We sat on the bus musing, the road cut through the thick rain forest of Borneo as we steadily climbed up and over the mountains of Kota Kinabalu national park. We knew this could well be the last bus we took. The trip that has took us through 26 countries was still in full swing but was rapidly drawing to an end, soon we would have to start looking for jobs.
Kota Kinablu is famous for having the highest mountain in South East Asia. Though after a close shave with a mountain in the Andes we decided to give the ascent to the top a miss, preferring the markets and local nightlife.
We could have taken the bus through the country of Brunei and added one more country to the list, but tired and weary we instead hopped on a flight straight to Kuching bypassing one of the world’s most conservative nations.
Kuching
Kuching was to be our base for the next few days. The riverfront was the perfect place for a stroll. The cobbled walkway was lined with restaurants, food stalls and numerous street hawkers selling tree bark to improve your sex life. Chinese and old English colonial buildings made up the streets standing reluctantly proud as they have done for many years, the amazingly designed Legalistive building across the river brings a sign of the modern era. It’s the nicest area in Kuching and a place we spent many evenings wandering, eating and relaxing.
As this was the last week of the trip we decided to head out of town and check into a Four Star hotel, the Dami Beach Resort. The place had seen better days, its past hey day seemed long forgotten. Sections were closed, they kept a bunch of sad looking cats in a big bird cage (as we would learn later they only eat dogs so they were pretty safe). There was an American guy with what he claimed to be a dazzling rare bird siting, chained on his shoulder so it could not escape. Somehow we always attract the crazies.
Really there was no need for the bellboy to carry my backpack, something that over the past year I had perfected. The beach was nice and the hotel offered a half-baked luxury we were not accustomed too.
What we really came for was to visit the Malaysian Heritage Village where there were native long houses from the various tribes that inhabit Borneo. In each house there was people cooking local foods or demonstrating local cultures.
Trying our luck at blow pipe shooting was the highlight and we both hit the target on our second try. It was a surprisingly powerful piece of equipment. The half-naked tribesman didn’t put us off though they too were trying to sell us the mysterious tree bark (which we now know you are supposed to rub on your private parts to make them numb!)
The day ended as we watched the sun set behind the ocean, perhaps the last sunset of this trip. As it dropped off the end of the earth we headed back to Kuching, this time staying in one of the old colonial houses where we arranged a morning trip out of town to the Annah Rais long house.
It wasn’t exactly what we were expecting. We wandered a through a ramshackle longhouse while the inhabitants dressed in Manchester United shirts watched TV and chatted on their mobile phones.
We entered the head house where once the ancestors of the villages took the heads of their war victims to be smoked. In the centre there were several skulls, charred by the burning staring blankly towards us. Luckily for us the skulls were close to 100 years old and the tribe stopped headhunting a long time ago. (at least that’s what they told us)
The mediocre trip was immediately improved when we paid a small fee to enter a native house claiming to be a museum set up by one of the enterprising locals.
The cheeful owner pulled out a huge bottle of homemade honey rum, passed some glasses around and started filling them up.
Things started to get better as he talked us through the items in the museum whilst refilling our empty glasses and telling us to drink faster.
Of all the items in the museum perhaps the most impressive was the header hunters backpack inherited though his family. It was strange to know that once upon a time it was used to carry the heads of enemy warriors back to the village .
So we headed back to Kuching a little light headed but with both our heads still attached. We knew the curtain was closing on this trip and the next day we would fly to Singapore, three days later we would be in Sydney the final destination of this trip. One adventure may have been closing but the doors were opening to a new world down under.
