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The indigenous tribes of Borneo

The last week has been really excellent. I left Kuching, the capital of the Sarawak province with two British girls - Sarah and Zoe. Determined to experience a more authentic impression of the cultures on the island we headed inland to the jungle town of Belaga. It is so inland that the only way to get there is by boat via two other towns, Sibu and Kapit. 3 days of tiring travel and we arrived at a calm and relaxed two street town by the banks of the river. The locals are hospitable and friendly; the food tasty but still the same unvaried options from the rest of the country - noodles, rice, fried noodles, fried rice, fried chicken etc.

By chance we met a local, Andreas Bato, who happens to be a tour operator as well as a Malaysian film/tv star. We ventured into the jungle with him, visiting four different tribes (Kayan, Kejaman, Kenya and another I’ve forgotten). The indigenous tribes, the Urang Ulu, live in unique accomodation known as longhouses. These are very long buildings (up to 300m) with a room for each family. One of the houses we visited has nearly 700 occupants! It was interesting to see how the tribes blended with modern Malaysia. The micro economies of the long houses are capitalist, not socialist as I expected with the people living together. Younger generations of the tribes usually work at the logging camps or with the government, whilst the older generations look after the infants and continue about a very relaxed way of life in a traditional style - crushing rice, harvesting jungle crops and hunting animals such as deer and wild boar in the dense tropical jungle. We were given shows of traditional musical instruments, the sape (guitar-like) and the nose flute, and failed miserably when trying to play them. Also, we tried on the traditional dresses and learned some dances which may have been about war, welcoming or something else. I was amazed at the friendliness of the families and how happy they were to have us in their homes. We ate food from the jungles and lived like the tribes!

Andreas also organised for us to go on a jungle trek. Not your standard trek. We used an old hunting trail which was over grown with dense rain forest and had no clearly defined paths. Our guide carved a path using his sharpened machete, and became increasingly agitated when we were nearly attacked by flying wasps the size of golf balls. We finished up at the river where chicken wings over a hot fire was lunch, and then a swim at a creek nearby. On return to the long house we had the opportunity to visit a longhouse not visited by tourists in four years, to pay respects (literally, pay) to a family in mourning - the main attraction being Zoe’s ginger hair.

Saying goodbye to Belaga was unfortunate, more time would have been nice to spend with the wonderful people there - but time pushes. We stopped over at the Niah caves to see the bats, and then pushed through Brunei to make it to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, where I am now.