Sungai Ipoh

Dear travel journal,
Today we woke up and had breaky at the hotel and then we packed our stuff and headed down to the main building to wait for Alvin and the longboats. He had to go into town to get supplies so the wait was a bit extended. While we were waiting maria, Kirsty and I went for a wander down the front path of the resort. Had some lunch and sat around chatting for a bit. When Alvin got to the hotel we loaded into the boats and finally headed up the river. Same traditional longboats as last time I was here. 2 of us in each boat (Alvin and I, in my boat). Up the river, and reminiscing about the last time I was here. We only had to get out of the boat once to help push the boat over a super shallow bit. Which was pretty good considering how we were fighting up river the whole time. We had 2 iban in each boat. One at the front with a paddle and long stick to help steer and one at the back with the boat engine driving and steering the boat from back there. Once we arrived at the log house, we saw the site which is still very much in progress and had to walked up the muddy bank with bits of wood lay down for stairs, which were super slippy because they had, had a storm that morning (oddly we didn't any rain at all). The long house on the right has two sections the first was a big open square. With one corner still not built in. The front bit with the 'door' and a side section with the fire pit for cooking. Along the wall with the firepit was a kitchen and food. A table in the middle. None of the walls have been finished yet. And along the other wall the iban tribe has their bed set up (sleeping mats). There is 10 of them in total building this foundation who are staying here and we are staying with them. The second room is a square room with the beds around 3 sides, with one side wall finished off with a hanging tarp, none built all the way to to roof. Each raised bed had a mat over the top nailed down. Under each mat was a coin. The coin was placed to help pay respects to the spirits of the land in which we are staying in. and a little shed away from the main house with two toilets, whig will eventually be a built in shower block. One boy and one girl toilet with interesting and graffic wood carvings out the front of each (I found it amusing). The toilets have a tin roof and wooden sides and the doors are just a square of tarp nailed up and they don't have running water so we have a plastic bin filled with water that we pour some water in the toilet after we use it . We unpacked the long boats and met the iban and the chief and set up our mosquito nets. After our beds where set we helped Christina with dinner. Feeding 22 people each meal is insane and she does it really well. The chief made us sticky rice in bamboo over the fire pit which took over an hour. They usually only make these for special occasions. Like weddings, or for special guests. While dinner was cooking we all had a good chat and alvin got us arm wrestling with the iban. Jason won his and then it was my turn, i like to think i held my own for a while, we kind of just stayed in one spot, then i knew there was no way i was going to win and gave in, lol. They are all so ridiculously strong. After all the whities took their food and ate, the iban had some food as well. They will always wait until their guests have eaten until they will eat. After dinner Alvin got us to play a mingling game with the iban where he put one of them with one of us. One half of the whities taught the iban an English phrase and the other half of us where taught an iban phrase by the locals. I was taught 'sapa nama de' which means 'what is your name?', And I was voted best Malay speaker. They speak iban here. Everyone in borneo speaks malay but then there are multiple different languages. There are 32 different iban dialects. After wards we all sang 'you got a friend in me' old school song as our new tour song (although it oddly works). Last time we sang 'where have the hairys gone' (which is a unique jungle born song). And I think we need to make a new one for here. Obviously we all kinda only were able to sing the chorus and muddeled through the rest. Which obviously ended with us doing the can-can and swaying lol. I'm sure they found it highly entertaining. Then as a thankyou and welcome the chief Handed around shots of rice wine. Alcohol here is very much a common culture. A lot of people make their own rice wine and beer and whiskey. And drinking is a way of welcome, appreciation and it is considered rude to say no when they personally offer you something. Then sat around chatting and then crashed.Read more