Labuan is a duty-free island exactly like Langkawi. Dr M tried to encourage offshore finance in this island in the 90s hence it became a duty-free island and home to almost all the banks that exist in Malaysia today. You would ask, why such a small island and so many banks, that's because all the international banks have to have an office or something like that in Labuan before they were allowed to step into any other part of Malaysia to open a branch. But most of these banks opened a proxy office in Labuan since it has such a small population.I've had some tight schedule during my first trip to my sweetie's beloved home. First two days were about buying offering stuff for Qing-Ming (tomb sweeping). My sweetie's dad left them a couple of years back, so it's about buying some paper made slippers, crocodile brand polo-t, cigarette and millions of hell-money. Hehehe... It's really fun.
A few culture-shock that I have includes:
- The thick mee-hoon (they called it the China, "Gui Ling" mee-hoon)
- The mandarin word "ba" that is used at the end of every sentence, juz like our "ma"
- The side parking that I always see the car enter the parking spot head first instead of butt first
- Related to item #3, since you enter side parking with the head first, 95% of cars in Labuan park their butt outside the line
- About 50% of the people there are Phillipinos and Indonesians
- Majority of the Malays in Labuan speaks in Bahasa Indonesia, even though they are Malaysia citizen
- The road signs, traffic lights, lamp posts and even the trees in Labuan are shorter than usual
Then sweetie brought me around the whole island on the remaining 2.5 days in Labuan. Love that place. If you think of buying a bottle of plain water at RM2, you might as well buy a bottle of Heineken at RM2.60.
Took quite some pictures of sunsets and beaches. Will post them up once I finish processing and sort them out.
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