Daniel and I woke up this morning around 5:30 this morning to shower and get ready for our long trip to the longhouse. We enjoyed our last buffet breakfast at the Hotel Margherita; I had my usual cup of coffee. After breakfast, we all got in the bus with our bags and drove to the docks. This was the last time we saw our amazing tour guide Nicole. It still amazes me how much she knows about the country even though she is German!
After doing quick reflections as a group at the dock, we loaded the boat and began our journey. Personally, I loved the boat ride(despite it being 3.5hours) because it was my first time being on a boat since I was in Palau a couple months ago. Unfortunately, the water was no where near as clean as the water in Palau haha.
After 3.5 hours of sitting in the boat, we finally arrived in Sarikei. Dr. Perumal and the pastor took us to a food court and we had all vegetarian food. The food was actually really good, the greens were delicious and the tofu was prepared very well. I'm not sure what the sauce was, but I enjoyed it a lot. Unfortunately, the lime juice was not very good, it tasted as if they had put a lot of salt in it. It was amusing to see everybody taking pictures of their food, carefully planning their next Instagram post.
After lunch, Dr. Perumal gave us 20 minutes to walk around and shop for any last things we might need. I immediately went on a quest to find a Sarawak flag and a rice farming hat. Surprisingly enough, I found both! The flag was only 4.90 RM, which is barely over one dollar. At first I settled for a normal straw hat, which I paid 4.50RM for, but then when we met up with the group we found a store selling straw rice farmer hats. Seeing as how the hat was only 8RM, the majority of us bought one!
After buying the hats, we loaded into (extremely hot) cars and drove a bit over an hour to finally arrive at the long house. As we arrived at the longhouse, I was amazed to see that it was much nicer than I expected, and it even had wifi! I am rooming with Daniel and Satchel, and our host family is so sweet! The man's name is Sekapi, and he immediately sat us down and fed us a giant papaya right as we walked in. We then went on to talk to him about the longhouse and a little about his family. It was awesome to see how open he was to tell us everything. Unlike in the states where most people are a bit closed off, he was very open to tell us anything we asked.
After speaking with Sekapi, we went and joined the girls in playing duck, duck, goose with some of the younger kids from the longhouse. Although they didn't speak English, the kids quickly learned the game and absolutely loved it!
Later in the afternoon, Dr. Perumal insisted on us experiencing bathing in the river, but the nearby river was too high and the tide was too strong.
Luckily, there was a small creek down the street where we could bathe. While some of the guys were nervous to do it, I was excited because it reminded me of playing in rivers in Costa Rica when I was growing up. The creek was very cool and refreshing, and I felt much cleaner after it.
For dinner we had typical vegetarian Malaysian food; we had rice, greens, gluten, fruit, and most importantly we got to try Durian. Despite having a strong yearning to love the fruit, I hated it. It tasted almost like sweet garlic, and I couldn't take it.
After dinner we were told to mingle with the locals for a bit before going to bed, so the three of us went back to our apartment and started speaking with Sekapi. Eventually his wife and other family members came and we all ended up chatting and hanging out for about an hour. Scappy showed us some hats that his wife made, and one of the other ladies brought in a giant beetle that made us freak out a bit.
Overall I really love the longhouse. It has somewhat of a mission trip vibe to it and that's something that I feel passionate about. The people have all been extremely welcoming and generous, so it really shows how different Malaysia is from Singapore.
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