Tammorra

The first workshop I attended was "The Oldest Instrument in the World", described as "the human voice in different cultures". Different folks and groups took turns to sing and play. I captured a segment of this group from Salvatore called Tammorra.

Rainforest WMF

Finally I am getting down to talking about RMWF. Well introductions first. This year 2007 is its 10th anniversary so it was expected that the programmes lined up would make up of some of the best groups from the past festivals.

There is so little information about the programme on the website. It was only when I got there that I found out all activities only start from 2pm every day and run till 1.30am, for all the three days. The afternoons cover workshops between 2pm till 5:15pm. There are in total 9 workshops divided into three time slots of 45 minutes each. For each time slot, you have to make a pick from 3 workshops held in three different venues: Theatre (aircon), Iban Longhouse, Dewan Lagenda.

The theatre is more like a small auditorium. It often gets so packed that the room is stuffy even with the air-con on full blast.

Iban Longhouse is a traditional house on exhibition in the Sarawak Cultural Village.

Dewan Lagenda is the large airy room with the largest capacity of the three venues. Dance workshops are also conducted here and withstood some serious vigorous stamping from thousands of feet.

In the evening, the concerts start from 7.30pm and go on till 1.30am.

Above is the crowd at 7pm when eager people start choping their favourite spot on the grounds.

This is the peak crowd on Saturday nite when the locals join in, swelling the numbers in the village to to some 25,000 people. The energy of the crowd is electric and high. It was akin to a rock concert. Friday evening and Sunday evening were less but still saw some 7000-8000 people.

Crab lessons

On our first night in Kuching, Terismum organised a seafood dinner at the Palm Garden Seafood Restaurant, which was close to our hotel. It was part of the restaurant service to provide transport to pick the guests from the hotel and return, so was quite stress-free getting to the place.

Here is the address and telephone if you are interested: Palm Garden Seafood resturant, Jalan Santubong, tel: 082-846526. They will even organise overnight fishing for RM$1000 a boat that fits large group. Santubong is 45 minutes away from Kuching town btw.

We ordered pepper crab and Tomyam crab but I still prefer the former. Pepper is an excellent product of Sarawak - one of THE things to buy when you are there. The tomyam gravy tasted more like curry and it makes an uncomfortable combination with crab. We also ordered some delicious local vegetables which look like weeds with tendrils. These taste crunchy. We ordered tons of food which included a large fresh fish and it came up to only RM$30 per person.

So there we were picking out our food fresh from the tank. The resturant staff showed us how to tell a female crab from a male crab. You flip the crustacean over and look at the shape of flap right in the center of its body. The female has a large piece which some describe as a diamond or hexagon. The male one is shaped in a thin triangle strip.

Load off my mind

I stayed overnight at the house of Teri's mum. She took out this wonderful gadget that she bought 30 years ago in UK which is a portable compact weighing scale, complete with leather case. She had bought several pieces then and given them away as presents to friends and relatives but everyone had lost theirs, except for this one, only piece left by her late mother.
I got to weigh my luggage before getting to the airport.



It works well. Folds nicely and is compact enough to store away. I love it.
We don't believe the factories make this anymore. If you come across any place that still manufacture this, do leave me a message.

Torturous cab ride

Was away at the Sarawak World Music Festival last weekend. It was a great event and I will share the pictures and video clips in the subsequent postings. My friend in JB helped me book the Air-Asia airticket to Kuching way back in February at the incredible price of RM60 CENTS return trip. With the taxes thrown in, it totalled up to all of RM$130.20! I had to fly from Senai and the flight was 6:55am. So I went into JB on the evening before my flight, that is last Wednesday.
Someone told me to try and make it to the Causeway before 7pm to avoid the jam. I got to Rochor taxi terminal to catch the S'pore-JB cab. There was no queue but within 5 minutes, more people came and enough to make a group of four to car-pool. I was the only one with a luggage. I dumped it into the boot, got into the Johor cab and FROZE. Being the last to get in, I was in the seat right behind the driver and he had distinct body odor. The sort of dried sweat that linger in the air. The blood vessels to my brain instantly constricted as with my lungs. Should I jump out? How am I going to explain myself? It is not like I can ran out since I need the driver to open his boot. How can the other passengers stand it? How can the guy sitting right next to the driver stand it?!! My mind was in a struggle and all sorts of scenarios of how I could have extricated myself from such a situation then or in the future. Too late, no way to get out. Taxi already on the move. I tried not to breathe too much and could feel myself weakened into a semi-meditative state as a result of low oxygen. I tried to distract myself from the smell by focusing on the large mole perched on the right side of the face of the front passenger. It had several hairs that seemed as long as 10 cm sprouting out from the mole. A young couple sat on my left, chatting away ceaselessly. Maybe like me, they are also trying to cope with the situation. After all when they talk, they can breathe through their mouth without being obvious. It would be rude if they panted. I prayed and prayed. Thank gawd, there was no traffic jam and we all got out of it one hour later.

Ouch

My starhub phone bill arrived. I nearly fell off the chair over two out-going calls made from Maldives which were about 6 minutes each. They came up to $65! What? When did I made those calls? Who the hell did I call?? Mum? After racking my brains, I finally remembered they were made to Citibank in my last hour to sign up for my travel insurance at 1 in the morning. Yes, only after I had arrived in Maldives. Right after my companion's luggage didn't come through the belt. Those two calls turned out to be double that of my travel insurance.