Sungai Tutong

Dear travel journal,
This morning we were up early. Awake to the sounds of the forest in my mosquito net. Up for another amazing Christina breaky. And then because of the heavy rain from last night and constant rain today. We sat around and chatted with Alvin and the iban chief. The iban all sat around in their bed areas. Alvin was saying this is a good way to see that the conditions outside are not great because even all of the iban won't go outside to work. Alvin was saying that the laws here are governed by the chief who is determined by the tribe people. The iban determine their own laws right down to who the locals can marry. Where as with the other tribes such as the long Ears tribe, are very class dependant. For example even within their tribe they can only marry within their class. Alvin was saying the plan for us being here is to start to integrate with the tribe. Help where we can and become honarary members of the community. We are like the lighthouse group of the new plans for conservation and plans for extending the long house. Setting examples for and giving ideas for how to communicate with the locals and show them we can help. When the rain eased the iban started to head up the hill to make more planks of wood, from massive tress with chain saws!!!! to build the long house and we got stuck in to help. Anne, Julie and I started to help build the stairs. We cut out more wood and mud stairs and then put pegs at the front of each wooden step to hold everything in place. All the way from the long house to the river. And the chief cut up some bamboo and made a hand rail for the side of the steps. Once we all were all muddy and sweaty I took my dirty laundry down to the river and washed everything and hung it out. we ate an amazing lunch made by Christina and then we get sorted and headed out for a walk. We just did a short walk today. The start of a longer trail, which is 3 hrs long but we only did an hr or so of it today. It was a nice walk and the Iban, as usual, where amazing and made us all walking sticks out of bits of tree around the river. We saw lots of nests mostly old but 1 fresh hairy and 1 small sun bear. We also saw a tree that had had the bark peeled away by the hairys to suck out the water. And a buttress route tree that had been dug out by a foraging sun bear. We also heard the calls of a pheasant and saw an eagle. At the end of the track we did today was a bit of a waterfall. They put our stuff into a long boat and put us in life jackets and we jumped off the waterfall (only 2-3 meters) and floated down the river from the waterfall to the long house. I did get one cockroach type bug run up my pant leg which was interesting to get out, pulled a leach off the back of my leg and my stomach and had an ant bite my stomach but it was all good. Once back at the longhouse we grabbed our washing gear and headed down to a calmer patch in the river and washed our cloths and bodies and I washed my hair and got all clean. Then back up stairs to help Christina with dinner and then we sat around chatting. One of the iban elders went out hunting while we were having dinner. He was on his own and saw a wild bore so he shot it with his rifle and gutted it and turned the intestines inside out and put the stomach and intestines into a bag. Then attached the bag to the boar, removed a leg and suspended the rest submerged into the river to preserve it over night until the other iban can go down and help collect it. He carried the leg back up to the long house. And the iban are now cooking it while we are chatting. They seared it on the fire then cut it into pieces and put the bones into pots and boiled it. The extra meat they cooked over the fire and shared it between the iban and the whities. The elder who caught the bore then walked up the hill to collect a plant they use to flavour the meat and boil with the bones to make stock and said while he was in the forest he saw a hairy with a young one in the forest just behind our long house. Seriously within a stones throw from where we were sitting! The meat is obviously pork but had a very beefy flavour with the pork kind of texture. It was quite nice. The fact that they shared with us is amazing. They really are taking on the view of taking us into their home. I had a really good chat with Anne tonight about pets and sad stories turned happy and problem breeds lol. I also had a good chat with Alvin about a tracking project that a zoologist is coming over to do. And he is going to send me the zoologists plans for me to have a look and send back to him with notes and comments. It is hugley amazing to be a part of a project like this and be were we are. I think we really are making a good impression on the chief. This morning the chief was saying that I have to come back again. He wouldn't say that if they honestly didn't believe it. Crawled into my mossie net tonight, and going to sleep happy and content...Read more