displaying their products on the floor. They should also put on some lightings either sourced from their car battery or from a generator instead of relying on torchlight and the dim streetlights located some 50 meters away. I heard these traders could make hundreds of Ringgit in a couple of hours hence I’m sure they could afford to invest on these vital assets. As a conclusion , the experience was great! I am proud to see fellow Sarawakian Dayaks being so enterprising in foreign land.

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