Borneo Craft

When we came to Sarawak over a month ago we spotted this beautiful woven material but were unsure about it due to its hefty price. After doing some research and seeing all the craft involved in the process of this colourful weaving technique I subsequently understood it was more than worth it. This unique piece, called a Pua Kumbu, has been made by a Kapit lady some years back. The Kapit tribes live within the Batang Rejang River system in Central Sarawak.

Happy crowd

I am impressed by the happy atmosphere the Rainforest World Music Festival is bringing to that part of Sarawak. I do not have the figures but it surely attracts a lot of people. And as any good festival, even though the weather has been beautiful so far, the crowd is knee high in the mud. Tonight's performances included some local bands (Kani'd and Tuku Kame) as well as a Japanese drummer (Hiroshi Motofuji), some African grooves (Yakande), an Oud trio from Palestine (Adel Salameh), a Polish folk fusion band (Beltaine) and a final with Trinidad & Tobago jamoo (Sheldon Blackman & The Love Circle). A very good event with an excellent vibe in an amazing setting (the rainforest in the background just makes things amazing).

Fly me to...

I am not particularly a Low Cost airlines enthusiast as I like to travel comfortably (even when I am generally sleeping the whole flight through) but for short hauls I do not mind paying the bare minimum to get the bare minimum as long as I am taken to my destination timely and safely. Compared to all the no frill airlines I have taken so far, AirAsia has to be my best experience: new Airbus A320, clean interior, friendly staff, organised check-in, departure ahead of schedule, smooth ride, professional crew, etc... I must admit I have been pleasantly surprised. The only downpoint is that there are hardly any flights out of Singapore, therefore I had to take the pain to cross the border at Woodland by public transport and get taxied all the way to Senai (Johor Barhu) airport. But my trip to Borneo remains more than half the cost compared to a departure from Singapore.

Orangutan

Since I arrived in Indonesia I have always known that orang means 'person' and hutan means 'forest' in bahasa indonesia but I had never realised how impressive those forest people were until I saw them for real for the first time in my life today. They are simply amazing creatures with long arms, reddish-brown hair and a human look. We even had the chance to see an imposing flanged adult male and quite a few offsprings. I learnt that the females usually stay with their babies until the age of sevn and that the males are quite independent from the women generally only meeting to mate. They also spend nearly all their life in the trees. I am still stunned by the experience.

Nepenthes Ampullaria

What a day! It was absolutely gorgeous! We left in the morning to Kampung Bako to catch a boat to go the river to Bako National Park. Leaving the jetty we were already graced by the sight of a crocodile. In the park itself we decided to make the 6 kilometers Lintang trail. We are relatively good walkers having walked places like the Cradle Mountains in a record time but I must admit the heat killed us and I personally ended the trail on my knees! But it was very rewarding. Regarding the fauna, we first saw dozens of common macaques and just a few hundred meters into the trail we saw the famous proboscis monkeys with their funny noses which are quite a rare and unique sight. And for the flora, we are not specialists but we obviously encountered some interesting species including many different types of nepenthes. The ones above are the nepenthes ampullaria which are very distcinctive from any other species in the genus and they also probably are the only ones to have moved away carnivory.