The photo's also showed local people with the traditional ear adornments and tattoos. Alex explained that people didn't feel this was necessary any more, and indeed we only saw the surviving great grandmothers with them. He agreed that Christianity had discouraged a lot of traditions including carving and the making of artefacts related to 'superstitions'. The photos showed the building of new longhouses that were used as bible schools and later in the sequence of pictures the buildings were filled with rows of desks and had bums on seats. They were converted.
In the photos the river ran blue and clear, but that was before the logging started in the early 80's. Alex was currently employed by a contractor of the Malay government, who with prominent funding from China were making steady progression on the construction of a hydroelectric dam about 20km up river from our current location. Alex was in charge of quality control of the concrete. He showed us several pics of workers watering down the concrete in the mixer...a dangerous thing to do when building a dam!
While Alex was at work, he and Kendie and their 4 year old son lived in a longhouse near by. He told us that the government had already forced the migration of many longhouses from the river because their land would be underwater when the dam is opened in 2010. Alex told us that several communities had resisted this by moving further inland, into the jungle on higher ground, but this was without financial assistance from the government.
Amusingly Alex told us that 'in Borneo we eat everything, any animal, we will eat it!' Hunting in the jungle was alive and well! Although the government had actually banned hunting the native hornbill (similar to a toucan) and images of the hornbill are used on all park pro-mo literature. It is now endangered. We wondered how much notice was taken of that even in this longhouse.The girls dancing in the video last night were all wearing the trad hornbill feathers on their hands.
It was fantastic to meet Alex and Kendie, who were similar in age to us and were polite, forthcoming and used to the occasional tourist visit. After breakfast we got to briefly meet the chief, who semi-naked and sleepy eyed shook our hands and passed on without interest. He looked hungover from the previous party and our arrival had only prompted another noisy night in his house. When we thought about it, he was actually very accommodating!
Leaving the Uma Kejaman Neh longhouse, behind all the buildings. The hand rails still decorated with wooden whittled swirls post-celebration.
The entrance gateway, and our exit to the muddy river bank...
Fortunately the water level had gone down and the mud had baked sufficiently hard enough (as demonstrated by Hussein's tap dance on it), for us to walk on it. This allowed us to forego the embarrassment of trying to foolishly balance on the log! Lol. The mud was sooo smoothly and beautifully squishy between our toes that it would have been wonderful to have more time bare foot on it to appreciate the sensation, but no. Hussein physically helped us wash our muddy feet in the river, before helping us into the boat. I thanked him and said how kind and patient he was - he laughed, in his shy manner.
We were amazed at just how far the water level had dropped from the previous day. It was about 3m. This was probably to do with both the rain fall and the dam.
Along the banks we saw women wading in the reeds with nets. When we asked Daniel about it the previous night, he explained that they were catching shrimp. We enquired about the danger of a croc attack and he explained that because the river is so big and fast flowing it is not a natural habitat for crocs and they just don't see any. Great to know!
We were actually wondering where exactly Daniel was when we woke up. We had our suspicions that he had legged it home to avoid the drunken dancing. He had totally ditched us without even a goodbye.
Our photos just don't capture how incredible strong the sun burnt down on us.
In the boat on our way back we passed a traditional Kayan burial site. The chief is buried in raised tomb.
Other tombs, all of which were a very intriguing sight.
The super hot sun and the jungle stretching off into the distance. In the distance and heat the jungle appeared blue.
Hussein carefully negotiated rapids and massive floating logs while maintaining a running commentary to himself. As usual I was indeed chatting away to myself too. A couple of times we did clash and think that the other person wasn't just chatting to themselves, lol.
The boat seemed so wobbly, low in the water and sensitive to every move we made. It was an incredible experience just riding down the river in it. I loved it!
Passing Uma Aging, the Kayan tribe that we visited first the previous evening.
Back at Daniels Corner, he admitted he had totally done a runner the previous evening. He immediately apologised saying that he needed to have a quiet night in after all the celebrations, but could not risk being spotted again by the women who wanted him to dance, lol. What a wuss.
Daniel introduced us to Kebing Aran, a local Kayan man who fought in the British Home Guard against the Japanese in WW2, when Japan invaded Borneo. Daniel translated some of what Mr Aran wanted to tell us, (but in Daniel style it was a bit selective). After the war Mr Aran had been given a slip of paper the size of his hand which officially recognised his contribution to the British war effort. Only now some 65 years later, have our government decided to acknowledge the debt owed to people like him and set up a scheme of financial re-numeration. However, for him to receive anything he has been asked to produce this tiny bit of paper. Mr Aran explained that he had lost the piece of paper after living in the jungle with nothing when the British departed. He only had his tin helmet left, but because he had nothing, he used that to cook rice in, and it eventually corroded away. He therefore could not prove that he fought for the British in the war and had received no recognition. This was heartbreaking and outrageous. Mr Aran was very fond of the British (and still is) and remembers the harsh treatment under the Japanese occupation.
We wanted Daniel to translate more, but he wasn't willing and we couldn't make him feel guilty enough to change his mind, although I really wanted to have a try. So we took Mr Aran for a meal at Kafetaria Mesra Murni, a family run Muslim restaurant. We walked very slowly with Mr Aran around the village and he seemed to enjoy this. We did, on our return ask Daniel to thank Mr Aran. He seemed thrilled with the meal and Daniel said he that Mr Aran could talk fondly of the British all day long. Mr Aran would dearly love to visit the war museum in London to see if his name appears on any documents.
Whilst walking back to Daniel's Corner (below) Hussein spotted Wiji and I and tried to hurry us along by beckoning frantically then running ahead. He was never a) near enough or b) still for long enough to notice that we were walking Mr Aran back. Consequently he was very exasperated by our persistent slow pace! Here's Hussein below running on in ahead of us.
Daniel's mural was a jolly old scene with all the usual jungle suspects. It seemed a bit wrong that the central feature was a logging truck...Was he being ironic? Doubtful.
Daniel gave us a few mins to get our walking boots on for our 'jungle trek'. This all seemed a bit rushed but we thought, hey, lets just go with it....Naturally Hussein was doing the walking and the guiding, not Daniel, lol.
Hussein, it emerged had been instructed to take us to the rapids and the jungle waterfall...
A deforested area for rice plantation.
It was pretty freaky approaching the massive rapids on the left...
They don't look big here, but they were thundering...
We zoomed right up near to them, before we realised that Hussein wanted to moor the boat on the silt to the right of them...all a bit hairy...
We held on. It did seem as though the boat was made of paper...
Wiji got out first and sank up to his calves in the silt, but nipped off to take these next three pics of the rapids. Meanwhile Hussein held the boat and turned way to have a piss, while I sat in the boat thinking that maybe it wasn't the right time to get out yet...
Hussein washed his hands quickly before helping me out over the rocks...Looking back at the boat in the distance.
And the debris on the other part of the bay near the boat.
We hoofed it through he jungle on a narrow path after bare footed Hussein... when we reached the shelter in the mid day sun, we had to call it a day knowing that Daniel wanted us back in half an hour...a bit mad...
Hussein explained the shelter on the left, (partially derelict, or just open plan maybe), was for the guides and the one on the right, for tourists. These were for hunting expeditions into the jungle...
The calmness of the river up from the rapids.
Hussein confirmed that this area had been logged already, so no primary rainforest here.
We spotted some enormous ants, the biggest yet, about an inch long . This one had something in is jaws...
Sweaty!!!!
Hussein shows us the sign that the hunters leave for each other to point someone in a certain direction and give other information...
Then we notice the path that its pointing to...
Hussein insisted in helping me by holding my hand as we went across the bridge, fallen logs and assault course path, he was being very kind and it was quite funny. We were really excited to see bats fly out from the cave below the walkway here.
Out of focus, but gorgeous. A tubular land snail shell.
Hussein telling us that the locals make planks for the longhouses out of the buttresses because of their strength.
Below, the ironwood tree known as Belian. Back in the day this was the wood of choice for making all the longhouses. Today it has nearly all been logged from Borneo's primary rainforest for the overseas hardwood furniture market and is on the endangered list.
Hussein chips of a bit with the machete for us to smell, its quite pungent.
Hussein was such a great guide. It would have been so fascinating to spend more time with him. Here we all are negotiating the drift wood, plastic bottles and lost flip flop debris, before getting back in the boat.
We were both amazed the boat was still there!
Here's a little video montage of the rapids.
Wiji holds on as Hussein paddles us away from the rocks and the rapids...
And onto calmer waters and back to Daniels.
Daniel had prepared lunch for our return. I was so glad that I had said that I don't eat fish or meat. Here's Wiji trying the wild bore. It was horrible apparently and tasted just plain wrong. I could just about cope with seeing it on the table.
After lunch Daniel gave us some time to go into town, lol. We spotted some locals with a fresh catch, this fish was huge, with a massive pout.
We were really hoping that Daniel was going to offer us the use of his bathroom, so that we could have a shower and at least be reasonably presentable for the next visit to our new years eve longhouse. Eventually he did offer and we got to use the wet room upstairs in his house. Wiji described it as a place that needed a woman's touch, it was totally random. But as we hosed ourselves down we were very grateful indeed, and actually clean too!
We were gutted to find out that Hussein wasn't spending new year with us because Daniel had invited Jason. Daniel felt it was Jason's turn to earn some money. Jason had spent the day sat at Daniel's and was drunk in an alcoholic way, where he was functioning, but looked pained and zoned out. He could speak English well though, which was a bit of a misfortune at times when Daniel kept telling us how Jason lived in a tree and slept on a plank, living off his trapping abilities in the jungle.
On the jetty in Belaga we had to say our thanks and farewells to Hussein. He was such a great character, zipping about and fiddling in his raincoat coat for yet another fag, or to check the lighter. He was a lot more together than the other guys because he only drank beer and stayed off the local brews. Daniel told us that he lived with his mentally disabled niece and his elderly mother, who according to Daniel could keep a house and he gave Hussein's money to them for food.
Finally he is still for a moment!
Daniel was worried about the rain, lol, so we caught the bigger boat for a 40 min journey as posed to a 2hr journey in the wooded one. We knew which one we would have really preferred.
Dropping us off on the silt near the first village visit of the evening.
Low and behold Mr Aran was on the boat and immediately pegged it off and was up the log like a shot! We just had no idea that he was so agile! He must have wanted to walk really slowly around Belaga with us! Lol, he even jumped off the log at the top...
After having a couple of shots of blueberry vodka sat on the floor of a longhouse kitchen, we watched Daniels eating habits become progressively more revolting. Wiji was goaded into trying some kind of fish and roe dish, that he later said he just about managed to get down. I watched in horror as Daniel scoffed the majority of it, before noticing one of the other men looking at Daniel in the same way, we caught each others eye and a knowing look was exchanged.
It was at this first village that Daniel's nephew Alex, collected us in his pick up and drove us to a supermarket. Here we purchased food for the night, that apparently Daniel's niece and nephew would cook for us...Okay, we really did a big shop here, and Daniel kindly found me some dried bean curd, lol. He didn't hold back on the rice wine purchasing either! We were happy to contribute though.
In the jungle supermarket the man bags up our hefty purchase. Lucky that we had a pick up.
We also got some beers for the journey, (2 hours). That is what the drivers cup holders are for isn't it?
On the way we stopped several times. We were sat in the back seats of the pick up and Jason was sat in the truck outside peering in at us through the rear window, it was quite tragic. He kept banging on the roof to stop and sometimes Daniel and Alex would ignore him until I pointed out the obvious. Daniel loved it when Wiji asked 'can we stop for a piss?' Daniel then asked me 'do you need a piss Clair?' What with the pick up being full inside and out, I was glad that I didn't need a piss, thanks!
We made a quick stop at Daniel's Dad's house to collect him, and met Daniel's brother and sister. In the Kanyan/Malaysian tradition everyone is respectfully addressed as brother or sister. 'Sister' Susanne was from the Philippines and after apologising for not having started the dinner she showed us the sleeping ducks in their pen and offered to kill one and cook it. We had to refuse, politely. She seemed like a lot of fun and got us all dancing away on the veranda with a beer each.
At the longhouse we met Daniel's niece who seemed to be doing all the cooking with the supplies that we had brought. Daniel had whipped his trousers off and was wandering about in a sarong swinging his dad pants idly on one finger. He took sometime doing this. We decided to sit on the veranda and wait, rather than have to watch him. When he got dressed, Daniel took to his main task for the evening, which seemed to be showing us off to everyone whilst making us hand out gifts. This did make us both cringe hugely and we tried to just do it with good grace.
One of the many lovely families that we met. Dad chatted to us about Gunung Mulu and Mum chatted about Kuching where they lived. They were lovely. Their older daughters were in college and Uni. We really enjoyed meeting them all and they wanted a pic with us. We were a bit sunburnt after our boat trip with Hussein.
The little girl on the left was Alex's daughter. She unfortunately, unlike the others, had very decayed black teeth, it was such a shame. They all wanted to have their pics taken and came up with some quality poses.
After many pictures we all agreed 'yes, you are all gorgeous!'
The lights on the veranda had attracted lots of moths and cicadas, but one mahoosive beetle had bounced off and was upside down spinning on the floor. It was enormous and as I tried to flip it over it grabbed hold of my finger and I had to shake it off causing all the girlie's to scream. It immediately flew off again towards another light.
'I can see your finger, let me grab it!'
On the veranda, Jason was horrified to be momentarily involved in the fashion shoot and drunkenly tried to wave the girls away from him...they of course ignored him.
When we arrived at the longhouse Daniel's door was locked and no one knew where the key was, so we had to go through Alex's part of the house next door. We were surprised to find that both sides had a communal kitchen. Here we noticed that Daniel's side on the left was more like a store room, while Alex's on the right was an actual home.
The living area and kitchen/ bathroom area were split by an open veranda and built this way to keep the gas flames and open fires away from the rest of the long house. The fact that there was no fire brigade and the longhouses are constructed almost entirely out of wood made fire a real cause for concern.
In the kitchen with Somet and Alex. Jason (in the foreground here), was impatiently waiting for us to stop clapping. He picked at the fish through the prayers and Daniel tried to stop him by smacking his hands away. We tried not to laugh. It was at the meal that Daniel asked us about religion. We told him that we weren't religious and his responses was 'but YOU DO believe in Christ the saviour though?!' And we had to say...'Eeer yes. He looked very relieved, a bit of a make or break moment there. Wiji had already decide to tell them all that we were married...a nice web of lies on the go, what could go wrong hey? Lol.
Sadly (we could not establish why), Alex and Somet did not eat with us, but after us. Daniel came into his own at the meal and demonstrated how to eat the fish while simultaneously spitting bits out on to the table, and accompanied this with occasional blowing his nose on the floor. Jason refused point blank to eat any green vegetables.
Later, on the veranda, the beetle was back on the light!
Looking down the longhouse veranda. Each home had an outside area for sitting an entertaining.
Looking back into Somet and Alex's living room with the trad Malay baby bouncer.
Later, after our agreement regarding Christ the saviour, Daniels suggested that we go to the church... This was where he had said all the singing and dancing would be. I was excited to see it, but Wiji was having a bit of strop and didn't want to go to church, but wanted to crack on Riflemans style. We eventually came to the agreement that church could hardly be avoided.
Daniel paraded us in while the singing was in full swing in 'Mum does religious karaoke styleee'. I was hoping for sheer abandonment and random dancing I guess, but it was all very reserved and Christian with people clapping and little bit of swaying to the backing track whilst seated. Daniel asked us the dreaded question, did we want to sing? I assured him, in my best quiet, but authoritative teacher tone, that under no circumstances would that be a good idea for anyone, at all, ever. That seemed to successfully clear that up. Before we had set off on the trip we read that a song was sometimes asked for and had a bit of a laugh about possible inappropriate songs that we could sing. What came to mind as our top two tunes were Fergie: my lovely lady lumps and Grandmaster Flash with white lines. Quality. But in reality there was no way either of us was ever going to sing.
After yawning his way through a sermon given by the minister of the longhouse, (who looked like an Elvis impersonator in a fat suit with huge eyebrows), Daniel made us give a donation, this naturally involved standing up in front of the congregation while the religious karaoke was being belted out.
As we got chatting to other Kayan's they informed us that the celebrations didn't kick off until 12, it was at that moment that the classic new year eve thing happened and we realised that we were in the wrong place and had about 10 mins to sort it all out, typical. This involved running the gauntlet across the playing field, Daniel in front (until he decided to take another piss). This was the very area that all the fire crackers were being thrown into. This was surely a recipe for disaster, or at least perforated ear drums.
At 12 even more fire crackers were let off, fogging up the whole veranda and inevitably one went off in someone's hand. Then the festivities began, with speeches from the longhouse section chief. Daniel interrupted this by wandering around and was eventually asked to sit down. We had already sat down, away from him, lol. After the speeches everyone was invited to dig into the masses of food displayed on the veranda.
Washing up bowls of rambutan! They were absolutely delicious! I tried to get Jason to eat one, but he was having none of it. He did laugh his head off at Wiji dancing though and if he wandered off I managed to lure him back by pointing at Wiji dancing and he would be in hysterics and come and join us.
On Daniel's block everyone was very welcoming. We both got handed a desert bowl of Sago each. It was transparent and very chewy. Rather like when you pick up a huge slug in the garden and can't get the slime off, we could hardly spoon the stuff out to get it in our reluctant mouths. Wiji whispered to me 'I am surprised that you are eating that'. I thought it would be too rude not too I replied. Much later in the evening we established that the sago contained lumps of beef and that was Wiji's main concern. A bit of an Otavalo moment, again.
Some of the fireworks going off...
It was deafening.
Here's a video of some of the firework mayhem...
Jason, Wiji and Daniel watching the proceedings from the veranda.
The calm before the food riot...
Then everyone was at the food in true buffet style: everyone for themselves! Lol.
Daniel and some of the boys that he had taught.
When Wiji and I got introduced to the block chief, he was totally gone on and kept shouting 'sky juice'. When I asked him what this was he wouldn't tell me. Daniel also kept interrupting by trying to get us all to drink the rice wine. When Daniel left to get some glasses, the chief confided in us that he was diabetic and shouldn't be really be drinking, and that he hated the rice wine anyway. The sky juice turned out to be bottled water, which he was using to wash down the bowl of wild cat that he was tucking into. It looked like the gooey flesh of dried dates with lots of little bones in it, no doubt on the endangered animal list. Later we found out that the sack that Jason was carrying had the dead wildcat in it. Good to know.
After we had a few shots of rice wine we went to see the main chief and got to look around his home. There was some fretwork decorating the outside of his residence.
It was here that we bumped into Susanne again, who was very drunk and really up for a party. We had our doubts that the longhouse was going to provide what she was looking for, Pawlet Manor would have done the job.
Inside the Chief's residence there were photos of their daughters graduations and marriages which his wife showed us. Their family photos through the decades were gorgeous and dated by western fashion.
On leaving the chef's residence, we managed to dodge Susanne as she started to get a bit loud and we feared for our safety, so made a dash back to Daniel's block where we met his neighbour who, to my delight plied us with more rambutan, yay! He then went off and found another fruit, similar to the rambutan, but one that we had not seen on our travels before. It was delicious. Daniel's neighbour was originally from Thailand. and Wiji and him chatted away about the country.Later Daniel returned and seeing the scene decided to tell us about how thin the walls were and how he could hear his neighbour making love to his young wife. In return the neighbour complained that Daniel's snores were very loud...and so on.
Wiji at the end of the night. After 4am sometime we decided to call it a day...
Daniel's snoring was nearly as loud as Gill's, but not quite, Lol. We were glad that he had decided to crash downstairs, because at least that put some distance between us and the sound! During the night we heard some of the stomping dance moves that we had tried out with the drunken ladies in the first longhouse.
At about 9am the next morning when we got up we didn't feel too horrific and tucked into some of last nights left overs for brekkie with Daniel and Jason. Apparently Jason had got locked out and had slept on the veranda because he couldn't get back in. The moment that I heard this I knew that I had heard him shouting in the night when I came down stairs for the bathroom, lol. Oh dear. I couldn't tell where the voice was coming from or who it was, but in hindsight it was probably Jason who was shouting 'what are you doing? Let me in!' I didn't admit to this, which was a shame, because its hilarious!
Looking down from the walk-through area between the living room and kitchen. Each house seemed to have a pond below, and they had koi carp in them....strange.
Each of the longhouses that we visited were decorated with displays of the traditional hats with bead work.
Looking across from Daniel's block to the other part of the longhouse, sufficiently far enough away to not feel overlooked.
Looking down the veranda.
The church on the right.
Traditional painting from the 'tree of life' theme.
The traditional baby carriers that women still wore on their backs.
What a totally memorable new years eve!
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