A Traditional Welcome on the Lemanak River

Iban boatman on the Lemanak — Local Iban boatman

After an hour (some of which was spent at high speed) we reached the long-house where we’d be staying as guests of the local Iban people.

travelling up the Lemanak River, Sarawak

I could hear the welcoming bell before we arrived – a woman and a child came down to the river bank to greet us and we were marched ceremoniously up to climb the ancient steps cut out of a single log, which took us aloft to the entrance of the long-house.

I was first in line to enter the long communal living space and was given the traditional greeting of fluttering flower petals - thrown over me as if I were some errant bridegroom. I was also given a compulsory cup of tuak, homemade rice wine, which set proceedings off with a buzz.

Exploring the Longhouse of the Iban Tribe

By now it was the end of the afternoon and we had a choice of chilling out in the long-house or going for a jungle walk. We did both. First we explored the long-house, which is home to 30 different families. This particular one is only half built on stilts - its back end sits on a hilltop high above the river, but most long-houses are elevated some 20 feet above the forest floor - for obvious reasons given the number of creepy-crawlies in such places.

New buildings in the Iban village — New buildings in the village

The Iban are very laid-back indeed. They don’t seem to mind in the least as you wander about their communal home – and don’t even seem to care if you walk into their own private living quarters. These are located behind doors down one side of the long-house – in the middle there’s a wide communal area – and on the other side runs a long raised platform which is where we were slept under the mosquito nets that the Iban put out for us at night.

We sat about drinking green tea with the locals for a while – watching them making mats, baskets, handicrafts and mending fishing nets.

A Magical Walk in the Borneo Rainforest

Our guide Henry with Iban children — Henry with village children

But then, as Henry was preparing our dinner in one of the private quarters, my companion and I went for a long stroll in the rainforest. Which may have been a slightly foolish thing to do looking back on it – there’s no dusk in the tropics and if we’d lost our way we’d have been forced to endure a night out under the trees. Not particularly dangerous, but uncomfortable if not painful in the sense that there are a lot of things that can bite you in the jungles of Borneo.

As it was, this was probably the most magical walk I have taken in all the years I’ve been writing about hiking for a living. Only by being alone in a rainforest – or perhaps with just one other person – can you truly absorb the sensation of being somewhere that is so incredibly alive and so mysteriously exotic.

We returned safe, but rather speechless and, after an amazing multi-course meal knocked up by the indefatigable Henry, we joined the “Tuai Rumah” (headman) to spend an evening socialising. The Iban put on a bit of a show for us, dressing up in traditional head-hunter gear and dancing to hypnotic music which they played on a collection of weird instruments. It was the only bit that seemed a bit touristy – but then, this was my adventure’s big bow to the world of eco-tourism.

And we were paying to be there and we’d bought gifts - which now had to be handed over with a great amount of wine-fuelled ceremony. By now I’d moved onto the homemade rice whiskey, which helped me endure a painful poison spider bite I suffered during the dancing.

Our feast, all of which we took into the rainforest

It was the only unpleasant moment of the whole crazy, magical, baffling, enchanting adventure. I didn’t meet the Wild Man of Borneo, but I did meet a wilder wide-eyed bit of me that only surfaces somewhere so remote and exotic. And that alone was worth the 30 hours of air travel and the jetlag.

Chilling with the village chief in Iban longhouse

Learning Traditional Iban Cooking in Borneo

Ancient Cooking Techniques in the Sarawak Rainforest

While I was in Borneo I thought I’d take the opportunity of learning more about authentic primeval cookery from the experts.

Things are still a bit antediluvian when you go way, way, up into the rainforest. In the remote hills there are people who know hardly anything about the modern world, although a tribal chief I met deep in the rainforest did say goodbye to me with the words: “Would you like my email address?”

Iban villagers sitting around in the morning

I’d met the Tuai Rumah (as the chieftain is called) and his charming ex-head-hunter people in their communal longhouse situated high up the Lemanak River, in the Sarawak province of Northern Borneo – and, after some negotiations with our local guide Henry, the villageres agreed to take us out into the rainforest and show us some of their skills, which started with the boatbuilders.