my last day in Borneo

In a couple of hours I will head back to Kuala Lumpur and then tomorrow back to Maldives. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here. Kuching is the capital city of Sarawak (a Malaysian state in the island of Borneo). It's a charming city around a river. Rivers are the blood of Borneo. Many places here are only accessible by river despite the new road which has made bus travel possible.

I have just returned from a 3 day jungle trip (short but sweet- and sticky, very sticky). I stayed in a longhouse of the Iban people, along with a Danish family of four. The Ibans are the largest tribe in Sarawak, and but this longhouse was fairly small, housing 22 families. The people were tremendously at ease with themselves and the world. The chief, now an old man was one of the few with the traditional ear holes, although he wasn't wearing any rings in them. He also had all of the traditional tattoos covering his back and arms. His wife was a lovely older woman with the breasts of a young woman. When I met her, she was wearing only a sarong wrapped around her waist and a kindly smile.

The first couple of hours in the longhouse, I chatted with the people. (They in Iban, me in English). They were very excited about my guitar and a few of the young men and young boys asked if they could play. I passed it around and some of them were pretty decent, although they were too shy to sing. The women all wanted to know if I was married and had children. They clucked disapproval as I tried to explain that there was no husband. I'm quite old in their eyes to not be married.

Interestingly enough though, they were quite happy when I compared tattos with them. I have an interpretive butterfly on my neck and a large chinese dragon on the small of my back (this one will wash off in another week or two, but they didn't know and I couldn't explain that). They were well impressed.

The longhouse I went to was located about a 6 hour trip from the capital. The first three hours by car and the second three by longboat (with a motor). It's the last longhouse up the river. They have quite an ingenious system of using the river for running water and also to raise fish in ponds so that they no longer have to spend hours catching them in the river, but only a few minutes with a net or a basket to catch them before dinner. The chickens walk around freely until the day when they are butchered. Wild boars are kept in little box-type houses and dogs and cats roam freely with the ducks.

The Ibans used to be some of the most feared head hunters, but are now a peaceful farming people. Longhouses are self-sufficient. The land has no title here and the people can still move about as they like. An old fashioned long house like the one I visited is on stilts and has bamboo and planks of wood for the flooring (which you can see through to the ground below). The roof is made from corrogated tin, and each family has a room and a door that opens into the common area. The days are spent either farming, processing the food or making crafts. The men still hunt from time to time, but the women usually stay at home except during harvest time. Children from the age of 7 on spend most of the year at a boarding school upriver, coming home for the holidays and harvesting. If they are lucky, they will come home for some weekends as well. The government pays for the schooling, food and uniforms, but the people of the longhouse have to pay for transportation and petrol is expensive. You can't grow money.

Farming is done in the jungle. Sarawak is one of the largest pepper producing areas in the world. They also grow rice and vegetables and fruits are in great abundance. No one could go hungry here. It's fantastic to see.

A several hour trek into the jungle (I thought I was being boiled alive) brought us to an abandoned longhouse. The set up was the same, although there were only 16 families in that longhouse originally. We had to take great care with the boards, as some of them were rotting and threatening to go through with the wrong step. We were greeted by a long green snake (more than a meter)on a tree branch just outside. There was also a gecko so large that it barked like a dog!

Nowadays, they use quite a few modern things, but when showing someone around, they will show you the old way of doing things. This includes cooking everything in bamboo over a fire. I was lucky enough to experience a bamboo barbecue, where everything, including the tea was cooked in bamboo and DELICIOUS! It was all so good that I couldn't even resist the chicken- and I've been decidedly vegetarian for more than a year now (just because I can't stand any kind of meat). We all ate too much and had to rest before considering how to move in the afternoon.

Ready for fishing? Sure. The Danish family and I were thinking we'd sit by the river with poles. I brought my journal and Kenneth (the dad) brought his mobile and camera. Little did we expect that it would involve trekking upriver throwing a net every few meters! I was lucky and wore my swimsuit and sarong, but had to make sure my jacket with my journal didn't get wet. Kenneth looked miserable and Lisa (the mother)and I finally took a wrong path through the water and got soaked almost up to our necks! We laughed and laughed. "Fishing." What can you do? Of course, it's the "Iban way," we laughed!

When we finished the fishing trip, we came back to the river just below the long house and our guide said, "Ok, you swim now?" Sure. We stripped down and dived in. The porters were soaping up and I thought that looked like a good idea (although I didn't have any soap) so I tried scrubbing my head with the brown river water. The porter nearest me laughed and offered me his soap- body shop peach! I soaped my head and myself and then the family joined in too. We soaped and laughed and fell and swam. It was a fantastic moment in the middle of the jungle with only mild visions of crocodiles floating through my head.

Dinner was the fish the porters had caught in the river, crispy fried. We asked how to eat and our guide said "Just eat. Head first." We froze. Lisa asked our guide to eat one. He did. She even checked his mouth. All the Ibans laughed. She ate one. There was nothing for it. I did too...with my eyes closed! It wasn't bad. I didn't even notice it was head. I gave up on the third one..it was too big to eat like that and I nearly choked on the bones.

to be continued.....