“01:42.957N 110:19.550E”

Tuesday 23^rd April

What a busy informative day  we've had at the Santubong Cultural Centre. Fearing a tourist mecca, we were very pleasantly surprised by the longhouses, their displays and interactive arts we all enjoyed participating in. Each ethnic group of Borneo was represented with the longhouses where they live, their furnishings, clothes and arts, craft and music. A show of each of the Bidayuh, Iban, Orang Ulu, Melanau and Chinese were performed with their costumes, weapons and style of dancing all unique. Hatty enjoyed watching the Iban dancers with beaded neck shawls which had red pom poms hanging from them and gold headdresses with bells jingling from them. Willow loved the Orang Ulu dancers where one man climbed up a pole and was spun around by the other men and then he did a somersault off the pole to the ground and somersaulted again. Phoebe liked watching the Melanau dancers where the men used long decorated poles, clacking them together as the women jumped nimbly through them.

In the Malay house, Hatty enjoyed looking at the golden yellow cover on the huge bed with colourful curtains flapping on carved wooden poles hanging over the bed. Phoebe liked trying to spin a wooden spinning top with a string wrapped around it on the ground. ‘It was pretty hard and Dad nearly did it.’ Willow liked the carved wooden table and chairs patterned with a flower on the back of every chair.

At the Orang Ulu longhouse Phoebe liked watching two men playing their patterned rectangular guitars on a smooth wooden veranda. Hatty commented ‘On the poles holding up the longhouse was the ‘tree of life’ painted in white and black which is the symbol of Sarawak.’ Beautiful baskets and implements were displayed and a small hearth used for cooking in the corner was cooking biscuits.

Under the Melanau tall house Phoebe liked jumping through the bamboo poles that were moved in and out in rhythm. ‘Upstairs inside the Melanau tall house there are four floors. The first where they cook and eat, the second is a long hallway with doors leading into rooms with mattresses and blankets where a family sleep, the third floor is for celebrations like weddings and the fourth is for storage.’ Sago biscuits were delicious and the Melanau are the only people to eat sago instead of rice as their staple.

In the Iban longhouse, Willow liked watching a lady make fried rice cookies that she dribbled out of holey bowl and then folded them over and put them in a basket. Willow loved swinging on a wooden swing in a long veranda with wooden spoons, bowls, blow pipes and baskets hanging on the wall. Beaded shawls with pom poms were on display and a lady was delicately weaving a scarf from thread on a hand loom, pushing each minute coloured strand before threading the next. Time consuming work!

Hatty said ‘As we walked into the Bidayuh house we heard a big drum which made a thundering noise with a high pitch of gongs ringing around the big wooden room. I played the drum with its long sticks and the gongs with their short heavy sticks. Nearby was a bamboo bridge which had a walkway, rails and uprights to cross the river. To get onto the bridge there was a smooth log with slits cut into it for steps. They also used these to go up into the longhouses.’ Hornbills, the Sarawak symbol, were intricately carved along the roof line.

In the Chinese farm house Willow liked grinding the rice in a granite rice mill with a stick hanging off, to push it around. ‘There was a homemade bamboo cradle for a baby hanging from the roof.’ Displays of old tools, baskets on a central pole to carry vegetables to market, a Chinese worship area and pepper processing machine were on display. Sweets made from pepper were surprisingly delicious but the bird saliva, where they extract the saliva from the feathers to use in birds’ nests soup, certainly didn’t look so appealing. Making up 28% of the Borneo population the Chinese emigrated to farm the land, and this house and its contents were a good example of their hardworking beginnings.

Thursday 25^th April

We motor sailed past rocky forested islands near the western tip of Borneo to Serabang yesterday. Jeremy cleaned the hull to give us extra speed on our trip across the South China Sea to mainland Malaysia while the girls had a play on the beach before being boat bound for the two night trip. Weather forecasts are looking good, with gentle to no wind from the south west, as the south west monsoon has come in early. Our destination is Tioman Island to meet my brother Stirling.