Rumah Tutong

Dear travel journal,
Day 2 at the longhouse - wake up to the sounds of the river and the birds and bugs. Up for breaky and Feeling a little rough today - think I'm getting a cold. I'm so glad I brought my jacket out here because the temp drops quite a bit during the night. We sore off Sam, callum, Anne and Paul as they head off to spend the night at the fancy resort. Not far up the river one of the motors on the long boat broke down and they had to send the third long boat down the river to make a switch and bring the broken one back to fix. so our morning walk was postponed. So I went back to bed and had a bit of a sleep. I woke up mid morning and after a while I did start feeling heaps better. Christina was again being amazing in the kitchen and getting a packed lunch ready for us all to take on our trek today. The longboat wasn't as broken as they thought they just had to replace the starter motor cord so we could go on the long walk we were planning as the start of the walk is down river. Our guides today were amazing. One at the back and one at the front and awesome supports the whole time. It was definitely not an easy walk. So, we all jumped into one long boat (10 of us) and went down stream a bit of a ways. And then the longboat was tidied to a tree at the base of the river bank and one at a time we had to walk down the length of the boat and climb up the river bank which was pretty much straight up on a vertical angle for I would say maybe 50 meters. We were practically crawling up the side of the mountain grabbing any stable root, tree and rock we could to get up. The rule was give each other space and don't try to help cause then we will all fall. It was actually quite fun. Then we just kept walking up hill and along ridges for what felt like ages. We saw lecks and heard pheasants and barking deer and saw lots of hairy nests and areas wild boar had been. Then we sat down and had lunch which was an egg and a potato each, some peanuts and fermented raisins (sound yuck but actually tasty) and then we where handed a banana leaf (1 between 2- best plate ever) which had rice, baked beans and cucumber. Yup total carb loading. Then we started on again and continued going up and across and up some more. Then we heard a massive crash and saw something disappear between then trees quick as a flash - hairy!!!!! Apparently when they get annoyed or think they are being followed they will kick a tree really hard, and take off in the other direction, as a way of saying back off - not happy! The hairies in this part of batangi are still hunted and eaten so when they hear people they are very skitish. Where as the ones around our camp from the last trip, are more used to people and are not eaten so they hang around a bit more allowing people a chance to get a good look. I think coexisting is perfect but being friendly with people is definitely something that should be avoided. Alvin was saying for the most part, more hairys are seen in areas where it is taboo to eat monkey meat and harder to see where it is still eaten. The plan being to have the entire region move away from monkey hunting. We kept walking on up and straight and up some more and while we were all sat having a rest one of the iban went out to scout the track. And he must have spooked a hairy because it came rushing past us. The iban with us saw it well and a few people saw something orangey brown taking off through the trees. Hairy take 2 - very cool. Alvin said that he has never seen one move between the trees so fast, but because of how big and dense the trees are in the area we were in makes it super easy for them to move around. We kept walking a little more and then turned and started walking down. It was really quite steep in places, it took a lot of 'subah subah' (slowly slowly), rope, a group effort and some sliding but eventually we all made it to the bottom and back to the river - just much further up stream. We took our walking boots off and jumped in the river cause the only way back was to go down and across the river a little. Back at the long house and exhausted we were informed our couple of hr walk had turned into a full on 7 hr trek and that we were the first whities to ever do that track. The iban where literally cutting branches and trees back to make us a path as we walked. Feeling pretty honoured. While out one of the Iban tried to teach me how to say 'this is good' in iban, which I got at the time but have the memory of a sieve so I will have to ask tomorrow. I thought the trek was amazing. I would have quite easily gone out and done that everyday or just gone and sit and watched the wildlife world happen around me. I would love to come here and help out with a conservation project. Everyone did so well on the walk. The oldest person in our group are in their 60s and maria with her poor knees on those steep Climbs. Once back on our beach the iban had brought the boar up from the river and cut it into lots pieces and were cooking it over a fire on the beach. We all got our toiletries and washed in the river and in our little wash area I climbed up the rocks and jumped into the deep bit of the river and floated a few meters down stream then swam back and around for a while. It was quite refreshing. I love being in the waters here. This place is awesome. After a wash and cloths cleaning, it was back upstairs, organise all my stuff, put dry cloths on and then out into the kitchen to help Christina with dinner. After dinner there wasn't much sitting around. Iban and whities are all pretty tired after a massive day. Aside from the boar and fixing the boat. They have pretty much completely cut up a massive iron wood tree that runs down, well ran down beside the long house. So all being stuffed meant an early night by all. After we leave tomorrow the iban might stay an extra couple of days to build more but most if not all of them will go back to their families and long houses and periodically come over to work on building the amazing design idea for what will eventually be a place I will be able to say I help build and set up. So here I lay in pitch black on my mattress under my to net, in a room full of people, no privacy, river and birds in the back ground, trying to figure out how to explain this amazing place and how lucky I feel to be here and how much I don't want to leave in the morning.Read more