Mari Mari Cultural Village, KK, Borneo

 

A traditional longhouse.

A longhouse dressed up for a wedding celebration.

A headhunter's longhouse...

with an indoor wooden trampoline, that they used for jumping games.

A 'headhunter'.

Left: beetle nut, which they chew and stains the teeth red. Right: bamboo leaf rolling papers and what they smoke.

Traditional instruments.

A traditional dance with the bamboo sticks.

My dart is the top one.

Tuesday, June 12^th.

I woke up at 6:00 and went to the lobby, but so far, no bag. Very worrying. As I said, I have all my most important stuff, including my malaria pills, but I have no clothes, no toiletries, no hiking boots, no zip on legs for my shorts and everything else that is in that bag. Thankfully, I do have my Tilley hat and my Easter Island dew-rag.

I had the included buffet breakfast then got a toothbrush kit from the hotel, but the brush and the paste were terrible.

This morning I took a tour that I booked last night when I arrived at the hotel. I had one day here and decided to make use of it. Plus, I figured that it would be better to do something rather than sit around fretting about my bag, and there was no point in going shopping for replacements because then sure enough the bag would show up.

I was picked up by a van which already had a family of Koreans with two small kids in it and were driven for about 40 minutes to the Mari Mari Cultural Village. This is like a pioneer village for Borneo tribes. Apparently there used to be dozens of local tribes here. Some were indigenous, and others migrated from other Asian countries. Some were farmers, others, hunters and gatherers and a couple were head-hunters. We visited five different traditional houses where we could see how the people lived, how they constructed their buildings, what they ate, how they made it and how they adapted and used their environment. I also learned that all the tribes had an alcoholic drink and something to smoke, as with just about every culture on the planet. There were people who were dressed as the natives and they explained things and gave us samples of cooked snacks or drinks that they had prepared. It was really interesting to see. The only downside was that there were lots of people there including a couple of large buses full of Asian tourists, which just reminds me why I book GAdventure or Intrepid trips. However, our guide managed to get us separated from the other groups and we had time in each house before the next group arrived. At the end of the tour, we had a short blow dart demonstration and the guide hit the lower portion of a coconut hangind on the wall about twenty feet away. Everyone took a turn and all missed. My turn and I hit the coconut dead centre, what a lucky shot. When we were finished that we all met up in a community building where the various ‘tribes’ performed native dances to music made on traditional instruments. Finally, we were all fed a buffet lunch, before boarding our respective vans for the drive back to our hotels. Our guide Shafiq was excited because he had just found out he had passed his tourism course and could now be hired as a tour guide anywhere in the country.

When I got back to the hotel the reception informed me that my bag had arrived and they had taken it to my room!! I spent the rest of the afternoon blogging.

At 6:00 I headed down to the lobby to meet my new GAdventures group. Our CEO is named Donny Joking and he gave us a copy of our itinerary. As he talked I listened but was confused as it said the tour was eight days. The trip I thought I had booked was supposed to be thirteen days. I thought I had given Denise the wrong trip code or that she had made a mistake. Finally, it became clear when Donny explained that some of the people here had just finished climbing Mt Kota Kinabula and were finishing up, others were continuing on, others were continuing with Donny somewhere else in Borneo after the eight days, and still others, including me, where flying to the other end of the island after the eight days to complete the thirteen days with another CEO. Are you confused? I sure was, and I was not the only one. However, the mystery was solved, and I was at the right place. After the briefing we headed as a large group to a local restaurant and had our first meal together. It seems like a good group, with four Canadians, some Australians and British people as well. There are fifteen of us. Then back to the room to repack my bag as we are going somewhere with only a small backpack of what we need for three days, and the big bag will be dropped off and we won’t see it again until then (and I just got it back!).