Adventures in Borneo? :P

Long Bedian: Day 2

            It’s Christmas!!! Too bad there’s no prezzies waiting for me under the tree :( Apparently Christmases don’t mean presents anymore once you’ve grown up. Disappointment much! And since I’m so free, I went to the dining room and started working my way through some of the snacks laid out. LOL. After a bath and some jakun actions, see below, we went to one of the relatives’ house for a lil visiting before the Christmas Mass here.

            Since he’s like the Wakil Rakyat here, the main conv was about the politics and all. So I kinda tune out after a while. But from what I heard, I can totally understand why BN is quite strong here. They did help out the development of the villages around here cos the YB managed to get a new Sekolah-9 installed in the village which costed abt 50mil. In comparison, a similar building would have just costed about 20mil if done in cities or towns. The higher costs incurred would be due to the difficulty of the transportation of raw materials. Read my previous posts to get an idea HERE. Shall not go on and on about the rest of the conv, but you get the picture right?

            The Mass was in Kayan language, so again I’m like -.-“” and tune those out again. LOL. Once it was over, lunch was a crowded affair. See what I meant? And I have a lil fake flower corsage. Kieh Kieh Kieh!

corsage :D

 

            And being the city girl I was, more jakunness can be witnessed as I tried sucking on those lil shellfish (siput). Grrr! I was the entertainment during lunch. Everyone was laughing at me. Oh well, I managed to slowly pull out the lil suckers out using my fork, Grr! Take that you lil squealing snails! XD

            Do you guys know how much a small piece of these woody thingie costs? 

A kilo can easily go for tens of thousands. OK, maybe I shouldn’t be studying. Going to the jungle seemed to be the easy way out here. LOL. They are making their deals and such and I am busy documenting them. Gaharu anyone? XD

            In the afternoon, we were off to visit the step-uncle’s vast lands and orchards and/or plantations? OK, I couldn’t differentiate most of the trees and logs etc but I know how a rubber tree and oil palm look like. Then I recognize some of the trees’ names too from Meranti, Berlian and such. Kieh Kieh Kieh. (Self denial mode). So that’s not so bad right? LOL.  Apparently they hire some of the Penans to do the heavy work and I definitely couldn’t imagine trying to even take care of just a small plot of the land. Danggg.

Rubber tapping can also earn like RM100 a day! Arg! Tell me again why do people bother getting a degree or anything again? The oil palms are on the rise too so, maybe agriculture is a better option? :S

            Then it’s off to see the failed slope at one of his chalets. Pengsan. Never knew what I learnt in class can actually be seen in reality. LOL. The rivers were too fast and went headlong towards the cliff where the chalets are. So part of its legs collapsed (the chalets). Then finally, we’re off to the waterfalls. There’s another chalets made to look like the old longhouses and also the settings were meant to follow that too. Here’s some pics so you guys get an idea of that place. PS: The place is opened for 9 months annually only so it’s off season for tourists now. Just January to September I guess. :)

            There’s like 5 natural waterfalls around this place, and tourists can opt to go jungle trekking to each of them (that will take like 6 hours on foot) so obviously, I’m not going for that. XD. The place remind me of National Parks but with a more untouched feeling. And the ants are really big! The kick-ass ants are the size of my finger! @@ I can’t imagine being bitten by one. And there’s some snakes in the vicinity too, I didn’t spot any cos I was busy taking photos of the longhouse, but the rest of them saw a Nawan snake slithering away. OK, that kinda gives me the creep but if you’re like one of those AngMohs or AngMohs celup, and are interested to check these out, here’s a good place to start. LOL.

            We went to the second waterfalls where I had my 1^st experience of having the whole car jumping headlong into the fast waters of the river. Geng!!!! I was like OMG! I’m definitely getting one of these big, bad boys if I ever wanna buy a vehicle. Ecehwah! LOL. Then the car is left in the river to be washed by the fast currents and we went down to play with the water. That’s definitely new for me. Kekeke. I’m too chicken to play in the big river itself, so I’m dunking myself into the shallower smaller river that connects to it a lil higher up. :P We din go for the other waterfalls since it’s pretty late dy but the water is COLD and pretty clean since not a lot of people go here I guess. 

            Dinner is a quiet affair by now since everyone’s pretty tired after the long day. :P I spent some time sitting outside the house and chatted with dad over the snacks laid out and a glass of icy cold 7-Up. Yay! So anyone up for a trip to Long Bedian anytime soon?:D

More photos HERE