Welcome to the Longhouse

This post is about the week I stayed with members of the Iban tribe in a longhouse in the jungle of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.

A longhouse is a traditional communal dwelling. This one was, for the holidays at least, home to hundreds of members of the same family. It’s essentially a terrace of individual households, complete with a shared gangway at one end. It was made entirely of wood.

I feel fortunate and genuinely privileged to have been invited there to celebrate Gawei (the rice harvest festival) and the wedding of my British-Iban friend Caron’s brother Lionel.

It was a very unique and authentic experience.

It says a lot that the two phrases I remember in the local Iban language are white boy ‘Orang Pitu’ and finish your drink ‘nirup abiss.’

It was a laugh-a-minute booze-a-thon.

Every night turned into kind of party that 15-year-olds throw when their parents are on holiday. Minus the snogging.

I had a brilliant time!

The first night, I presented my gifts of two carrot cakes I’d baked plus a bottle of Nando’s extra-hot peri peri sauce. We joined the men assembled around the barbeque  One beer turned into several and we were offered shots of home brewed hooch. Since it’s rude to turn down an offer from your hosts, we indulged. Repeatedly.

In the early hours of the morning I found myself a sleeping spot in the living room. Mattresses covered almost every floorboard and everyone from grandmas to children bedded down together, like a giant sleepover.

I was roused at 7am, in a state between still drunk and hungover, to witness the men of the tribe slaughter and butcher a pig for the day’s Gawei feast. They put it in a bag and sliced off its head. It was surreal but as humane as possible in the circumstances. 

A number of chickens and ducks were separated from their bonces, too.

It was first time I’d seen animals killed in real life. But I’d long wanted to, to see how I’d react.

I didn’t puke.

I have to give a comedy legend award to the guy who greeted us all with warm handshakes and then proceeded to shake the trotter of the now-headless pig.

The Gawei buffet meal was spectacular and a cracking party followed.

Guests (us) were invited to start at one end of the long house and make their way to the other end, stopping along the way at each household to be warmly welcomed, offered beer, whiskey and gallons of locally brewed rice wine.

Since there was no concept of mixers, all drinks are taken as shots. It didn’t take long before I reached the level of drunk known as ‘Matt Timberlake’ and I danced into the wee hours.

The Wedding was a wonderful night.

The bride, groom and groom’s sisters looked incredible in their traditional outfits. These made my own shirt-tie ensemble seem tame.

I was introduced to such a huge number of family members that it was no surprise when the wooden living room floor gave way as more than 50 relatives assembled for a photo.

As soon as it was clear no one had been hurt, the situation was hilarious!

During the wedding ceremony, the head man of the longhouse waved a chicken around to bless the marriage before the couple paraded in front of the guests. Then followed speeches, a fabulous feast and… you guessed it, a huge party of drinking and dancing!

If I was nervous that as a friend of a friend I would be surplus to requirements, I needn’t be. I was made to feel welcome and became part of the celebration and I handed out drinks to guests. I was assigned Chili vodka.

Tradition dictates that anyone who accepts a drink can also insist that the pourer (me) should also have one. I lost count at ten shots.

Prior to the British occupation of Borneo, the Iban tribe were headhunters. The practice died out in the late 1800s. I was proudly shown centuries-old trophy skulls. Between this longhouse and another I visited for lunch one day, I saw thirty of the grisly relics.

My own tradition of losing football matches on this trip continued as the Iban lads twice defeated England in games played on metre-long grass.

On our penultimate day, we bought colouring books, balloon animals and transfer tattoos for the kids. I think they had as much fun as us.

We also took one of the local lads with us as we sneaked out for a KFC. He was far more interested in the Superman watch that came with his meal than the Colonel’s chicken.

But with the food on offer at home, who could blame him?

Every day the tribe’s women prepared three wonderful home cooked buffet meals. The barbecuing was left to the men. Sometimes it was genuinely better not to know what you were eating but some dishes on offer included pig guts and pineapple (very tasty), jellyfish (slimy but surprisingly tasty) and boiled monkey (not tasty at all).

In between the heady booze-clouds, it’s hard to distinguish exactly what is memory and what is fantasy:

Did a middle aged man who spoke no English really have a tattoo of the words DISCO and SEX etched on his arm?

Did a man really liven up a bowl of bitter winter melon with a packet of Double Dip sherbert?

Was one of the Iban lads really named McAllister after the baldy Scotland international midfielder Gary?

Were blades really attached to the feet of fighting cocks?

Did I really see a monkey that been shot in the head with a homemade gun?

Did we really cook a peri-peri pig head?

It was that kind of a week.

All I can say is thanks for invite, thanks for the hospitality and thanks for the memories.

Peninsular Malaysia

The wealth in Peninsular Malaysia pits the place is in stark contrast to Cambodia and other poor parts of South East Asia. Here street art replaces street children.

My first stop was Penang. It’s a middle-class cultural melting pot. An island where several cultures collide and combine. You’ll find mosques, churches and temples on the same street. And outside of the quaint capital George Town, you’ll find plenty of traffic and skyscrapers, too.

Penang is famed for its cuisine and on my arrival I was lucky to buddy up with a French dude whose food blog meant his prerogative was to eat, eat and eat.

Well, mange tout Rodney, let’s do it!

One day we took an interesting 50km bike ride which took us to a floating mosque, a colonial-era graveyard and a canopy walkway in the national park.

Another day, I visited a Buddhist temple that was packed with sleeping pit vipers. They are poisonous, but nocturnal.

 Penang’s War Museum is a strange old place. It’s a former British Army complex overlooking the coast. Its tropical jungle setting contains intact infrastructure of barracks, underground tunnels, bomb shelters and huge land-to-air and land-to-sea gun placements. The Japanese overtook the complex in World War 2 after the Brits scarpered to Singapore. As a genuine piece of history, it had a lot of potential, but sadly the information on display was mostly generic and poorly presented.

The Japanese used the place to torture and execute POWs.  Which is why I found myself questioning whether the venue’s alternative use as a paintball arena was tasteful or not.

After a bus trip into the Cameron Highlands, I took a hike to sniff out the world’s largest flower. The Rafflesia is also known as the ‘corpse flower’ for its pungent stink. I was hungover and can confirm the smell was unpleasant.

I also dropped by the ‘Boh’ tea plantation for a brew with a view.

Next was on to the Perhentian islands. Its national marine park status means fishing is banned and it is renowned for fantastic snorkeling and scuba diving. In a single day of snorkeling, I saw four sharks and four turtles (Splinter the rat was nowhere to be seen).

I also snorkeled above a giant bump-nosed parrotfish as he let out a shit for 4 metres. It was interesting and disgusting to see tons of smaller fish converge to gobble it up.

I splashed out on a few scuba dives. The visibility was stunning and the marine life exceptional, it was some of my favourite diving to date.

Pulau Perhentian is a sticky island. I couldn’t leave. Thanks to great company and Jack-Sparrow-quantities of rum, I overstayed by a week.

One night we camped out on a secluded beach. But it wasn’t as deserted as we’d have liked. Turtle poachers kept rolling in!

But the sky provided the entertainment with a sunset, moonset, incredible stars plus a lightning storm.

My only qualm with life on the Island was that the same annoying reggae covers band played every night. I don’t consider myself a music buff, but Radiohead and Oasis tracks do not lend themselves to a Marley makeover.

My last stop on the Peninsular was the capital, Kuala Lumpur, or ’KL’. It’s a very modern city. I took a Sunday stroll through its attractive commercial district. A collection of ultra modern glass skyscrapers and strategically placed palm trees. To me it felt like the result of a week-long Sim City session by Jonathan Ive. Perfect, but a bit soulless.

 KL’s most famous building is the Petronas Towers. It’s an impressive building, even more so at night.

 More impressively, there was a Nando’s inside – the first I’ve found in over 7 months!  After my second visit in two days, I took a bonus Imodium to keep the peri-peri goodness in my system for a little while longer.

My favourite experience in KL was a 3AM wander into the Little India district in search of a place to watch the Champions League Final. I found a packed café and washed down a Rojak (spicy peanut and egg salad) with several insanely strong cups of pulled tea.

I’ll be honest. I didn’t much like Kuala Lumpur. its residents seemed to take themselves seriously and I felt out of place in my flip flops and washed out vest.

As I sat on the sky train and watched the opposite row of people thumb their smartphones to avoid eye contact with me and each other, I realised that’s what I have been escaping from!

A cosmopolitan metropolis where beer is too expensive and nobody talks to each other?

KL had prescribed me a micro dose of the reality bite I’m anticipating back in London.

My dear Cambodia

Unless you are a complete piss artist or an Australian, or both, a backpacker's experience in Cambodia is likely to be defined by the country's two contrasting histories.

The ancient glory of the Khmer empire and the shockingly recent murderous regime of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge government.

The cold hard facts and cold hearted acts of the Khmer Rouge resound in my head as free haunting souvenirs.

Between 1975  and 1979  an estimated 2.5 million people died as the Khmer Rouge sought to degenerate the entire country back to its agrarian roots.

A nationwide massacre was targeted at politicians, teachers and intellectuals - the people most crucial to a country’s development.

Widespread famine and disease ensued as the Khmer Rouge sold food supplies for weapons.

More than a fifth of the population perished. No one was unaffected.

Cambodia today is rife with poverty. 

I arrived after two months in South Thailand. Cambodia’s child street hawkers offered me a culture shock, in addition to their homemade bracelets and photocopied Lonely Planet books.

But there's a charm about Cambodia's friendly people that defies their hardships. In a way, it reminded me of India.

And I fell in love with the place on my first morning.

I started my visit in Siem Reap. Since I was training for a half-marathon, I went for a run. As the heat level hit searing, my hangover intensified and I found myself parched on the outskirts of town.

I gestured at a lady who was sweeping her garden to ask where I could find water. Despite the fact I was a sweaty mess and she spoke no English, she invited me inside for a drink, offered me jam and called in her kids to say hello / laugh at the sweaty white man.

My main reason for being in Siem Reap was to explore the 9^th to 13^th century remains of the capital of the ancient Khmer empire.

I baulked at cycling in the 40 degree heat. Just a single minute out of the shade was enough to turn me into Matt soup. So I hired a motorbike-chariot driver, Kong, to ferry me around for two days.

The ruins of Angkor archeological park are incredible. It’s without doubt the greatest man-made creation I have ever seen, edging out the Taj Mahal, Selhurst Park and the Whitgift Centre.

The scale of the place is mind-blowing. There is so much to see. Inevitably, there were a lot of people there to see it.

The headline act is Angkor Wat, the world’s largest religious building. It makes for a spectacular sunrise silhouette, as long as you don’t mind being elbow-to-elbow with thousands of snap-happy Chinese tourists.

Ta Prom temple is known as the ‘Tomb Raider’ for its supporting role alongside Angelina Jolie’s chest in the console-game-cash-in movie. Here, trees interweave with the masonry to create a unique and beautiful coalition of nature and man.

On my second day, I set out in search of lesser known temples for a break from the crowds.

 I found bliss as I sat undisturbed and sketched in the tranquil shade for two hours before my peace was destroyed.

‘Pants!’

‘Pants, pants, pants!’ was the cry that broke the silence.  As a shouting hawker ran towards me flailing pairs of garish-elephant-motifed pyjama bottoms.

My driver Kong had a funny sense of humour. This may well have been because he was stoned most of the time.

He insisted that I must see his favourite relic, the River of a Thousand Lingas (phalluses) which was a long drive out of town. Compared to the grandeur of some of Angkor’s other sites, it was a bit of an anticlimax, but he wasn’t lying, there really were loads of ancient stumpy cocks crudely carved into the riverbed.

I also visited the National Landmine Museum.  It is focused on the work of Aki Ra, a former Khmer Rouge child soldier who has since spent his life removing 50,000 landmines using a stick and pair of pliers. Most of these mines are now on display at the museum.

As I was leaving, Aki Ra arrived to pick up some TNT to detonate a haul of newly recovered ordinance, so I was pleased to be able to shake his hand and tell him how much I enjoyed the museum.

I am convinced this incredible man’s life story should be told as a movie.

If you are reading this (of course you are) UN ambassador, film director and Cambodiaphile Angelina Jolie, then what are you waiting for!?!

Before departing Siem Reap I took a cooking lesson. It was great fun, but as I enjoyed several draft beers at 50 US cents a glass, I’m glad they have emailed me the recipes.

In Phnom Penh I visited the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge. It is an intense experience.

You follow a numbered route around mass graves, execution sites and human remains. An audio tour plumbs into your ears stories of the suffering of the victims. This brings the horrors to life in a vivid and very powerful way.

It was emotional and in the heat of the day it wasn’t clear what were tears and what was sweat on the faces of the visitors.

This was followed by a visit to the S-21 museum at Tuol Sleng. It is a school that was converted by the Khmer Rouge into a torture prison where 20,000 people were killed.

Classrooms were converted to cells and even playground equipment was repurposed for the macabre. I can say without doubt it was the most haunting, harrowing place I have ever been and I didn’t want to stay there very long.

This was humanity at its most barbaric and it maddens me to know that atrocities of this scale were ongoing just 35 years ago. After Armstrong had landed on the moon, Elvis had popped his blue suede clogs and Blue Peter was on to its fourth pet dog.

All in all, it was a very sombre day. Even a super happy pizza didn’t cheer me up very much.

Next day was a bike trip into the countryside where we were welcomed into a temple by friendly monks who spoke some English. I impressed them with a video of me practicing Muay Thai and in return one of them sang me Islands in the Stream by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton.

Before departing Phnom Penh, I visited the National Museum. It was full of ancient treasures of the Khmer Empire. I have never seen so many intact ancient objects in such a small space. My inner Lara Croft was overjoyed.

Perhaps predictably, I sacked off the half-marathon in favour of a week of carefree beach life in Shianoukeville on the South Coast.

After a couple of nights on deserted beautiful beaches on the mainland, I reached Koh Rong, an island home to world-class white sand beaches and a decent backpacker scene.  I did a few scuba dives. Though the visibility was poor, what it lacked in quality was made up for in quantity as our night dive lasted almost two hours.

I’d whole-heartedly recommend a visit to Cambodia. It suits a budget traveler (you can find dorm beds from $1!) the food is good, the beer is cheap, the history is fascinating and the locals are wonderful.