Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!

Our flight into Borneo, Malaysia was scheduled for December 17th. Since we wanted to be in Bangkok for New Years, and were thus flying out on the 29th, we would get to spend around 12 days on the island. Surely not enough time, but traveling around in Borneo is decently expensive since it is wise to take flights between most interesting cities. At least we would save a bunch of money by only sticking to Sarawak, Kuching specifically, on the lower half of Borneo . We arrived in Kuching and Henk got the bags while I picked up a bunch of brochures, thinking they might be helpful later. We took our cab to Tracks Bed & Breakfast, a pretty nice place in a location very central to the city.

For dinner that night, we made a decently long journey walking on the roads to get to Sri Shan Indian Restaurant. Looked decent on the website, and while the food was cheap and delicious, the place was nothing more than an open-air food stall with some picnic tables. But hey, didn’t matter too much… I ordered a cheese naan and a banana and jackfruit naan, the latter of which came with a sweet milk for dipping that tasted just like icing. As a result, I didn’t really have much room for my chicken masala. Henk ate his curry on the other hand, and tried out the pineapple naan. I have to say, their naans were heavenly; the fruit naans with their icing dips could be a favorite dessert on many Indian menus back home.

Henk planned our first day in Kuching, which consisted of going on the Jejak Warisan Heritage Trail walk around the city. While everything around here closes at 4:30 pm, and we did leave a bit too late to enter most of the buildings, we did get a nice overview of the city that way. First we encountered the Tua Pek Kong Chinese Temple , since it happened to be just a minute away from Track’s front door. After a quick look inside, we walked towards Jalan Main Bazaar – the oldest street in Kuching dating back to 1864. At the end of Main Bazaar, we spotted the Square Tower which was originally built as a jail. Since the Square Tower was situated next to the Sarawak River on the Kuching Waterfront, we walked down to the river and got a great view of Rajah Charles Brooke’s Astana (meaning Castle) across the water. It used to be the Raja’s residence, but is now residence of Sarawak ’s Head of State.











After getting some scenic views of the little boats crossing the river, and the greenery, we continued on the trail to The Old Courthouse, a former venue for Sarawak’s official ceremonies and a seat of government. As we were walking down past the Courthouse, we ventured to India Street’s collection of shop-houses and discovered one of Kuching’s delicious treats. Kek Lapis (meaning “layer cake”) was introduced to the whole of Malaysia by a woman named Puan Rabian Amit around the year 2000 and thus she became a kind-of ‘guru’ of layer cakes. However, the cakes had already been in Sarawak for some time, having been known previously as an Indonesian version in Sarawak since the 1980’s. Anyways, these things are delicious and extremely colorful – each cake seems to have an awesome unique pattern almost reminiscent of a “tie-die” theme. Henk and I started tasting some free samples. Soft and buttery, the cakes had interesting flavors – some had a mint taste, some had a lightly chocolate or fruit taste. We vowed to remember these little cakes and continued on our walk.











We then made our way down a narrow side street off of Indian Street called Gambier Street which had a ‘hidden’ mosque. Too bad the entire alleyway smelled disgusting – the stench from the bathroom there seemed to spread out down the whole path. We spent a while after that exploring the grounds of the Kuching Town Mosque and wondering why the graveyard outside the mosque consisted of twisted and mangled gravestones. Next we turned right through the courtyard, crossed the General Post Office and turned onto Carpenter’s Street marked by a Chinese Archway. We stopped to look at the Huang Thian Siang Temple, but since it was closed we ended our journey and went back to the waterfront. There were some shopping tables which we browsed through while enjoying some local Borneo music played by a man dressed in a traditional outfit and headdress.







December 19th was the day for going to the SCV, also known as the Sarawak Cultural Village. Known as a “living museum,” this village consists of the ethnic dwellings of 6 major cultural groups from Sarawak. We were eager to see the housing examples, as one of the coolest things to experience in Borneo is a longhouse, or ethnic housing, stay. From Kuching, there were two longhouse choices for us – the Bidayuh (who are the second largest aboriginal population in Sarawak) or the Iban (the majority aboriginal population in Sarawak.) Obviously we would make our choice for just one overnight stay, but here at the Cultural Village we got to experience all the difference houses for a while.



The first house we visited was the Bidayuh (also known as “Land Dayaks”) longhouse. The floor was made of bamboo, and the house had large yet limited rooms with not a single major piece of furniture – not even chairs. As soon as we got in (and stamped our passports given to us by the front entrance to mark our visits) we were introduced to the most common Borneo tribe weapon: the blowpipe. We both had a turn trying to shoot a dart from one back in Kuala Lumpur, but still it wasn’t easy to repeat. One of the locals sat near us making blowpipe darts, while another tried to give us tips on how to fire the weapon. He then pointed out to us the storage area above us: tribes-people would hang baskets filled with items from the jungle in their ‘attic’ for later use.



After exiting the Bidayuh longhouse, we stopped for a quick visit in the famed Bidayuh ‘headhouse,’ but we’ll tell you more about their headhouse in our post about the actual longhouse stay. We did later learn from the Bidayuh that it was the Iban who were known as the more aggressive group making particular use of headhunting. They would bring back the heads of those they killed in battle, hanging them up over the fireplace and would make sacrifices to them hoping for continued luck by doing so. We were off to the Iban longhouse next!

We read some information from the Iban sign outside the house: The Iban are known as “Sea Dayaks,” and they make up 30% of Sarawak ’s population. They are known for their weaving, which is decorated with the “tie-dye” technique. Once we entered the house, we spotted some local women dressed up in traditional Iban costumes, mainly consisting of beautifully detailed neck-pieces with colorful beadwork. There were also many different instruments in the longhouse, particularly different types of gongs used for festivals.







Next was the Penan tribe, or “forest nomads.” These guys live in Miri, which is an area of Sarawak we’ll visit on another trip. They don’t build longhouses of their own, but rather build temporary settlements made of palm leaf and tree bark near longhouses of other aboriginal groups. One of their main food staples is a starch called “sago,” gathered from the sago palm. Later we ended up at a sago-making area of the Village, where we learned how sago was extracted from the palm tree and rolled into little white balls known as “sago pearls.” These balls were then used to make crackers or pancakes, and the sago can even be used as a thickener for various sauces. Here is the process of making sago, straight from Wiki for those interested:



1. The sago palm is felled.
2. The trunk is split lengthwise and the pith is removed.
3. The pith is crushed and kneaded to release the starch.
4. The pith is washed and strained to extract the starch from the fibrous residue.
5. The raw starch suspension is collected in a settling container.

Palms are felled just before flowering, when the stems are richest in starch. One palm yields 150 to 300 kg of starch.





One of the next houses was that of a well-known group called the “Orang Ulu” people or the “upriver people.” While they only account for 5.3% of the population according to the information sign, they are a unique group since they consist of 27 different “mini” tribes living in Central Borneo . Some of these tribes would be: The Kenyah and Kayan known for their farming, the Kelabit and Lun Bawang known for their rice cultivation in the mountains and coast, and the Penan nomads I mentioned earlier. Most of these Orang Ulu tribes were known for their elaborate tattooing rituals: “In the old days, a tattoo on the back of a man’s hand signified that he had taken a head.”



The Melanau fishermen aboriginal group’s villages, according to our sign are much like traditional Malay kampungs. Like the Penan, the Melanau rely on sago for food. One of the most interesting things about the Melanau community is their sickness images and healing ceremonies:



“The Melanau healer diagnosis what his patient is suffering from. Then he carves an image, charges it with the patient’s complaint, and ceremonially discards it… In the case of a major illness, the patient’s family has recourse to the ayun (swing) ceremony. This involves heavy expense, and is not undertaken lightly. The house has to be specially decorated for the event. The patient is seated on the swing, rocking back and forth to the spirit medium’s drum. The healer calls on the various spirits to declare their presence, entices them away from the patient and challenges them to a duel. Completely entranced, the medium lunges at unseen enemy with a sword or dances on venerable celadon plates.. Often, the patient staggers to his feet and dances too, although medical opinion would consider him too weak to even walk. The ayun ceremony lasts for five to nine nights… On the last night, the healer drives the sickness spirits into a small model boat, which is launched on a downriver journey of no return by the jubilant villagers.”



Now, Henk and I weren’t going too leisurely through the houses, but we did know the cultural presentation at the SCV would start about an hour after we arrived. What we hadn’t been told however, was that after the cultural show the entire park would shut down! Meaning if we didn’t rush, we wouldn’t get to see the last houses we paid to see. Quite peeved about this, we tried the best we could to get some good pictures of the last places. Thankfully, the last two houses were of two groups we were more familiar with: the Malay and the Chinese. The Malay house was made completely of wood, even roofed with wood shingles. Their house also included an elaborate wedding chamber with carvings, plus tons of decorations and artwork. The Chinese house was focused on the central room’s ancestor worship area, and it was the only house not built on stilts.









After the houses, Henk and I rushed to the cultural performance and got there just a couple of minutes late. One of the stand-out dances we saw was the “Bamboo Dance.” Here is a description Henk found online: “This dance involved two long bamboo poles [which] are held horizontally above the ground at ankle height. They are clapped together to a high-tempo drumbeat. Requiring great agility, dancers are required to jump over or between the poles without getting their feet caught.” We watched a short collection of the various Borneo tribe dances while snacking on the sago palm crackers we bought, which I have to say were pretty dry and bland. Not something I'd want to repeat!









By the time we got back from the Cultural Village (we had to wait 40 minutes for our shuttle back, not the most convenient) Henk and I were both getting hungry for dinner. On one of our earlier walks Henk had spotted an interesting round restaurant themed in the color purple called 'Khatulistiwa,' so of course we had to give it a try. We got a great table with a view of Sarawak River and the bank on the other side. This is when I met what should have been my match: a giant cheeseburger! Bigger than any previously large Hard Rock Cafe predecessors, this thing proved a challenge to keep in one piece. But I managed! And it was pretty delicious too. Henk opted for a much healthier Thai Green Curry, and we left feeling full and partially smoked-out since something started burning in the kitchen right next to us and smoking up our table!





After dinner we decided to stop into the movie theater and see if anything interesting was playing. As soon as we walked in, we realized that the new movie 'Avatar' was going to start in just a couple of minutes. We got our tickets and enjoyed what was James Cameron's decade of work. We were pretty amazed by how the movie was shot -- the new graphic and camera techniques he used, plus the detail incorporated, provided for a stunningly beautiful effect. The storyline on the other hand was pretty basic. We later found some reviews online and realized that most critics agreed with us. That hardly ever happens! (At least to me...)

The next morning (December 21st) was tour planning! Henk and I spent pretty much the entire day trying to figure out which ones to book, and which company to book them with. The main issue we struggled with was which Longhouse to go to for an overnight stay. The two main choices were different cultures (Bidayuh and Iban) so would provide different experiences in that sense. Henk had found the Bidayuh house online, and we both agreed it seemed like the cooler option after viewing their website. However, after visiting a few tourist agents we almost changed our mind. The Iban house was recommended by a few people since it was more "adventurous."

But we later found out that this adventure involved pretty much an entire day of traveling -- 4 hours by car, and then a distance by boat -- and we wouldn't get to the Longhouse until late afternoon. We ended up booking an overnight trip to Bako National Park for the next day, and another overnight to our first choice, the Bidayuh 'Annah Rais' Longhouse for a Christmas Eve overnight stay. We booked through an extremely helpful couple: Sam and Jun Ho, who run 'Kuching Holidays & Car Rental.' We strongly recommend them because they were the first agents we went to all day who gave us significantly helpful advice... plus they were super nice. :) Their website isn't up yet, but if you'd like to book with them call +6082422955.

We went to the ATM, in the process walking past a large statue of cats. As a result, we were reminded of the city's name's meaning: 'Kuching' translates to 'Cat.' According to Wiki: "The city has never been noted for having a significantly large population of cats. In fact, the many cat statues, the Kuching Cat Museum and other association with cats have been largely a recent phenomenon, part of a modern effort of tourism. Many travel brochures refer to Kuching as "Cat City" or the "City of Cats." There are many different explanations of how the city became known as 'Kuching,' but none of them seem very credible.



After finally booking our tour, we went back to the hostel to pack since we were leaving the next morning for Bako National Park! Henk will now tell you about our adventure with proboscis monkeys...

Francesca