I AM THE BORNEO EXPLORER 婆罗洲探险者

The Melanau village, some facts about them that I copy from the sign board. The Melanau mainly living along the coast, between the Rajang and the Baram Rivers. They can be boardly sub-divided into a pagan, a Muslim and a Christian group. The Melanau are fearless fisherman and competent boad-builders. Their staple food is sago, the starch of a tall palm that can be grown in the brackish water of river. The villages look very much like the traditional Malay kampong found all over Sarawak. In the past, some Melanau built tall longhouses as a precaution against enemy attacks. Their daily food is sago, the starch found in the pith of the sago palm. The tall palm is felled at the right stage of maturity. The trunks are floated to the village, stripped and split. The wedges of sago pith are rasped into a coarse, wet mash. The sago mash is pilled on strong mats over shallow troughs. Now it must be trodden to force the starch ino the containers below. Work usually done by women in riverside hut...

Next is the Orang Ulu (upriver people) . These people are also found in adjacent Kalimantan, Indonesia. In Sarawak, the Orang Ulu accounts for 5.3% of the population. Formerly animists, but now many Orang Ulu had converts to Christians. Most of the Ulu people had tattoo on the back. According to traditional this signified that he had taken a head. They believed that a tattoo would serve as a torch in the underworld. They like to tattoo almost all their bodies, with design variously know as “dragon”, “scorpion”, “dog”, or ornamental scroll work. Women usually confined themselves to simple wrist or hand decorations. The Ulu people are among the most skilled wood carvers in Sarawak. They embellished their houses, boats, tools, musical instruments, and personal ornaments with various kinds of designs. A sculpture called the “dragon dog” with along snout, curling fangs and horns, and bulging eyes plays an important part in the traditional religion for the Ulu people. It is also been used as...

Next stop is the Penan, here is some fact about the Penan people. The Penan are forests nomads living in the Miri and Kapit Divisions. Some have settled near longhuorse in these areas, engaging in barter trade and sometimes working for the settlers. Majority of Penan countinues to live as nomads. They construct temporary shelters of saplings, palm leaf and tree bark near food sources. They abandon a shelter because the food had run out, or because of a death in the family group. The Penan are skilled at making and using blowpipes and forging swords. Their women folk make beautiful baskets and mats; all these handicrafts are used to barter for their frugal needs: salt, cloth and tobacco. The Penans are skillful trackers and hunters. They live on game and fish and forest plants. Their staple food is wild sago. The State Government’s policy is to persuade the nomadic Penans to settle down. School and longhouses have been build to induce them to settle permanently. Signboard lead to the Pe...

Next stop is the Iban house, Iban live in all areas of Sarawak. Many of the Iban live in a longhouse, in a longhouse it can reach 50 or more rooms, each with different family, all live under one roof. Welcome to the longhouse of the Iban village. A strange looking tree trunk, there a paddle under it. Don’t ask me, cause I don’t know that it use for a mini rumah Iban The corridor of the longhouse, in the middle there’s a handmill to grind straw. I had give it a try, and it was actually quite easy to grind. A Iban hut Now lets go inside the house and see how it looks like. Inside the house was easily furnished, with some ancient vase... some funny looking mask hanging on the wall... some funny loosing chicken, bird shape thing hanging on the wall again... the living room Iban longhouse The Iban people are capable of making their own textile. Gandang

I watched The Lord of the Rings, part 1,2, and 3 – Trilogy Movie Marathon last Saturday at Sarawak Cultural Village. Is an outdoor movie screening in the middle of the tropical rainforest. Beside movie, there are also treasure hunt, and free photo printout from Nokia mobile phone, they are using the Nokia N70 to take photos of us and print for us all free of charge. And free ice-cream were treated for children as well, but the ice-cream uncle see Jing is too cute to resist, so he gave Jing 4 free ice-cream. So one for me, and three for Jing. A very thanks to pretty and cute Jing to cancel away all her appointments, and to accompany me to the festival, that is the first time I visited the culture village. And Jing showed me around, and had provided me some useful information. Basically in culture village, we get to know other ethnic culture, house, and daily life activity, what they do for a living, their habits and customs. We reach there at around 5.00pm, I was very happy because can...