Fruit Tuak Experiment

Thursday 16 July 2009

After pilates, I decided to get busy and finally work on my fruit tuak. Got the recipe from the Iban boys who told me to just cut the fruits and add it to the ready-to-drink tuak. All I gotta do is be patient and wait a month or so for the fruits to ferment in the tuak.

Cut up some mangoes, dragon fruit (from my kampung), rambutans, oranges, lemon and halia (special order for Khang). I bottled half of the tuak with various fruits and half just normal in case the fruits tak jadi. Fingers crossed! We'll see how it turns out!

Took me 4 hours to cut, mix, seive & bottle. Betta be worth it!

Bottle galore... this just the fruit experiments. No worries, bottled a few original tuak bottles without the fruits too just in case..

Happy Birthday Hema & Congrats!

Wednesday 15 July 2009

RV sent out a mass sms an email to everyone that he was planning a surprise party for the birthday girl Hema. Sneaky RV.. Hema didn't suspect a thing! Thought that they were just having a quiet birthday dinner together. Well, sorry to dissapoint Hema!

Had a nice dinner with high school mate David earlier (it's amazing that he managed to squeeze me into his busy schedule!) and took him along to Hema's celebrations after that.

GB, me & the birthday girl, Hema.

Me, David & RV

New Chapter

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Today marks a closure of a chapter in my life.

It was good but it's time to chart a new course.

*Let's bow our heads in silence as a mark of respect*

Back in KL and straight to Sid's

Monday 13 July 2009

It's the end of the festival. Time to head back home to life as we know it and civilisation. Soon as we touched down, LT suggested we head straight to Sid's for our homecoming drink and so we brought all our luggage and camped at Sid's. Brought waiter Man a bottle of tuak from Sarawak. Oh was he happy.

Till next year Sarawak.

RWMF 2009 - Day 3

Sunday 12 July 2009

Farsha flew from KL today!!! Yea!!! Ada teman dah!! Caught the Voice of my People workshop which featured female voices of the bands. Awesome. They did an interactive workshop too.

Farsha doing the Piko Piko Toro Toro at the Voice of my People workshop

Chilled with the gang at our own personal gazebo and Farsh got a henna tattoo later.

Concert started off with Akasha as the opening act. Why they put such a fast paced band right at the beginning beats me. Oh well, maybe they knew no one would want to come so early for Red chamber so that's the only way to get the crowd. It worked. Akasha was awesome! They even managed to inject MJ's Beat It to their tune. Malaysia Boleh!

Akasha sneaked in a little MJ Beat It to their tune which got the crowd roaring

Red Chamber who came after them was a stark contrast. They tried, I'll give them credit, coz they called a few members of Akasha to jam with them - their only saving grace. Otherwise, it will just be toilet break time for the crowd again.

Can't remember much of Inti-Illimani from Chile and Muzsikas from Hungary but they were ok la. I remembered the Zawose Family from Tanzania. The sisters shooked the house with their drums and asses. They can really shake their booty. Transported us right to Africa there. MC said it took them 3 days to travel from their country to here.

Zawose Family from Tanzania rocked the house

Finale was ok only la. We've had better. The bands came out one by one to feature their music. Was hoping for more fusion where everybody jams towards the end but that did not happen. Maybe their music was too diversified.

Scenes from the Maori group during the finale

The crew (except Byron who kantoied early & bEn who was lookin for his Bitches). Everybody's like all sengeted over the place.

Last pic by the Bidayuh Bridge with some new friends

Stole the raft at night and Khang took us around the lake in pitch darkness. It's tougher than it looks! I couldn't move the raft where I wanted it to go. Salude to Khang our boatman.

RWMF 2009 - Day 2

Saturday 11 July 2009

Day 2 started off later with me getting up from bed at 11am. Cousin Tracy was supposed to pick me up at 12.30pm to balik kampung at Bau. We didn’t tell Babai & Sumuk (grandpa & gandma in Bidayuh), & aunty uncles we were coming so it was a nice surprise as I haven’t gone back in 2 years.

Bit hard to understand Sumuk as she slighty nyanyuk already but Babai’s malay was still intelligible. Met Uncle Jo & his wife Auntie Florence at the farm behind & she gave me a dragonfruit to take home (which I made to tuak).

Visited Babai’s old wooden house (sadly, it was demolished cause the maintenance was too high) but the old rice mill hut still remained. All in all, good visit and was nice to go back. Missed today’s workshops though but nvm.



Concert started off with Malaysian band Asika which was pretty decent but since I was tired, I skipped their performance. Lan E Tuyang came on again and it was Oudaden from Morocco next. Their dancer with his big cheeky smile made the performance entertaining.

Finnish band Jouhiorkesteri was next with their interesting traditional string instruments. Moana and the Tribe followed after that. Maori warriors are always good fun to watch and Moana had such a strong woman personality. Very proud of their land and heritage these people. Enjoyed their set.

Moana and the Tribe - New Zealand

Jeff and Vida from the USA came on with their western country and Portugese Dazkarieh rocked the night away towards the end. They had a HOT HOT chick there.

Hot Portugese chick from Dazkarieh

Met some new friends too - Vinod, Vignesh, Shaqti & her bf

The crew - with some missing

After the concert, we went over to the Iban longhouse again to try the sago worms I brought back from Satok market. I asked the Iban boys to cook them and he said ‘makan saja la hidup’, picked up the fat squirmy bugger and chomped it. *gasp!*

My turn. Couldn’t do it so Khang made the first move and tried it. Ok what! He said. Er.. my turn. Got called a useless half Sarawakian so HAD to try la.. safe face ma.. It’s actually not too bad. Bit squishy but taste ok if I didn’t know it was a worm. Didn’t like the hard head coz it got stuck in my teeth!

I’ll remember this for sure :P

Fat juicy sago worms

Khang having a go

Me having a go

Posing with an Iban warrior

RWMF 2009 - Day 1

Friday 10 July 2009

Was awaken bright and early by a band conducting sound check at the main stage and contractors desperately trying to set up the last minute finishes to their stalls, oh and the in house dj downstairs that played quite good music actually.

I was the only gung-ho one who went for all the workshops – by myself. Yes, call me an eager beaver but the workshops are my favourite part of the festival. Here was the line up that I managed to catch :

Fiddle Dee Dee – 2pm, Theatre
Theatre wasn’t very packed as it was the 1st workshop and it was a Friday. The only band that had the people grooving was French band playin the gypsy jazz. That’s when I first noticed the sexy French violinist Jean-Philip Steverlynck.

Dance, Dance, Dance! – 3.15pm, Theatre
This workshop was awesome! Featured all the dance moves from the bands. The Maori warriors were the best! Tanzanian chicks can really shake their booty and it was hilarious when the Iban warrior took on the Maori warrior. Here’s a clip from the workshop.

Groovin – 4.30pm, Dewan Lagenda
Decided to catch the drums. Drums are always good. Vik from Malaysian band Akasha did an excellent job leading the workshop with his ‘acoustic’ version of the tabla.

Scenes at some of the workshops

After the workshops were over, just chilled around the Village soaking in the atmosphere and activities going on. They had a Capoeira workshop and a performance by our local ‘Maori’ boys which were entertaining. Took some pics with an Iban warrior.

The concert kicked off right on time with Kinabalu Merdu Sound. The young girl’s voice was good but found the music to be a bit slow. Lan-E Tuyang, local sape band, is good for hotel lounge but def not for rockin the crowd. I personally thought Korean band Noreummachi sounded like Chinese funeral music. :P Not much to say bout Bali’s Sekaa Jaya Jenggala.

What a start to the concert. Music finally picked up with Polish band St Nicholas Orchestra but died again when China’s Red Chamber came on stage. Randy did bad with the flow of the line up this year. How can you put a slow band after a rockin one? Totally potong…

The saving grace was Poum Tchack from France where my sexy violinist was playing. They rocked the house pretty good with their version of Gypsy Jazz. And oh.. isn’t Jean just sexy – he was dripping in sweat by the time he finished his gig. Here he is – sorry video senget for the first part.

Poum Tchack - France

Ahh.. the sexy Jean-Philip Steverlynck