Above: Orang Ulu mural at the Sarawak Cultural Village.
Today, I took my guest to Sarawak Cultural Village for a taste of Borneo culture. It’s a place I always try to take my overseas visitors. Ivan, with peninsular Malaysian origins, would be quite new to most things Borneo as well.
We started with a walk around the various tribal homes. Disappointingly, some were closed for renovation. And then, some of the staff didn’t seem to be at the others to give information specific to their culture. Fortunately, the weather as good for our outdoor walk.
We headed indoors for the 1100 cultural performance in the main auditorium. This is always the highlight of my visit as the costumes are colourful and the performers talented.
Of particular note are:
- The Ngajat Lesong dance from the Iban community where the dancer picks up a 5kg wooden mortar and dances with it. He finishes by flinging it on to the ground with a heavy thud. At Sarawak Cultural Village.
- The Alu-Alu dance from the Melanau community, where one of the performers climbs on top of a bamboo pole and spins around (like a helicopter rotor) with his belly on the pole. At Sarawak Cultural Village.
- The Orang Ulu blowpipe demonstration, with the warrior shooting darts at balloons from afar.
After the performance, we continued our walk to the Malay house where we witnessed a gasing (spinning top) demonstration. We were shown the various types of gasing, differing by shape, and also a Kelantan one which is flat.
I dropped Ivan back to his hotel late in the afternoon. That evening, I got picked up by my friend, Boo, to go to his house and thereafter to the OYO Golden Lounge Hotel where we would overnight before a 0600 report for our ride to Singkawang in Indonesia. Boo and I grabbed dinner under the hotel before retiring.