langkau fiction

My cousin, Karen, came out of the airport entrance with a grin. A white guy was closely tailing her, walking like he would lose his way in Miri airport if he walked slower by two paces. I was waiting in the car. Oh, Asparagus was also in the car. We arrived in Miri the evening before, hitching a ride on Charlie Charles’ local-made Porche.

I asked Asparagus about Karen’s companion: “I thought you said the guy coming with Karen was a Gulfman?” He looked at me in equal puzzlement and said he thought so too. “So, who’s that?” as I pointed at the guy behind Karen. Asparagus shrugged, “Don’t know, man.”

Ok, so both of us  didn’t know who this guy was. We were about to discuss this mystery man at another pseudo-philosophical level but was cut short because Karen was already at the car’s backdoor, with a grin and announced loudly “Hey, guys! You have the same t-shirt color! How cuutttee!” Great.

Karen introduced her companion as Gustavo, from the U.S. and A. and he will be joining us on this three-day-Ba Kelalan-Bario-via-Kalimantan hike. They hopped into the car and Gustavo immediately commented on the need for another one-month immigration pass upon arrival at Miri airport, even though he’s already got a three-month visitor’s pass when he got into Kay El a month ago. Why is that, he asked. “Welcome to Sarawak, man,” I told him. This was Gustavo’s first visit to Sarawak. I told him not to worry because Miri isn’t that much different from Kay El. We have pubs with cheap beers and contraband liquors. Y’see, better than Kay El, right? Unsure with what I had just informed him, he just went “Oh…really, huh?” Yes, very the really lah, man!

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I have this sudden craving for fried grasshoppers. Yes. I want to eat them. I want to hear them crunch softly between my ugly teeth. I want to dip them in a nice bowl Thai chili sauce. You know those chili sauce? The ones that have a picture of a woman or an apsara-like figures dancing on its cover. Yes, those ones. Good diarrhea material too!

I’ve been running all over the place doing work, some of which aren’t mine. Then, I had to write all kinds of boring stuffs about landscapes, maps, strange people and things like that. Also, I got the chance to ask villagers a lot of stupid questions about their life and how their ancestors hunted the dinosaurs of Borneo to extinction, and traded all their dinosaur carcasses to capitalists from outer space. Bastards. Those outer space capitalists, I mean.

So, yeah, I’ve been going on full throttle on the working front. And bloody hell…what is it now? February? What was the name of that month between December and February? I didn’t get to see that. Like how I didn’t get to see if the chicken they serve us at KFC was actually killed in a gas chamber or slaughtered with a plastic fork. That would have been malicious, eh…

I still want to eat those fried grasshoppers.

hmm…ok, I’m back.

I came home last night on new year’s eve only to find my car went missing. Too tired to think about the missing car, I unpacked my dirty clothes and other stuffs that I took with me on my trip. Mostly rubbish.

Plus minus 14kg. That’s how much my bag weighed on my walk from Ba Kelalan to Bario. For three bloody days! Off loading three Tiger beer cans at Long Rebpun on the first night didn’t help to lessen the weight.

My mother’s village, Bario

Oh yes, my car. I woke up this morning…oh, happy new year, by the way…with my stomach yelling out for food. Got out of bed, had a shower and looked for instant noodles in the kitchen. Nothing. Picked up the car keys from the table and planned to drive to a kedai kopi.

Oh, tiu lah. Where’s the bloody car?

I just remembered. My mother is around. Was around. I bumped into her very briefly in the departure lounge at Kuching airport on my arrival from Miri. She was on her way to Miri.

I called her this morning about the missing car. It’s actually her car. She only uses it when she returns to Kuching from Nujilan, which is, like, once a year. I drive her car when she’s not around.

So, I called her this morning. She was having breakfast in Miri with her cousins.

Me: Where’s the car?

Mother: Oh, yeah. It’s at the apartment. You may use it.

Me: Oh, I thought it was stolen.

Mother: ……..

I had to sit down for a while to think about getting to her apartment located near the airport. After 12 minutes and 39 seconds of damn stressful thinking, I decided to cycle to the apartment to collect my her car. So, I did. It took me almost an hour arrive at the apartment.

After the hoo haa with the car, I drove around town aimlessly wondering what to do on the first day of new year. I called up my cousin, Zoo, and asked if he’s bored enough to want to follow me go to the kampung. He agreed.

Zoo: So, which kampung are we going to?

Me: er..I’m not too sure. Let’s see how it goes.

At the end, we drove to Gumbang, had some Stella, talked to some locals and drank tapai. I wanted to buy the tapai to bring home but the tapai-maker told me it’s not for sale. He said he’s saving it for his daughter’s wedding next week. Oooh…

Anyways, I’ll just leave this post here…for now, and will continue with the stories later.

Below is a picture of my foot “being leeched”)

After camping at Pa Main, Bario

I wanted to write a proper post (if such thing exists) before this year ends, y’know, the kind of post that make you pee in your pants because it’s so damn brilliant! In fact, too bloody brilliant to be printed on this blog! But of course, in line with wishes of the gods that created eggs and small teacups, I can’t write such a post. I don’t think such a post even exists.

Oh well.

This year’s been great, okay, so-so lah and things like that. Next year is going to be what it is, next year. My walls seem to be crumbling a bit, so that should bode well for the coming year, I think. Oh, I still need to get that rabbit out of the pink bag with black polka dots and tell the world that there is some sanity left in us. To be us.

I’ll probably see you once I get out of this jungle of mine. Probably.

This is the second time Ruai bar changed location since leaving the Green Hill area. The new premise is now stationed in a wooden shed 15 feet away from the Telang Usan Hotel building. There’s more space in this new establishment compared to the two previous pubs and it has good ventilation (there are no windows and no doors). It’s definitely better than the Old Kuching Town kopitiam, which I thought to be a kedai kopi that sells overpriced beers.

Speaking of overpriced beers, the Ruai bar only sells beers in stubby bottles…but they don’t have Tiger, which I think is a disappointment for my demented kanid. His species is what I call handicapped beer drinker i.e. the ability to drink only one brand of beer. A Stella stubby would costs RM6.00 which is RM1 more expensive than beer in cans.

I went there last night and took some photos of the place and the human-like creatures patronizing the place.

Last night was pretty red! No matter how I adjusted my camera’s white balance, exposure, ISO and whatnot, the whole place was still red. I only realized later that it’s because of the Christmas decoration, which I thought seemed to be out of place in such a setting. My eyes were red this morning.

Aki (left) works on and off at Ruai since it first opened. When Ruai first opened at Green Hill, he helped at the bar and did the BBQ. Now, he does mostly maintenance work and sometimes when he’s not busy, keeps Stella and I company. Quite, unassuming and he likes Stella too.

Baki (right) is Ruai’s most recognizable character primarily due to his hobbit-like size. He takes customers’ orders, does the sweeping and collects empty beer bottles. Sometimes, like last night, he’ll burn the rubbish at the back of the premise. So, he must be the man of lighting up fires as well.

This is Desmond. Before he worked at Ruai, he used to fry kuay tiaw, noodles, do burgers, fries and things like that at the front entrance of Ruai. After a couple of months, he stopped all that and decided to join the Ruai crew as the barman. A very hard working fellow. Last year, I saw him manned the bar, did the bills, serve the customers and collect empty beer cans and bottles alone! And the bar was so packed due to those weirdos the people who attended the Rainforest World Music Festival. He stopped working at Ruai some months ago but he’d help Baki and Inta whenever he’s there. Last night, he told me that he’s got a job at the ship and will be going to Rotterdam tomorrow for three months.

Tino (left) is the bar owner’s son. He’s supposed to be Ruai’s manager, the bartender and does the bills but at most times, he’d take control of the music and mix around with the crowd, who are mostly his buddies. Inta (right) is the bar owner’s wife and she’s essentially THE BOSS of the bar. She manages, tends the bar, does the bill, and a few days ago, I saw her cut the nibong trunk with a chainsaw while her husband looks on. And sometimes, she’d punch me or other regulars just for the heck of it. Especially when she’s had a bit of beers.

In conjunction with the COP15 (UN Convention on Climate Change), I propose that we should practice reading in the dark to save electricity.