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Published: April 28th 2009
Day 298: Thursday 23rd April - Learning about the Kelabits
My flight to Bario is on a Twin Otter aircraft, a 20 seater, propeller aircraft. This is the smallest plane I’ve ever flown in with the exception of the one I took over the Nazca Lines in Peru. There are no modern security measures between pilots and passengers and I can see straight into the cockpit from my seat. There are baggage limits on the flight so I make sure I travel light only taking hand luggage with me for the flight. As I have no checked luggage, I am approached by two women in Miri airport as I check-in asking if I’m willing to carry a box to Bario for them. I haven’t a clue what is in the box, I certainly haven’t packed my own luggage, but I sense there is no harm in agreeing to their request, since the plane is flying within the borders of Sarawak. The 55 minute flight to Bario flies over Mulu National Park and as the Twin Otter flies much lower than modern aircraft, you are meant to be able to see the entrance to Deer Cave from the window of the
plane. That is if you don’t fall asleep on the flight as I promptly do!
Arriving in Bario, I am met by Douglas the owner of De Plateau Lodge where I will be staying either side of my stays in the surrounding longhouses. I also meet the gentleman who is waiting for the box that I carried on to the plane for him in Miri. He is very grateful and is a friendly chap so we stand talking for 5 minutes or so. He tells me a bit about the history of Bario, how the British soldiers were stationed here during the 1960’s to protect Bario during the Konfrontasi (confrontation) with Indonesia along the Kalimantan/Sarawak border in the early days of Malaysia’s independence from Britain. Douglas drops me off at the lodge via a few stops in the village of Bario first. He tells me that Bario is home to just 800 Kelabit people and the Kelabit’s are one of the smallest indigenous groups in Sarawak, numbering just 7000 worldwide. He leaves me to settle in and I get talking to Jessica and Sean, an English couple who have been staying here for a few days. There seems no
sense of urgency in this tranquil highland setting but to be honest I’m enjoying relaxing and chatting to Jessica and Sean over a cup of Milo in my homely surroundings. After an energetic last week, a relaxing morning is just what I need.
Douglas returns at lunchtime and makes us lunch before announcing that we will be going into Bario after lunch. What is involved and the timing is unclear, a characteristic of many of Douglas’ communications during my stay. After lunch, Douglas is keen to go to Bario, so the three of us get ourselves organised and off we go. The lodge is on Bario’s outskirts and driving to the centre of the village on the pot-holed dirt roads is only slightly faster than walking pace. We stop off first to say hello to John, Jessica and Sean’s guide for their trek into the jungle, who owns a bar in Bario. Our next stop, with John and Douglas’s son Dave in tow is to visit the primary school in Bario. As we are walking up the lane to reach the school, a tractor offers us a lift and the five of us clamber on to the empty oil
barrels that the tractor is towing. People are so friendly and accommodating in this tranquil highland valley.
The school visit - which was part of my tour programme - was not what I expected. We meet the headteacher, who Sean and Jessica are particularly interested to meet as they would like the opportunity to teach here at some future date. They have spent the last year in Taiwan teaching English, and are keen to continue to teach to fund their travels. There is no direct contact with the children, save John’s daughter Cindy who pops in to say hello. The lessons finish at lunchtime and it is now mid-afternoon. I still leave some presents for the children in the form of pens, pencils and sweets but it would have been nicer to see one of their lessons. We are told about the education of the Kelabits whilst we share some Bario pineapple, which the area is famous for. Kelabit children start school at 7 years old, and then transfer to the adjacent secondary school at 12 for a further 3 years. The schools in Bario are boarding schools, the children staying in the school regardless if they live in
Bario or other villages in the Kelabit Highlands, and they only return home every couple of weeks at weekends and during school holidays. Lessons are in Malay, except Maths, Science and English which are taught in English. The Kelabit language is taught by parents and only used in home life. After finishing school, most Kelabit children finish their education off in the cities of Sarawak, and then it is common to have a year out, during which they return to Bario and spend time with their parents helping out where necessary. Douglas’s son, Dave who shows me around Bario’s longhouse is currently on his ‘year out’. Due to the early independence which the Kelabit schooling system instils in its children as well as the quality of education they receive, Kelabit’s occupy prominent positions in society in occupations such as lawyers, doctors and even the chief executive of Malaysia Airlines.
After the school visit, Dave takes me to Bario’s longhouse where I have a brief look around. There is an elderly gentleman who has the traditional huge holes in his drooping ear lobes, which is interesting to see but he doesn’t want me to take his picture. I am then
taken to the art gallery, where we meet Peter, Bario’s artist and join up with the other three. We leave John and Dave in the village and the three of us stroll back in the pleasant evening sun to De Plateau. My observation after a day in Bario is that life is lived at a languid pace, but the people are extremely friendly and proud to be Kelabit. The location of Bario is stunning as well. It is ringed by jungle-covered mountains on all sides and due to its elevation at 1000 metres, the climate is cooler and without the stifling humidity of much of south-east Asia.
I still haven’t had any conversation with Douglas about what is happening tomorrow. When he returns in the mid-evening, he says we will talk after dinner. When I tell him I want to do two longhouse stays on my 3 day trek he seems surprised. He is also struggling to find a guide to take me into the jungle. I’m not impressed, why this hasn’t been sorted out days before I don’t know as I booked this tour nearly a week ago. When I go to bed the best option he has
offered me is a one night stay in a longhouse - that is if he can find a guide. He is blaming Tropical Adventures as he says they don’t really have any local knowledge. I’m not yet at the stage of apportioning blame, but what I do know is there has certainly been some miscommunication between the agency and Douglas.
Day 299: Friday 24th April - No longhouse stay - gutted!
The confusion of yesterday continues throughout the morning. It’s not just me as well, Douglas is nowhere to be seen when Jessica and Sean need to get to the airport. This man is either too busy to run a guesthouse or is extremely disorganised. My three day trek shows no sign of coming together either. John is apparently the only guide available so my trip will have to be tailored to the trails he knows primarily, with what I really want to do as an afterthought. When John appears at the lodge in the mid-morning to sort things out, the picture gets more unclear. He says he needs monies for various things....overnight guiding fees, food, sleeping bag hire etc. I was led to believe by Tropical Adventures
that all of this was covered in the price I paid, so I tell him to find Douglas and talk to him as he may know better. This is wishful thinking....when John returns some issues are cleared up but I still have to pay 45RM additional costs on top of the 1100RM (£200) I have already paid for my trip to Bario. Talking to John further, I realise that the actual cost of my tailored trip is 700RM, meaning that Tropical Adventures have made a whopping 400RM profit. We also talk about the itinerary, which will include only one night’s stay in a longhouse (and this is doubtful at this stage) and a night in the jungle. I am not impressed at this stage.....I have paid over the odds for a tour which looks like it won’t give me the experience I want. I conclude that my best option at this point is to do the trip on the table and then sort things out with the agency when I return to Miri.
It is approaching lunchtime before we eventually start trekking out of Miri. I’m not in the best of moods because of what has happened since yesterday
evening but I vouch that I’ll deal with that later and make the best of the next few days. I have nothing against John, he seems a nice guy and it isn’t his fault what has gone wrong up to now. We trek about half an hour until we reach Pa’Ukat village, where we stop for a brief look around. There is no sign of life, everyone must be busy at work in the fields. As we continue on to Pa’Umor through the jungle I get to know John better and he teaches me some jungle survival skills. He shows me how to get water from bamboo and which plants can be eaten. He tells me more about the Kelabits, but most of all we talk about him. He worked as a scaffolding contractor in the cities of Sarawak until being drawn back to the lifestyle in Bario. His wife would not come with him so he brought his two children, Clinton (15) and Cindy (12) back to his homeland. As well as running a bar, he is also the secretary of the guiding association and also seems heavily involved in the conservation reserves that have protected some areas of
forest around Bario from the logging companies.
We arrive at Pa’Umor, the village where John was born, in the mid-afternoon. Again, there aren’t many people around, but John takes me to the village’s longhouse for a lookaround. I am introduced to the mother of the only family that lives in the longhouse now, and we have some tea with her and her baby son. John explains that the other five families that shared the longhouse have moved out and no longer live here, living instead in Bario or the city. I ask him how long the longhouse has been this empty and he says the trend to abandon life in the longhouse has being going on for two decades now. I think this is sad and he agrees, recounting happy memories from his childhood growing up in a longhouse in this village when it was in its former location on the other side of the river. I ask him if the longhouse in Pa’Umor is typical of the others in the Kelabit highlands and he says this is the case. People have either migrated to the city or Bario or logging near to the longhouse sites has driven people
out. John arranges for us to have our meals with the family, but it isn’t going to be possible to stay in the longhouse. Well, it is, but only in the communal area and John says it will be better to stay next door at his cousin’s house (which he has a key for) as there is an old lady living in the longhouse with the family and he thinks it is best we don’t disturb her.
We settle in to John’s cousins’ house, which is similar in style to the longhouse, just not connected together to the other houses. John tells me that it can be connected at a later date, but I have doubts this will ever happen given the current situation next door. I sit out on the veranda admiring the view of the surrounding hills, and the peacefulness of the village. I’m also thinking about what to do next. It seems this adventure is going to be two more days trekking through the jungle and nothing else. Having trekked through the jungle on several occasions in the last month (Sumatra, Singapore, Sabah and Sarawak), this isn’t the reason I came to Bario. I wonder whether
the best option is just to return to Bario tomorrow morning. I could relax at De Plateau Lodge for a few days rather than trek through the jungle. This does appeal but somehow it feels wrong to turn my back on John. He has been first rate up to this point.....let’s see where the adventure might take us.
In the late afternoon we go down to the river to fish. John can find only one rod but I’ve never had much time for fishing - I just don’t have the required patience. He catches one fish which we can have for dinner. When we return to the village, we join the family in the longhouse for dinner. The family consists of a father, mother, 14 month old baby and the father’s mother. The three other children are at school in Bario. It is nice to share in their meal, but there is an empty atmosphere in the longhouse. There are only six of us eating in a long communal corridor, a home that I’m sure has seen better times. John does his best to make me feel at home, making sure I don’t feel excluded and bridging the language
gap. He tells me that there are only a few families living in Pa’Umor now and that they all live the modern way in homes not connected to others. He also says that he is trying to organise a kind of reunion at Christmas, when all the families that are from Pa’Umor come back to the longhouse to enjoy a communal celebration. Now that is an experience I would love to be part of and I wish him luck in trying to organise that. It seems to be the Kelabit way, that people leave the area to work and only return to see family/friends and to retire here after their careers are over.
Day 300: Saturday 25th April - Making camp in the jungle
After sharing breakfast with the family and seeing two of their children returning home for the weekend from school in Bario it is time to start walking into the jungle. There is no rush though and it is mid-morning before we get on our way. Before our first stop - a salt spring - we pass a sign which shows the way to Indonesia. John tells me it is only one day’s walk to
Kalimantan on the other side of the border. At the salt spring, John explains how the people use the natural salt spring to make the salt which is one of the three famous products to come from the Bario area (the others are rice and pineapple). A couple of families take it in turns to stay here for a week while they collect wood from the forest and collect the salt. The rest of the afternoon we walk through the jungle at a gentle pace, John with machete in hand cutting our way through whenever the vegetation cuts across our path. To date we have seen none of the animals that inhabit the area, save wild buffalo around the rice fields, hornbills high in the canopy and many colourful dragonflies and butterflies. Just before we reach camp, John says that many barking deer can be found nearby. He tries to call them using two leaves which mimic their ‘bark’ but despite his efforts, we see no barking deer.
Reaching the camp at 5pm, John gets to work making a fire first and then cutting some of the nearby trees down for firewood and to make our camp. Our camp
consists of two hammocks, which are covered by some plastic to keep the rain off. It is basic but it is interesting to see how John makes the camp and the fire using the tools of the forest. He later cooks some of the ‘vegetables’ he has picked up on the way through the jungle along with Bario rice and tinned sardines which I never liked, ever since the days my Grandma used to pull tins out from her vast pantry which used to rival the size of a supermarket’s stock room in its day! With our only light and warmth coming from the fire, and being constantly plagues by leeches and wasps I go to sleep in the hammock early. Subconsciously I can here John pottering around. He tells me in the morning he was improving the camp as he couldn’t sleep.
Day 301: Sunday 26th April - I’m not a celebrity.....but still get me out of here!
The wasps are out in force in the morning and I got at least 4 leech bites (or should that be sucks??!) last night so I am keen to get out of camp as soon as possible. We hear
gibbons and barking deer calling in the surrounding forest but unfortunately we don’t see them. Our walk today is a long one, we walk up to the ridge which would offer great views but in the rain the view is obscured by clouds. We continue along the ridge in the rain, before starting to descend towards Bario. Thankfully the rain isn’t that hard, but in the wet weather the leeches are out in force. I keep having to pull them off my boots, and somehow a few make it through my boots and are attached to my socks, but thankfully no more blood. It is a hard slog, and a long day and I’ve had enough of staring at trees when we reach the logging road at 3pm. Trekking in jungles isn’t my favourite terrain, as the saying goes you can’t see the wood for the trees! John says we still have another hour and a half to walk when we reach the logging road. Walking in the heat and the monotony of walking along the road soon begins to tell so John gives one of his friends a call and we pop in for a hot drink and a
chat for a while. By the time we get back to Bario it is near darkness and I am tired and looking forward to a shower.
When I get back at the guesthouse, Helen an English lady who I first met in KK (and who told me about Bario) and who arrived in Bario the day I departed for my trek is still there. She can talk the hind leg off a donkey but at least she is friendly, which I can’t say about the two other guests a pair of American men who are ignorant, aloof and rude when I arrive. After dinner I go to meet John at his bar. It is a 40 minute walk to his bar, and I’m tired after 3 days of trekking but I‘ve promised, and I never renege on my word. At least it gets me out of the lodge - I don’t think I could cope with that crowd!! The road in to Bario is a good 2km and is pitch black, save the light from my torch. When I arrive in the village I confirm directions to John’s bar with some of the locals who are sat in a
shop and one of them, Nixon, kindly gives me a lift on the back of his motorbike. When we arrive at John’s bar he has just woken up from sleeping. He tells me he has never walked that route we did today before in one day, and is feeling the pace. We talk for a couple of hours over a few beers, he shares his dreams of what he would like to achieve in Bario (he wants to create more trails in the jungle, create a lodge and offer a longhouse stay of his own) and I teach him some German so he can communicate with an Austrian girl he was guiding a couple of months ago. He gives me a lift back to the lodge on the back of a motorbike at the end of the night. Top guy!
The main reason I came to Bario was to stay in a longhouse. Because of this I leave this friendly highland village in beautiful, peaceful surroundings with more than a tinge of disappointment. However, to describe the past four days as a waste of time would be untrue. I have made a good friend in John, who has showed
me how to survive in the jungle as well as give me an insight into the Kelabit people. Sadly, in this part of Borneo, longhouses seem to be a dying breed. Somehow, I have a feeling that this may be the case in other parts of this island. My disappointment is more at the experience that I have missed out on rather than that I had, which wasn’t bad. It’s just after doing a lot of jungle trekking the last month, I wanted to be doing something else other than staring at trees!! That something else was a longhouse stay, to gain a real glimpse into a very different culture and way of living. Now, with only a few days left in Borneo before I fly back to the mainland it looks as if that experience is going to be denied. What a shame.
Day 302: Monday 27th April - Seeking recompense back in Miri
It’s back on the Twin Otter to fly back to Miri. There is something about the sound of the propeller engine that sends me to sleep, but not before we fly over Mulu and I spot the Deer Cave. I get picked up
at the airport and dropped off at Minda to pick up my bag. The friendly staff let me hang out there and use their facilities free of charge (unusual in the hostelling fraternity these days) ahead of my bus journey to Kuching this evening. After I repack my bags, there is only one thing on my mind. That is to pay Tropical Adventures a visit and see what they have got to stay. Richard who I dealt with previously is not there so I speak to Kevin. He is sorry to hear that I didn’t get to do a longhouse stay and suggests that the problem was down to a miscommunication between themselves and Douglas. You can say that again! I tell him how disappointed I am at not being able to do a longhouse stay, one of the things I was most looking forward to during my 3 week stay in Borneo. He asks what my plans are the next few days and I tell him that I am off to Kuching this evening and I am spending two days there before flying to Kuala Lumpur. I am seeking some form of recompense, I don’t know what but I’m
more interested in what they have to offer. When Kevin offers a longhouse stay near Kuching for Wednesday I am more than a bit interested. This is quite unexpected, I had given up hope of being able to do one. However, with a free day in Kuching, with nothing concrete planned I could fit this in. I tell him I also want to be refunded the additional money I spent in Bario as well as being offered a programme at the longhouse which will not see me having to spend additional money. I’m in no mood to let him off the hook easily! We part agreeing to finalise it over email.
At the local bus station I have various taxi drivers offering their services and telling me that there is no local bus to the express bus station. I’ve seen this all before, lies and more lies to extract some money out of tourists. I’m not falling for it this time, and a defiant rejection of their offer, followed by a smile and they know that this is one tourist who isn’t going to fall for their ploys and they leave me alone. The local bus turns up on
cue at 5pm, and an hour later I get on the express bus for the 14 hour journey to Kuching. It may be a long journey, but the roads are so much better than Indonesia and I’m asleep for most of the journey in an air-conditioned bus, so it is painless.
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halim
non-member comment
Going the same trek
Looks like we went the same trek friend, i alway love Kelabit people, they are friendly and marvelous.. check my kelabit story about abir at http://www.acrossplanet.blogspot.com/