Pontianak is one of the big cities in Indoneisa. Pontianak(Khun Tien) is actually the word used by the Malay to call a woman ghost (kuntilanak in Bahasa Indonesia) who died of childbirth , thus she preys on pregnant women or babies, driven by jealousy. Formerly the area was only dark forest where few dwellers so that they call it the place where the ghostly spirits live.A dutch historian, VJ. Verth, wrote in his book that The Dutch entered Pontianak in 1773 M. According to VJ. Verth, Syarif Abdurrahman, the only son of Syarif Hussein bin Ahmed Alqadrie (alias Al Habib Husin) left the Mempawah kingdom to look for the fish in the sea. In Banjarmasin he married the sultan's sister: Ratu Sarib Anom.He was a very sucessful merchant that he could arm his lancang and pencalang boat. With the help of Sultan Passir, Syarif Abdurrahman managed to pirate the dutch 's boat near bangka while the British and French ship ported at the Passir port. Eventually Abdurrahman became a very rich man and open the new land near Kapuas river. He discovered the river branches of landak and developed the area into the trade center which is known now as Pontianak.
With the majority of Chinese (31.24 %) and Malay (26.05 %) Pontianak Dayak ,Pontianak has lots of unique scenes. There are lots of local coffe shops where the gentlemen drink the famous "Suka Hati" coffee and fried banana and other fries during the evening. Some of the coffee shops have big TV screens for the visitors to watch the football games.
If we take a closer look at the city, there are many funeral agents providing services for the Chinese community. Each agent caters for certain clans of family: for example Funeral Agent A provides services to Tio Ciu Family while other clans are served by other agents. As one clan can consists of a big number of people and each of them has its own traditions.
Another interesting thing here is that there are privately-owned fire fighter station. When any fire occurs, people in the neighbouring areas will be ready to use barrels full of water to shower the fire. The state fire fighters are not found in Pontianak as they rely on their neighbours in case of fire.
The water is not consumable so the people of Pontianak use the water from the rain. They have some kind of containers on the rooftop and pipes that flow the water to their washing area.
Pontianak is famous with its spicy tamarind, dodol durian and kwetiau. Indonesian people conotate oranges to Pontianak as the famous sweet local oranges are from Pontianak. You should also try the aloe vera ice when you visit the city or soyabean milk (es air tahu) .The food stalls in Pontianak serve curry rice like this with chicken or lobster on top. If you are an avid pork consumer, you will feel very lucky to be in Pontianak it is available with reasonable price at the food stalls by the side of the street.
