The boat to Sibu was an interesting ride. The scenery was filled with lumberyards and sawmills, rusty abandoned ships that seemingly had found their final resting spots. The ride itself was a rough one at times, especially out on the sea otherwise travel on the river sections was quite gentle. We arrived at one very busy port in Sibu. This is a major transportation hub for access to many communities living in long houses along the river. There were many boats being loaded up. Most of the cargo seems to go on the roof of the boats. Young men sit on the roofs catching items that are thrown to them. Once neatly packed, the boats take off. They look like submarine whipping along the river. The locals refer to them as "flying coffins" because of their peculiar appearance.
Sibu is a predominantly Chinese city and as a result has a lot of little tea houses, small restaurants displaying pork, duck and chicken hanging in the front. We 'hung' out in SIbu as there is not really much else to do. An interesting night market, filled with food, was the primary entertainment at night. In the day, it was the wet market which is reportedly the largest of its kind in Malaysia. We had really great buns that tasted like bagels and filled them with bbq'ed pork. We ate them sitting on a bench on the street by the market - this drew a lot of attention from the locals. I even spotted one man taking photos of us, now that is the tables turned!
From SIbu, we arranged a long house visit for one night. Macathy, our host, and Mr. Broken, our driver, picked us up at 9:30 in the morning. We drove to the longhouse in a beat up, rusty little van. There were already two men in the back; nothing like picking up a little business along the way. The drive to the community, Bassan Awan, was only about 40 minutes. Upon arrival we met 'mom' and were served a sweet tea and tauk. As per tradition, Macathy poured a glass and set it outside for the spirits, then he poured himself a serving and finally the group could then toast. This tradition is followed every time a bottle is opened.
Our time was spent visiting other long houses, drinking more tauk and tea and walking around the village handing out candies (Jon and Paul). We also played a blow dart game, guys against the girls with the girls being victorious (for some reason I was pretty good at it). We had dinner together with the family and Mr. Broken and his wife. It was all very nice. After dinner, as per tradition, we sat on bamboo mats on the floor and, you guessed it, drank more tauk and tea. We couldn't tell if this is the norm or if it was just done for our pleasure, either way, I had had enough while Jon was becoming more and more animated. He managed to show the family what seemed like, all our photos from all our travels. I must admit, they were quite interested. And Jon loves an audience so he kept it up, I could hear him telling stories - he even showed them pictures of his decks in Toronto. They were very entertained.
The next morning we were up early as Mr. Broken had to head into Sibu and then on to Kuching. He has the car, so we had to leave early as well. It was a nice visit with a very nice family. All of us really enjoyed it and one night was enough to learn a bit about the Iban culture.
We stayed in Sibu one more night before heading to Miri. SInce there was not a lot to do in Sibu, we thought Miri may be more interesting. In Miri, we found a very neat hotel that was really quite new. We took rooms in the loft space. They were super small but the hotel was really cute. In Miri, we walked around, had coffees (and attempted to get strong coffee that wasn't too sweet - an ongoing challenge), ate street food and really just relaxed. Our next bit of adventure would be quite adventurous, we needed some rest. Three nights in MIri went by quickly enough; it was a nice town but didn't really have a lot to do. Sometimes you just have to 'hang'!
No comments:
Post a Comment