MADE


I'm having a hard time to even choose the photos to upload. So to Facebook they go, the rest of them.

Gawai is different for me, this time around. I've decided to get a few friends to go on a road trip with me down to Serian AND Julau, Dad and Mom's hometown. I've never driven down other than with family before, neither have I actually went to both my parents' hometown in one Gawai holiday. This must work.

At 4.00 a.m. on a Friday, the journey began. Livia, HanWei, Wadie and I stocked up on coffee, loads of food and more than enough songs in the iPod. Again, it was raining, like it's part of this grand scheme of things to dampen our spirit whenever we're out for a trip, like it's not damp enough while loading our stuff into the trunk.

After about 2 hours, we arrived in Bintulu. We stopped for a good breakfast of nasi lemak and roti canai. And coffee of course. We made several more stops to refuel and eat some more (I'm not surprised if I gained a few kilos this holiday, it's about eating every other hour!)

....nasi lemak = bliss....


Finally, Sg Paon Rimu. Mom prepared tea for us, nothing better after the tiring drive. Barely an hour after, we found ourselves fishing at uncle Anthony's fish pond! Hell, I never fished before, so of course I was happy to manage to catch something, and it's not an old tire.



....pose first....





It was an early night for all.

Day 2 of the trip. We made our own breakfast. Then off to the farm. Goofed around a lot. Later that day, we were at the fish pond, AGAIN! This time, it was to watch some kampung folks with the fish net. Pond wasn't deep after all.











The day's highlight was of course Gawai eve. We were at the longhouse, dancing, given tuak, talking and for some reason, also included me giving out prizes. That's supposed to be Dad's job (I was in my pyjamas, so to speak). I was only there for the booze....er, eye candy (well, not much luck there), photojournal-ing (?), yeah, that's it. Late night this one. We slept at 4 a.m., HanWei, Wadie and I chatted through the night, and morning. I just landed where I saw space and didn't wake up for another 5 hours.






Since we planned to head down to Kuching the next day, I had to make my rounds doing Gawai visiting first.




....digging through the candy jar....


So content to be in a mall again. I still have the old me in me. And spend I did.

Another late night just talking.

Day 4. The drive to Mom's kampung in Julau. 6 hours on the road. Arrived quite late at the small town of Julau and Mom broke the news that we had to be walking in the dark on the dirt road for one hour to reach the longhouse! Immediately after that, a bath in the river, in the dark! Should've seen the look of horror in our faces, even from me! Everything just happened so fast, scary but like a strange adrenaline rush at the same time, HanWei would say.

That night we were already visiting. Funny thing happen, after a couple of biliks (houses), since we were already tired, Mom said to us (and strangely enough looking specifically at HanWei), "just another nenek (grandmother) after this". What she meant was that we had another house to visit, and coincidently, they are all considered my grandmothers. But it reminded us of that little story of the butterfly and nenek that only we know. Just couldn't help it, we burst out laughing. How apt.

Day 2 in Julau. The day was spent doing nothing. We're so not used to it that the three of us slept at the ruai (common area) out of boredom. We later tried out playing the traditional instruments, that was cool. At the end, all us first timers felt that we were ready to perform that night. Hey, we were not bad at all.










....my grandma, still got the skills....


We were fully geared up for the coming night, each armed with our camera and videocams, but it was too long a wait, we fell asleep and never woke up! That's the only one thing that we could've done differently as it would've been the main event. Guess we were too tired and the next day will be spent on the road to return back to Miri.

Everybody has been treating us, especially my good friends, very well.

I do hope that this trip has been a memorable one for you, as it is for me.

To Wadie, very sorry that you had fallen ill right after the trip, hope you'll get well soon, so we can have that Mongolian barbeque! Happy birthday.

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