Kuching Part Three

We took off heading for the “old longhouse.” Stewart explained that the longhouse was over 80 years old and that until a road had been laid a few years earlier, the only way to reach it was on foot through a thin jungle path, reportedly a two hour walk. Whoa. We eventually pulled up to a much more run down longhouse. This one was also seemingly built in sections, though Stewart’s mom insisted that it had been built all at once. The exterior was partly built in brick, but mostly it was hardwood. The roof again was corrugated tin. While there was forced running water from a nearby mountain, there was no electricity. It was going on 6:00PM when we pulled up, so the inside was very dim. The Germans and I wandered around as Stewart and his mom got the kitchen going for dinner. The layout of this dwelling was reversed. The “front” had the toilet and shower stall, inside the door was the gigantic kitchen/eating/communal area, the next room was equally giant, serving as storage and sleeping quarters and finally the communal “porch” before the chicken coups and pigpens.

Several neighbors and distant relatives appeared out of nowhere and alternated between helping Stewart and standing around shyly staring at us. We sat out on the communal porch for a while, taking pictures and playing with a couple of the kids. They went bananas over my digital camera. I took their picture and then showed them the picture on the little display screen which was a source of constant delight for the rest of our stay. Every time I got out my camera the kids jumped in front of whatever I was trying to shoot, so they could see their pictures again. The German woman broke out some candy she brought along for gifts and this distracted the kids long enough for me to take long exposure shots of the fading interior of the porch. This longhouse had 36 dwellings, with over 100 residents, but you wouldn’t know it walking down the porch. Absolutely no noise was being emitted from any of the dwellings, but Stewart assured us that there were dozens of people hiding behind those doors. Since there was no electricity, there was no light either. It was very deceptive. Just as I was starting to think that Stewart was putting us on, a door opened right next to me. A young woman took a half step out, saw me, then backed up and closed the door again.

Just as it was getting too dark to see clearly Stewart and one of his cousins fired up a generator and florescent lights were turned out. While there was a portable gas stove, Stewart did half of the cooking on a stone slab with a wood fire. He stuffed a bunch of chicken and green, leafy vegetables into thick bamboo shoots and laid these over the fire. Then he prepared some fried chicken, rice and heated up some of the wild boar that his cousins had bagged the previous day.

After our feast we settled down on the social mat to sit and be stared at by friends and relatives. After some time, one of Stewart’s cousins suggested that we go hunting. It was 9:00PM and pitch black. The Germans looked uncertain and I flat out refused. I was cross-eyed tired and ready for bed. Plus, I only had my sandals, no proper shoes, and no pants to protect me from being nicked by the less friendly shrubs. The Germans were eventually persuaded to go. They suited up, smeared on bug repellant and headed out with three guys from the tribe, none of whom spoke English, armed with an ancient shotgun and a couple weak flashlights. It was promised they would only be out for about 15 minutes.

Two hours later they returned exhausted, shell-shocked, sweaty, filthy, and wet from a few unannounced river crossings. They looked like they had just run through a car wash, using mud and sticks instead of soap and brushes. The girl had been bitten by what she claimed was the world’s biggest ant. Nevertheless, it had been a successful outing. The tribesmen had bagged four prey using only four shots. Three “mouse deer” (like a regular deer but only about a foot tall) and some kind of long-tailed, black jungle cat. To hear the Germans tell it, the guys were running full speed, up and down hills and through streams in the jungle, following their hunting dogs. At intervals, the guy with the shotgun would suddenly pause and scan the air with some kind of invisible radar, then disappear into the bushes. A few seconds later there would be a shot and he’d re-emerge with a dead animal. It was uncanny. I had gone to sleep as promised as soon as the the hunting party had set out, but Stewart roused me to see the kill. The guys immediately stoked the fire on the cooking stone and cooked the beasts. Two for eating immediately and two for taking back to Kuching. I watched this for a few moments half-asleep before heading back to my wafer-thin mat.

The post-hunt festivities raged on and kept me awake until about 1:00AM. Then the roosters started going at it at about 5:00AM. So other then the fleeting sleep I got during the hunt, I had managed to hoard only four more hours of sleep that night, bringing the total to six hours in two nights. I was not feeling very spry at breakfast.

In full daylight, I went around taking numerous pictures of the long house and some of the obliging residents. I was also escorted to the spot where the blackened skulls were hung in the communal porch. I had passed right under the skulls two times the night before while I was exploring before dinner, but failed to notice them in the dim light. In their heyday, the Iban were alleged to be the most formidable of Borneo's headhunters. Stewart’s mom claims that the Iban were actually very peaceful, but they were forced to take on a more fierce attitude as various invaders encroached on their territory. According to some quick online research the heads of their slain enemies were reportedly hung in the longhouse at the conclusion of a massive festival called Gawai Kenyalang (“Hornbill Festival”). They believed that the heads contained magical powers that would “bring strength, virtue and prosperity to the longhouse.” I was assured that this particular set of skulls was well over 100 years old and that there hadn’t been any reason to relieve anyone of their craniums in the interim.

This was on one of the dwelling doors. Britney is taking over the world.

Taking pictures outside the house was a bit of a letdown. While the Iban keep the interiors of their longhouses relatively spotless, they are not so concerned about the state of the surrounding area. They seem to generally regard the jungle as one big garbage can, starting as soon as you exit the porch. From the rickety back platform, down past the chicken coups and out into the tangle of greenery, there was trash randomly strewn everywhere. Cans, plastic bottles and even small engine parts. The kids are programmed with this attitude early. When the kids went to work on the candy the Germans gave them, they dropped the wrappers where they stood without a care in the world.

While the longhouses themselves are surprisingly well kept considering they are smack in the middle of the jungle, I should address the general hygienic state that, if you’re anything like me, will challenge your capacity to live in denial. As a recovering germophobe, it was nearly enough to spark a relapse. The food preparation, the roaming cats and dogs, the toilet facilities (although soap is available if you look hard enough, it is mainly regarded as an unnecessary extravagance) and the kids dropping trou and pissing whenever and wherever the urge hit them, playfully running their hands through the stream, pushed my mind-over-matter abilities to their limits – as well as setting my resolve to avoid any and all physical contact with the children.

Stewart took us around the explained how the tribesmen earn their modest living. Considering that they can obtain virtually everything they need from the surrounding jungle, their need for cash is nearly nonexistent, but with civilization slowly encroaching on their lives, a little spending money doesn’t hurt. The residents in the old long house maintained bountiful white pepper gardens that produce a dozen or so 20 kilo sacks of pepper each season. There was an unusually large stockpile of pepper during our visit. Stewart explained that pepper prices had dropped over the previous two seasons, so the tribe was hoarding their stash until prices rose again. Additionally, the tribe milked hundreds of rubber trees in the area. A single tree doesn’t produce a heck of a lot of material, so the process of slashing, setting up drip collectors and then going around every few days to gather the material seemed tedious, but there was no denying the result. The little dabs of collected material is heated using acid and rolled into long, finger-thick sheets, which fetch a fair price. Finally, while there wasn’t evidence that this was happening at the old longhouse, rice making is also a moderate money earner for the Iban.

After some breakfast and the appropriate amount of sitting around and socializing on the communal porch, while sipping the juice out of freshly picked coconuts, it was suggested that we do some river fishing. I was very excited for this as I had been examining the tribe’s homemade slingshot spear guns the previous evening and I was keen to gun me down some fish. Several of the tribe accompanied us, as well as about four dogs. A few men fished with nets and one guy used the spear gun in concert with a waterproof flashlight (the water was pretty soupy) and a snorkeling mask. I was not offered the spear gun, probably for my own safety, and I was not interested in snorkeling in the muddy river anyway. Somehow I had imagined that I would simply stand safely on shore and pick off fish at my leisure, but alas it was not that easy. We followed the tribesmen down the river as they netted and bagged little, sardine-sized fish. The spear guy wasn’t having a good day. Eventually he managed to land what looked to be a catfish, which he cleared out by sticking the fish’s head in his mouth and sucking. Yuck.

After we had cleaned up from fishing we jumped back into Stewart’s van and headed to the newer longhouse. We went through the usual exploring and greeting the longhouse residents out on the porch, with a cameo appearance by Granny Gone Wild, before Stewart’s uncle, Kenny, came up and offered to take us into town in his car for drinks. We were all at various points of physical exhaustion and car loathing, but Kenny was persistent. It seemed that he was exceedingly proud of owning a car and wanted us to show it off. Finally we agreed and he first took up to get drinks at a local store and then he paraded us into the main square for even more drinks at a hawker center. I got the feeling Kenny was showing us off to his buddies. He sat smoking and drinking beer, looking quite pleased with himself. He was a very friendly guy though, so it was hard to fault him.

We got back to Stewart’s mom’s, via an enthusiastic tour of Kenny’s dwelling where he made us promise to come back some day and stay with him, just in time to clean up for Stewart’s chicken curry. The food was excellent and we passed the rest of the evening sitting on the mat, talking and watching satellite TV. I zipped to CNN just in time to see a report saying that my man Hunter S. Thompson had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I was crushed. Hunter, specifically his brilliant “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (the ultimate travel writing), is the reason that I started writing back in college. He was nuts and did too many drugs and loved guns, so I guess something like this was inevitable, but I was still shocked and disappointed. Rumor had it that his health had been failing and perhaps he wanted to go out, literally, with a bang rather than linger in a slow, painful, sedentary decline. From what I know of Hunter, this seemed probable. Still, I think that Hunter would have approved of me learning of his passing while sitting on the floor of an Iban longhouse, drinking with the tribe (nevermind the satellite TV in the background). I couldn’t mourn for too long because Kenny, now very, very drunk was grabbing my arm. He was resolute that we all learn the entirely of the Iban language that evening or die trying. I bowed out from the lessons early, still half brain-dead from my sleep shortcomings.

Like clockwork, the roosters went nuts for no reason at 5:00AM and I was reluctantly up by 7:00. Stewart had gotten loaded with Kenny and was deeply hungover and asked if I might like to drive the first leg. Malaysia is a left hand driving country, like the U.K. Though I was marginally well-rested for the first time in days, I wasn’t sure if I was up to the task of re-learning to drive a stick-shift with everything reversed - I briefly was in command of a British Landrover for six weeks while traveling Morocco in 1993 – and this would be my first experience driving on the left side of the road. After two coffees, I decided that I was ready for the challenge.

With the U.K. car configuration, not only is the stick shift on the left side, enough of a mind-f*ck for one morning on it’s own, but the turn signal and windshield wiper controls are reversed as well. To add to the fun, the pedals, which are mercifully configured the same as the rest of the world, were smaller than usual and very, very close together. Now I happen to have surprisingly small feet for my size (which, ladies, is a feature that should not be read into or assumptions drawn from in regards to other physical attributes), but I was having a hard time hitting the gas square-on. More importantly, getting my foot on the brake without fat-footing the gas at the same time was an ordeal. Additionally, aside from the minor driving that I did at home in October and a half day scooter rental in Greece in September, I had not been in command of any kind of motor vehicle for over a year. Long story short, my passengers were tense. Even semi-conscious, hungover Stewart looked regretful as we pulled out onto the road and I immediately drifted to the right hand side.

After a few adjustments, I was fine and drove trouble-free for nearly two hours, where we took a meal break and I handed the keys back to Stewart, so as to save him the embarrassment of having to ask for them back.

Back in Kuching, I was a mess. No shower or shave for three days, minimal sleep and jungle weary. I had intended to depart Kuching the next morning for an up-river town called Kapit and then move even further upriver to the even smaller deep jungle town of Belaga, but my comfortable air-con room in the Borneo B & B and my need for about 17 hours of uninterrupted sleep convinced me to stay an extra day. My time in Kuching had spiraled up from three nights to seven. My concern about my overall trip getting out of control time-wise was already stressing me out. I had a return ticket from Sydney to London for the first week in May and if I as going to be continually delaying my travels I could be on the road for a good year if I wasn’t careful. After the state the I concluded my seven months of travel in Europe (utter zombification), I wanted to avoid this kind of length at all costs. Even if it meant leaving with whole countries chopped of my itinerary, but I had plenty of time to finesse that contingency. For now, rest and an easy pace would have to take priority.

With the above on my mind, I made a rash, last minute change to my itinerary, eliminating Kapit and Belaga all together and instead flying up the coast to Miri. Although the allure of these quiet, jungle villages was tempting, these destinations ultimately only had more longhouses to offer tourist-wise. I had had my fill of longhouses and rather than do more of the same, I opted for something completely different in the highlands. From Miri, it was a short flight - or three day, horrendous, upriver cruise, needless to say, I was going to fly - to the mountain village of Bario, population ~800, where I would get acquainted with the Kelabit tribe and escape city life.

At the conclusion of my day of rest, Stewart took me to his family’s house on the outskirts of Kuching for a goodbye dinner where they again fed me rice wine like my total inebriation was of paramount importance. I was able to convince them to get me back to the hostel by 1:00AM. After packing and showering, I got five hours of drunken sleep before Stewart reappeared to take me out for my last sobering laksa breakfast and then out to the airport for my flight to Miri.