The longhouse was about half an hour's drive from Kapit, along a tributary of the Rejang. When we arrived at the longhouse, we realised it was situated in a really nice location on the small river. We had to cross a narrow, bouncy suspension bridge between the road and the longhouse. The longhouse was mainly made from wood, with corrugated iron rooves. The style of the longhouse was very much "traditional", as opposed to the many new cement longhouses that we saw along the Rejang between Sibu and Kapit.
We were led to the communal veranda where we met by the chief headman's family. The sweets and biscuits went down well with the many children and the drink was enjoyed by the adults. What was quite apparent and difficult to deal with was the fact that not many people spoke english and Johnny, our "guide" wasn't forthcoming in translating for us. Eventually the chief (tuai rumah) arrived back from his job as a policeman, changed into his longhouse wear and invited us to stay in his apartment of the longhouse. Having had the chief's approval, we felt more comfortable and were given a bit of a tour of the longhouse. We were told that Rumah Bondong was a 60 year old, 50 door longhouse and the people who lived there were iban. Because this longhouse dated to before second world war, they had a collection of heads...a gruesome reminder of their reputation as fearsome headhunters. Some of the older residents were heavily tatooed on their arms and backs, some of which had a specific tatoo on their throat signifying that their status as a tribal elder. We didn't see the specific tatoo which indicated that they had taken a head!
All along the veranda, people were industriously working...we saw women weaving rattan mats, and men fixing fishing nets and carving hooks. We were also shown the traditional iban woven cloth called a pua kumba, which is used in wedding ceremonies.
Johnny soon decided that he needed to take his leave and return to his ill wife, so we were left alone with the longhouse villagers. What was surprising was they they seemed to relax once Johnny left and we found ourselves talking to a teacher who had pretended not to speak any English while Johnny was there because he did not like him. He provided some interesting background to the longhouse and longhouse life, and explained to us that the community was in the process of building a new longhouse from concrete. One of the reasons for this was that the wood was a fire hazard, but also the maintenance of a wooden longhouse was too expensive because the logging companies had pushed up the cost of wood (ironwood in particular) to exorbitant prices.
It was hot during the afternoon and we went for a swim in the river with some friends of the headman's son. We saw a lot of huge butterflies, including the spectacular Brooks' butterfly. It was really nice sitting in the cool water, surrounded by jungle! When we wandered back to the longhouse, we were invited to a gathering at one end of the veranda where we were offered copious amounts of home-fermented tuak poured from plastic pots. Although no English was spoken, we had no difficulty understanding the drinking game that we became involved in... We were also given some cucumber slices with a fishy tasting dip to help the tuak go down. When the jars of tuak were empty, one of the men we were sat with invited us to his apartment of the longhouse and produced what looked like a petrol can and poured its contents into a couple of glasses. This was a completely different drink to the pleasant tuak: instead of being a cloudy, rich drink, we suspected this was home-distilled borak. It tasted of vinegar and was incredibly potent. Once we couldn't handle any more of this drink, the guy took (staggered) with us to his family's apartment and he promptly passed out. We were talking to his family, of five daughters and three sons. Their English was very good, and we spent a while talking about our respective hobbies and interests. They had a bunch of VCDs of Westlife, Boyzone and from Bollywood that we had to endure, and they tried to persuade us to dance. Mei-See thinks this is because I was wearing cycling shorts. They also brought us cucumber to eat, but we were shortly summoned to eat with the headman's family.
We ate sitting on the kichen floor, and helped ourselves to communal bowls of rice, chicken's feet (!), pork soup and an unidentifiable but delicious green vegetable. After dinner we spent some time with the headman's family and played games with the kids. We slept upstairs in the headman's apartment, and there was a huge storm during the night. The toilet was outside the longhouse and I struggled to find my way out to it in the pitch dark during the night, in the pouring rain.
The next day we left the longhouse to head back to Kapit. It was still pouring with rain and the river flowing past Rumah Bundong had changed to a chocolate brown torrent. The clouds were very low and it was very dark. We traveled back to Kapit in one of the local minibus services. The problem with the minibus was that some people from the longhouse were heading to the market in Kapir with huge numbers of durians to sell. There were so many durians that I had to sit with them on my lap, under my feet, beside me and so on. The smell of the fruit was absolutely overpowering, and when they decided to close the windows because of the rain, I was close to death. It seemed like days before the smell of the things was out of my system. When we got back to Kapit, the rain was torrential and we hid in a cafe until it stopped.
We felt quite privileged to have visited this longhouse, because it was going to be demolished to make way for the concrete structure. It was a fascinating and quite intense cultural experience.
That evening we had to listen to a sob-story from a teenage boy who had visited Kapit to meet some friends but had spent all his money on booze and couldn't get back to Sibu. He put on the least realistic or convincing display of tears that I have ever seen as an attempt to extract money from tourists. We ate roti canai that evening from some outdoor stalls near to our hotel, and drank some rose-flavoured arak during the evening. The next day, we planned to take a speedboat further up the Rejang to Belaga.
We would like to thank the residents of the longhouse for providing us with an interesting opportunity to visit their community.