Got a call yesterday evening from a friend in one of the kampung I used to visit. Bad news. Tragic, actually. Something that I never expected could happen to a man, to my friend. And now, he’s gone leaving a permanent dark scar on the community’s history.
I have little interest in pointing fingers and putting value judgments on the person. Nor do I have any interest in the different versions of ‘factual details’. I’m just damn curious to know what the fuck does this all mean?
“Wow, Lawas airport looks exactly like Miri airport, huh?” Lippy commented as we got out of the Twin Otter and stepped onto the tarmac of Miri airport. Perhaps he was either trying to be funny or sarcastic. Or maybe he was just talking to himself.
Together with our fellow passengers, we rushed to the airport’s check-in counter to see if could get on the next flight to Lawas the next day. Usually, in a situation like this, the company would have an ‘extra flight’ for the passengers who never made it to their destination (barring death, of course).
Fortunately for the three of us, we got the next day’s flight at 2.40pm confirmed. So, another night in Miri (which could only mean the joy of drinking contraband branded liquor at an unbelievable price). Only later while in Lawas we were told that it’s a bit risky to take the 4.50pm flight because of the unfavorable weather at that hour. I think someone must have messed up with the weather management system in Gaia’s office that it’s now beyond repair.
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!
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?