beginning of a new era.......

Sometimes I still cannot believe it, that I am now already in Beluran (waking up in the morning to a new bed can be very confusing) after 2 weeks of approved postponement, I now have to start work. Not that I have any complains about work, well, work is still work, and I sense that I'm going to experience something very exciting about my stay here.

I arrived in Sandakan last Monday night after a meeting in the day time, and was fetched by the driver to come to the Office, early Tuesday morning. There was already a meeting scheduled so we cancelled breakfast and went straight on our way.

After that meeting, there was another Maternal Mortality Meeting, scheduled in telupid, about 100km from Beluran. That was to look into the death of a mother in the district due to post partum haemorrhage, which can be quite common here, but still, 1 death is 1 too many.

I got myself tausa bun and soya for the trip since lunch would be quite late after the second meeting, and I haven't had anything since morning. Tiapa juga begini mangkali boleh kurus.

The Christmas gift we got for our resident denstist wasn't much a surprise...

Some snapshots from my empty crib... Reminds me of my old place in Tungku, but I won't be furnishing this place much... lesson learnt.

The kitchen.

The other room.

View from the balcony, overlooking the river.

View from the dining hall.

Trying out the zoom.

The river from my bedroom.

The Hospital quarters where I'm staying.

In a small town like this, you'd never imagine we have a motel...

The pride of Beluran, seafood. Cheap seafood. Cheap, fresh seafood. Too bad I'm allergic to prawns.

Like I told Mizal, you can see the whole town with a single monocular view, no need to turn your head at all. This is here the Left side of town.

The dry market.

River front.

The Right side of town.

The wet market. And well, that's about all of it.

Supposedly THE seafood restaurant in Beluran, but I was sitting in the restaurant from 6pm to 8pm watching a whole roll of cowboy movie, and I was the only one dining for that night. Now, something must be terribly wrong with this place.

But who can beat a sunrise like this? Taken at 610am.

pesta rumbia 2008 (ii)........

I've been meaning to finish up the installments on my visit to Pesta Rumbia but being in Beluran isn't really condusive for prolific blogging, plus I was pretty occupied with work since I came over, so here goes the rest of my visit to Kuala Penyu. I'll talk about Beluran in another entry.

Eating camp at the fetsival, unfortunately, really unfortunately, they don't serve sago worms here.

Sandra, Henry, Angeline and Suzy were so supportive, they stayed through the speeches and all during the officiating ceremony under the hot canopy. Don't know how they do it, but I barely stayed 5 minutes before taking off!

The much talked about sago worm, or vutod. some are as big as your thumb and really wriggly. Attached to the hard end of the worm, its head, is a pair of pincer that looks more ferocious than its bite. The worm's body has the consistency of a chewed bubble gum, only warmer and softer. If you've touched the belly of a lizard before, that's almost as disgusting as this one.

The squirmish critters don't look half as nauseating when roasted. But definitely not half as cute... if you's ever consider the live ones cute, that is.

The great pretender.

The worms only reserved for pelanchung.

Grating the rumbia tree trunk to get sago.

Another traditional instrument in the process of sago making.

My uncle, Mr Edmund Teo, District Officer of Kuala Penyu, smiling behind the CM.

pesta rumbia 2008 (1).......

Last Sunday we did an outing to Kuala Penyu to take part in the annual festival Pesta Rumbia to celebrate the multipurpose rumbia plant that is mostly used to make sago. I was on another quest, to hunt for the sago worms, or locally called vutod. I made a dare with Mesh that we would take 5 each, 2 live and 3 barbequeued.

It takes about 1 1/2 hours drive to Kuala Penyu via the land route, but we decided to try another route, via the ferry. I've never done that before, so this is going to be an experience.

Turtle statues at a roundabout welcomes you to the district.

The scenic Kuala Penyu waterfront.

While waiting for the ferry, you can have some local delicacies and some friendly villagers to chat with. It'll be much more fun if you can speak Bruneian.

On the ferry.

The ferry works by pulling itself between the 2 river banks using a heavy duty chain. Fascinating.

A near tragedy when a boat suddenly went off-powered in front of the jetty pathway. Its engine just wouldn't start so the guys had to pedal using their hands to get out of the way.

That was a close call.

Kuala Penyu town.

The carnival, landmarked by a ferris wheel that spins rather a knot too fast I think.

all photos taken with RICOH Caplio GX8
by PicHarmonics Photography

outing to mongkusilad river.......

ARTEo... born and bred in KK, with little exposure to the wilderness and nature intended it... My only memory of bathing in the river was of Tenom at my grandparent's place, and the river was only about knee deep, and not much current.

So to make up for lost childhood, I followed the gang (Jr, Mesh, Gidong, Bobby) to inner Penampang, on the way to Tambunan called Kampung Mongkusilad. The trip was fun, but it very soon made me face the reality of not having a kampung childhood, that the river with its strong current can be very very scary. My days doing doggy pedal in the swimming pool will be of no quality here, so I decided to just stay at the big stone watching my friends having fun, while I immerse myself spiritually with the spirit of nature...

...and believe me, its hard to do so when you have to filter out people shouting at you, calling you a chicken. (whatever!)

The entry to the river park, guarded by a drunked spirit who'd ask you 3 questions before you can pass through. That day, the spirit wasn't around. So we got in free.

It's cool to have camera with manual overide.

Slow shutter.

Pebbles.

2 animals followed us in and out of the river. One is a dog.

And this one is his friend, a chicken. Seriously its weird, that the two animals just followed us in, and then out again like our pets. The dog I can understand to be usual, but the chicken?

I've purposely left out the pictures of [ greek gods...not ] from this entry, due to the nature of the readers of this blog, who can be very very young. Haha.

all photos taken with RICOH Caplio GX8
by PicHarmonics Photography