Long Bedian - Part 2

Finally, time for the long awaited update of part 2 (IF you waited, haha). Was a bit busy and knocked off track by the recent turns of events and activities.... so well, here it is.

Part II

(This is continued from part one, if you haven't read part I, I suggest you do so HERE)

Day 2 came around..... at 6:30 in the morning.

After having a heartfelt breakfast with our foster families.... chit chatting about who we are, where we're from, what we do..... (which reminds me of a song....), we finally took off for our next stop, which was the Kayan people's very own Sungai Tenyok Resort.

Then, we took something like the 'First Generation' Old-skool Land Cruiser.....

Figure 1. Our ride to Sungai Tenyok.

It was basically a three seater.... so we had to hitch onto the back of it, giving ourselves a chance to experience the fresh air which could only be found miles away from the city.

Figure 2. This..... is the old-skool refueling method.....

Since the day before when I arrived here, everything seemed so..... "amazing" to me. It was a wonder how the whole kampung managed its water supply: which was taken from a self built dam nearby; it was another wonder how they managed to wire their houses to their generators: where they used at night and turned off during the day; and the picture above again....... I wonder whether I would've thought of such a method to pour the fuel into the tank........ ingenious, I have to say....

And after the refueling.... we set off.... for yet another mind jolting ride.... but this time, with fresh air blowing into our nostrils.....

Figure 3, 4. More roads....

The sceneries were nice....... even better than the day before's.... but then again, all the bumping and "massage" made all the views kinda lopsided in my mind...... I could never get the time to remember a straight scenery....

After about 30 minutes of humping in the rear of the pickup...... we arrived......

Figure 5. The suspension bridge near the entrance....

Indeed, this place..... since the first day till today.... everything I saw.... never ceased to amaze me.

Figure 6. The river..... (duh)

(I guess it doesn't look so nice on picture again..... well, cameraphone, what to expect.... you have to see the real thing to appreciate it)

Oh the scenery of nature..... something so rarely are we able to see nowadays..... like right now, what I see when I look outside my window..... is my neighbour's window... but overthere.... everything was perfect. So natural, so peaceful, so beautiful.


We spent the morning.... helping.... wait..... helping? Lol.... I guess not, all we did was attach a few pipes together, that's all. We were supposed to help out the villagers with their plans in affixing a hydroelectric generator and some pipelines for their eletricity and water source..... but turned out that..... they had a change in plans, and asked us to go swimming.


So.... we spent our morning swimming in the icy cold (maybe not icy cold) river..... which was something new to most of us..... swim swimming swim.... until lunch.....

After lunch.... I was already tired from being in the water for the past few hours...... but more was awaiting us. What we had in queue was a visit to their waterfalls..... And so..... half reluctantly (cause I was sleepy and tired), I got into the back of the pickup again...... and jolted my way awake to the waterfall site......

By the time I reached there, I was already fully awake, with my eyes watching my feet and the ground in case any pink-purplish squishy creatures adhered themselves to my feet (leeches). 5 minutes walking distance from the road........ and behold:

Figure 7, 8. The ________ waterfall (fill in the blank, I forgot the name)

My eyes were like "wow......". This was really the first time I actually saw a waterfall...... THIS big..... (though it wasn't really THAT big, but...... yea.....), and this wonderful...... Around it were rays of light that came down from heaven, like those light rays you see from movies and animes..... "So, there really ARE such scenes in real life........"

The one in the pictures was the smaller waterfall, there was another, much HIGHER waterfall..... maybe 3 or 4 stories high, which we could only see from the top since there was no way of getting to the bottom (imagine standing on the 4th floor of TTSS's CCA building and looking down, that's about how it looked like from standing above the waterfall)

The pictures I took didn't turn out nice....... so no pics on the 2nd waterfall.


After the 1st two waterfalls and some swimming below them, we went to yet another one....... but this time.........

Figure 9. Errr...... "Widescreen" (The pic is a bit small because it's wider than taller, click on it if you wanna see properly)

The water fall was BIG....... not high, not much water...... but the rocky part where we could stand on was wide and cool, "cool?..... whatever.... it looked cool I guess.... kids these days seem to use 'cool' to express everything"

And here, we did........

Figure 9. Waaaah.....


Figure 10. Weeeeee........!!!!


Figure 11. Buuuuussshhh!!!............

Before we realised, it was time to be bumping another 5 hours back home..... Four 4-Wheelers.... once again, 5 hours.... of bone jolting butt flattening ride..... shaking us back to reality.


The rest of the trip was basically time we spent together with each other and the villagers..... getting to know each other, learning about the culture and so on.....

All in all, this was really an experience to remember.... all of it. From the free "massage" sessions to the drowning feeling after jumping from waterfalls........ it's all worth it.....

It was actually like watching the dawn of modern mankind..... seeing how they improved, seeing how they maintained their lives.... learning, improvising, improving, it was what brought humans to be who we are today. It was truly a trip that changed my perspective of life.


So long.

Long Bedian - A Trip to Remember

A trip to remember eh? Why? You'll find out shortly.


Since I felt that my expressing ability is kinda deteriorating, I'll stick to less explanation and let the pics explain for themselves.

Part 1

"FIVE HOURS!???, WHERE does THAT leave me!?? Back in KK??", was what I thought, when I heard that our trip to the long house would take 5 hours.

Anyhow, the inevitable came..... and after a troublesome morning of phone calls and sms messages to and from us, our group 5 OC (Organising Chairperson, Ms Aileen), and the Longhouse people..... we finally managed to depart on our "Journey to..... ..... uh...", at loss of words....

But not before a "Transit" at one of Miri's Bus stop..... where we sat, next to the Rambutans and their owners, which all of them had the same thing in common, "Manis ka?" (Is it sweet?), "Ya! Ya! Manis punya, RM3 satu kilo aje" (Yes! Yes! Sweet, RM3 per kilo only)..... Whether they really were sweet or not, I really couldn't help but wonder.

Figure 1. The Transit station, rambutans to the left.....
there were more to the right too.


Figure 2. A "Useful" notice at a "Useless" place....

Something just felt kinda weird when I saw this notice..... I doubt anybody really saw it..... needless to say call the number on it.

Figure 3. The Air purifier beside the "transit station".

During the whole 2 - 3 hour wait at our "transit station", beside us laid a 1.5 meter wide air purifier. How does THIS work? Well, basically, all you have to do is throw anything you feel is of no use, or anything that you don't like it's smell into it, and it'll work to produce a new fragrance by jumbling up all the mumbo-jumbo everyone threw into it.

The Result, is a Light Headed 2 - 3 hour wait....... which kept my stomach feeling full the whole while.

Figure 4, 5. Our "Mass Transport" vehicle.

Toyota HiluxS'..... FOUR of them, it was actually five, but one's tyre got punctured and had to turn back. FOUR four-wheeled vehicles.... to bring 11 people to a place 5 hours away..... (it's said that busses won't go that far, and the road is toooooo "off-road" style).

At the same time, my mind was like "Why do WE need to go all the way to their place to do charity work when they have the money to afford these kind of cars!!?? Even my mom can't afford such a car....., I really wonder how many there are......"


Anyway..... I then realised the reason for the Hiluxes....

Figure 6, 7. Jalan Lapuk, the name of the road....
No, I didn't make it up, it REALLY is Jalan Lapuk!

(Pardon the tilty photoshots.... because taking a proper picture while sitting on a Hilux Rodeo ride was Mission: Impossible 5)

From the pictures, the road doesn't seem too bad...... but in reality!!!! (YES, 4 Exclamation marks!!)...... it was like.... "the ultimate test to car sickness" there was:

• Level 1 - Butt Massage, session length, 30 minutes
• Level 2 - Butt Massage and Vibration, session length, 1 hour
• Level 3 - Whole Body Vibration Session, session length, 1 hour
• Level 4 - G-Force Simulation and Full body 1 second "Air-time" simulation, session length, 30 minutes.
• Level 5 - Teh Tarik production using stomach: Pre-requisite - must have drank Teh-C before the first 4 levels, session length, 1 hour.

Figure 8. But anyway, on the way..... there were some cool things to look at

Figure 9. Err..... Ferry? "Why couldn't they just make a bridge??"


Figure 10. Self Explanatory..... ah, nevermind.... us going onto the ferry.....

At 6:30pm, after a head-dizzying stomach-lurching ass-splitting bone jolting balls shaking 5 hour ride...... we arrived....... at Long Bedian

I was light headed.... thanks to the lunch skipping because of the fragrant air purifier.... and the Teh-C turned Teh Tarik inside me was bursting to come out of my mouth..... which I left for the microns in Long Bedian's side drain to consume....

*Writes in notebook* - reminder - "If my mom is pregnant and went to Long Bedian, the baby will come out along the way"


Tired.... I retired to my foster family, which were going to 'keep' us for the time of this trip.



Night came, along with 5-hours-away-from-town Darkness..... and the gigantic insect species left untouched in the forests, they collided into walls and windows..... flying blindly.....

Being such a long distance from town, electricity was no where to be found. But thank the clever Kayan people (I forgot to mention, Kayan is the race of the people living in this Longhouse area).... they prepared generators, and used them to supply the current to their houses....


That night, we had our "orientation" about the Kayan tribe and some of it's simple history..... which, would be too long to tell here. So I'll just keep the best parts to myself.

Out of good fortune.... we had with us that night, some Penang borned Sarawakian..... Mr James Ritchie..... whom it seems was a journalist.... who happened to be there when we were.

Figure 11. Mr. James Ritchie, doesn't look local does he?

"Who is this guy??" I wondered when I first saw him. "His English is excellent..... even though he's a kampung guy?" And THEN, he spoke Malay! "What the hell......??" and then Cantonese! "What's next?? Japanese!?"...... fortunately.... that was his limit, it seemed.... Anyhow.... he proved to be an interesting character, which I wouldn't mind meeting again in the future, really....



Next was....

Figure 12. Wild Boar Leg

The cheapest source of meat in the kampung..... the price of a bullet and the petrol needed to carry it around. Yes, they use rifles..... on the contrary to what most people think...... they no longer wear a piece of cloth around the waist and use sumpits to shoot down prey..... "The guns are easier, BANG!! and we have meat...". But after seeing the Hiluxes'.... I guess this isn't a surprise anymore...

Figure 13. Well.... somewhat gruesome.... but well, you get to learn new things...

And after finishing up our "orientation", we all flunked home to get some sleep for the next day since it was already quite late..... 12 at night.....



I didn't expect this post to actually be so long. So I'll post a Part 2 later.

Happy Reading!, uh.... a bit late to greet now I guess..... you must've finished reading already, anyway.....


Later.