Damai beach & the Sarawak Cultural Village

I have to face up to it, I’ve got a cold, which made today a bit more difficult than it should have been. But hey, it’l pass. Overnight there was a lot of rain, which drummed on the metal roof beautifully noisily all night. I think the ear plugs have been my best investment by far. I headed over for breakfast at 8 and mistakenly decided upon wearing my walking shoes. Between our cabin and the canteen was literally a lake that came up to my ankles. I’d been really impressed at how well my shoes had dried out overnight as well. Should have worn the boat shoes I bought for a quid yesterday. The others didn’t turn up for breakfast for a while so I had a chance to watch the proboscis monkeys swinging through the trees and eating their breakfast. Very pleasant.

We got on the boat at 10 with the waves slightly weaker than yesterday, much less boat surfing, it was actually a very pleasant trip. After a couple of hours drive our destination was Damai beach where the Sarawak cultural village is. The beach itself is a write off as it’s chucking it down with rain (as usual), but we had a great lunch of roti (big stuffed pancakes with a dipping ‘gravy’) before checking into the resort and hopping over to the cultural village. It’s set out as 7 houses to represent the culture of the 5 different tribes of Malaysian Borneo; Bidayuh, Iban, Penan, Orang Ulu and Melanau and traditional Malay and Chinese. This tour was followed by a dance performance showcasing a few traditional dances from the different tribes. An absolutely fascinating afternoon and well worth the trip. 

After a slight miscommunication on the part of one of our colleagues (not being critical here...) we eventually made it to the resort and Richard went back out to search for the missing tourist. We’re basically in a cabin in the rainforest. Definitely the nicest accommodation so far, with a really nice restaurant area overlooking the sea. However we all made the same mistake of initially going to treehouse (very high up, overlooking the sea, looks really cool) number 4 rather than cabin number 4 fortunately there was no resident of treehouse number 4 otherwise they’d have been opening their door all afternoon. While we were eating dinner (surprisingly not raining) lighting strikes were gradually approaching from the sea and the storm struck just as we headed back to the cabin. Typical. Hopefully the cold will abate tomorrow, when we’re heading to a beach, appropriate for when it’s chucking it down with rain.