Robin did not have the best night last night.... Poor thing. There are varying degrees of upset stomachs going around our group... With it ranging from Aok for Alex, to Regurgitating for Robin. I would put myself at a Crappy for Craig, so not quite to the level of Rob. She's ok though. In light of that, we will have a [not so] special guest blogger today, Alex [the exagerator] Versluis! Let's all give a [luke] warm welcome for Alex!
Here we go [you may want to skip ahead to day 85 at this point, he's very verbose]....
Since Craig stayed home with Robin as she recovered from a rough night, I'm stepping in to offer some commentary as the six of us headed out to get some Malaysian culture at the Mari Mari Cultural Centre! While we've been very active exploring Borneo's outdoor adventures and interacting with its wildlife, we've had limited exposure to the traditions and customs of the native people.
Now that I have the pulpit, I'm going to try and set the record straight on an incident that occurred last week (here's hoping Craig won't edit this out because he really just skimmed over it in his blog and it was a pretty [minor] major event for us) - the day of the macaque monkey [quasi] attack at Sepilok was a [not even] close call. Here's a quick flashback to our day at the Orangutan visit: As our group of seven traversed [strolled] the boardwalks of the park, returning from the nursery, Beth and Abby stumbled upon [saw] a large [tiny, non threatening] male macaque sitting [sleeping] on the railing. Let's call him Richard [Francis]. Once Kim, Jeffrey, Robin, Matt and I caught up, I placed [accidentally found] myself behind Richard [Francis] and let the family slip behind me one by one.
First Beth, then Abby, and so on. At this point, Richard [Francis] started to turn and was in the midst of a staring [looking complacently] competition with Jeffrey. I could see the recoil [yawn] forming in Richard's [Francis' mouth] legs and I grabbed [pushed] Jeffrey behind [in front of] me and I yelled [thought to myself] "run!" I could feel the wind on the side of my head as Richard [Francis] launched [loped] across the walkway and it was only my cat[sloth]-like reflexes that saved me. At this point, you must be thinking that I am quite the protector, [no] but alas, I was screaming like a little child and I'm sure my voice cracked once or twice as I yelled [screamed] "run!" with greater intensity after noticing a second monkey was on the other railing and both monkeys were now chasing us [strolling] up the railing.
There was no instinctual response [oh please] to save us this time with the kill shot [huh?]! Abby was running backwards with her eyes as large as saucers - Beth, Kim, Robin and the boys were running - it was straight out of a horror [comedy] movie! We somehow managed to elude [walk away from] the dangerous duo [curious, seemingly domesticated animals] to rejoin Craig with a new lease on life... but I digress [big time Alex, big time].....
Back in KK, our six-pack headed out to Mari Mari by a pre-arranged van and arrived at the visitors centre for the property. Our guide for the day, AJ, gathered our group of 15 people and introduced us to the property.
Abby was designated the leader of our now 15-person tribe, required to make our introductions and demonstrate the dance at the end. The setup of Mari Mari is similar to the Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto that shows the buildings, clothing, food, cooking techniques and customs. Plagiarizing their website, the village features 5 different ethnic tribes in one village. They are the rice farmer Kadazan-Dusun, the longhouse resident Rungus, the hunters and fisherman Lundayeh, the cowboy and sea gypsey Bajau, and the famously feared headhunting tribe Murut.
We first visited the Dusun tribe, with their name derived from "village people" [tee hee, that's rich Alex]..I can hear your YMCA jokes all the way in Borneo! This tribe makes up close to 60% of the Sabah ethnic population and about 30% of the overall Sabah population. They've been expanded to include the more educated Kadazan people that are in the cities. This group would make rice in large quantities and store it in large vats, protected by a skeleton, taken from the head of the last rice thief. He informed us this particular one was MIC - made in China. It sure looked real! The layout of the individual family buildings had similar features. Each had a great room for gathering, eating and general family interactions. The parents and grandparents had separate rooms and the single men slept in the main room.
The single women slept in a loft up to 15 meters high. In this male-dominant society, the single women would be escorted up a ladder to the loft by their father each night and then the ladder was removed [Alex has two boys so is unaware that's what we do in Canada with our girls....]. Any men found up there would lose their heads, literally, as it was a zero tolerance rule [ditto for Canada.... Where have you been Alex??].
The kitchen was in the back room of the house where they would cook many dishes including river eel - Abby, Jeffrey and Matt confirmed they are quite slimy.
We tried the rice, chicken and ginger concoction that was cooked in bamboo. It was quite good and reminiscent of our fishing village dinner prepared by Joseph near Kuching.
They also made a rice wine that was similar to sherry, it smelled like vinegar, but was actually rather tasty. Matt did not agree.
We moved on to the Rungus tribe that had a knack for creating bee hives in bamboo and collecting their honey. There are 5 types of indigenous bees that are only found in Sabah. Their clothes were different in each tribe. Here's an example of a unmarried women with Matt. We entered the longhouse that housed the entire tribe. Longhouses consisted of individual family rooms with a long common room along a wide corridor. Rooms were added for each new married couple on both sides of the building to always keep the chief in the centre. In this building we had a demonstration on fire-making, using only bamboo. Two young men prepared the two pieces of bamboo and by rubbing them together, a spark was created and fire was born. They asked for volunteers and I offered to try. Low and behold, I made fire! Maybe I should sign up for Survivor...is that show still on?
We visited the Lundayeh next who were one of the head-hunting tribes. Their house was reinforced with walls that were solid and included a bamboo roof that could be opened to let in air on warm days. Their security system to warn of intruders was rather ingenious. They had a rooster on one side of the house, wild pigs below, dogs on the other side of the house, and patrolling men on the back. Depending on the noise - a bark of a dog, the oink of the pig, etc. they would know where to defend themselves. They had a removable ladder for the women's loft that was made from bamboo.
On the outside, they had a sculpture of a crocodile that they used to store the hunted heads. The crocodile is a revered animal in their tribe. Abby and Matt tried on the traditional clothes after a short instruction on how they made the vests.
Onto the Bajau tribe where we tasted some amazing cooking - first some tea from a local plant with a hint of ginger root then a little pastry snack that was fried. Both were delicious. We climbed inside of their home and found a very colorful space with fabrics throughout. This tribe is Muslim and an early trader, mainly with the Chinese, so they had a larger palette of fabrics to decorate. In addition to the typical features in the house, they also had a room to pray. The main room was decorated for a marriage ceremony, so Kim and I renewed our vows!
The last tribe to visit was the Murut. This is a violent tribe that embedded head-hunting into their day-to-day living. We had to form into two lines of men and women, and then Abby as our leader had to convince the Murut chief to allow us to enter their village, or we would all lose our heads! As we entered the village, we were "accosted" by the men who were jumping around and calling out. After Abby's convincing speech, we were welcomed and then taught to use a blow gun. Our group did pretty well! We entered the longhouse and were given a demonstration of their trampoline. For those Amazing Race followers, this was in their Borneo episode.
The trampoline was used for different celebrations, games and even to select a wife! Young me could marry once they had proven themselves by bringing back a head and showing it to the chief. Once ready to get a bride, they would have one jump to grab a piece of clothing from their prospective girl - if they jumped high enough, the girl was theirs. If not, they would have to move onto a different girl. We donated some money to be attached above the trampoline and then we watched a few jumps as they launched in themselves up into the air to grab the bills. Going up is easy, it's the landing that hurts!
After everyone got a henna tattoo, we headed over the the performance hall for a 30-minute show of drumming and traditional dancing. The highlight was the quick-footed moves of the women and men as they danced through moving bamboo poles on the floor to the drumming rhythms. The kids learned that dance and performed a short number for us! We had a buffet lunch that wasn't anything special and we headed home. Overall, the place was really well done and all of us enjoyed it. I particularly liked seeing the different types of buildings from the indigenous tribes.
We returned to the apartment to find a renewed Robin and a hungry Craig. While Kim and Beth headed off to the spa for their birthday gift (their birthdays are a day apart in December, and we had bought them a half-day spa treatment) Craig and I escorted the kids to Ant-Man. We also requested a home-cooked meal from the kids and, with Abby in the lead, we did some grocery shopping and sat back as Abby, Matt and Jeffrey made an amazing Italian meal. After the relaxed and younger looking wives [Alex's words... I would have said relaxed and rejuvenated to avoid the "did I look old this morning?" question...] returned, we had fresh bruschetta and cut veggies as appetizers, spaghetti and tomato sauce. There was even pineapple for dessert. We finished off the evening with 8-man President and a few sporadic episodes of dancing interspersed. Overall, a successful day in KK.
Well thank you Alex, while there were a lot of early embellishments, the facts from Mari Mari were well captured and documented. As for the so called "big macaque attack" drivel..... Don't quit your day job!
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