Borneo, Malaysia Vacation Day 1: Mari Mari Culture Village

So here it is! Our trip in a large nut shell. There will be tons of posts coming with tons of pictures. It may be a little overwhelming. I am going to break into day by day and if I have to even break down the different events within a certain day. Ally and I had an amazing time and would even consider going back especially to the rain forest lodge.

Okay, first stop after our long night of traveling was Mari Mari Culture Village.

Our tour guide name was Jordan.

At the village there were 5 different houses we stopped at, each house representing a different tribe. The houses were the Dusun House, Rungun Longhouse, Lundayeh House, Bajau House, and the Murut Longhouse. At each house we watched and learned how to make something. The Dusun tribe is known for harvesting rice and makes their own rice wine. We tasted this rice wine and were amazed. The win was so sweet and good. You could taste the alcohol but at the same time you couldn't. The first one we tried was 15% and the second one was 40% but it was watered down so it wasn't too strong. We loved the rice wine so much that later during the trip, our guide helped us find a good priced rice wine. We took one bottle home for the apartment and one we are going to take back to America as a souvenir.

Also at the Dusun House we were told how to cook with bamboo and chicken. We even got to taste some and it was delicious and I am actually craving some right now since it is dinner time in China. 

The next house, Rungus Longhouse, we learned about the process of getting honey from bees and tasted some honey. Since honey is a favorite of mine i enjoyed it. The honey was sweet and sour; it was a little bit different then was I was use to but I still liked it just as much as honey from home. 

The next house, Lundayey House, was based on around the crocodile and believed in the crocodile spirits. In this house we learned how to make vests with tree bark.

The Bajau tribe is a more rich tribe and has colors in the house to represent wealth and marriage. Here we got to practice hitting a target with a blow gun. Ally hit the coconut but I missed.

Murut Longhouse was the final stop. Here we had to smile and act kind to get into the tribe. Once in the showed us a game they liked to play on the handmade trampoline inside the longhouse. We got turns to jump on it too but not as high as these men did. It really hurt your body to land because it was so hard.

Also in the Murut house the tribe men gave everyone henna tattoos. 

After the tours of the village, we were taken to the performance area where we watched and participated in tribal stick dancing. I was horrible at the stick dancing because they made the music go faster and faster and my little feet couldn't not keep the rhythm.