This was taken the evening we arrived at the village. The view is from the window of my room on the upper floors of the longhouse. Heavenly!
The village, Uma Lahanan, is located somewhere in the mountainous regions of Belaga in rural Sarawak. We flew into Bintulu town at 10am, had lunch in town then took a 5-hours (oowwww! my butt!) 4-wheel drive ride through timber-logging road to reach the village. But this scenery was worth the journey and the cool mountain air was a respite from city pollution.
This is one of the six longhouses of Uma Lahanan. The village is actually a resettlement village where the villagers were uprooted from their original village way up in the mountains of Belaga for the Bakun Dam project. So it is no wonder that the longhouse looks clean and properly maintained.
However, many of the villagers, especially the elders, complaint that the location of the new settlement is not suitable for them. It is far from any rivers so they find it difficult to source for water as well as fishes. The location is also far from many of their farming lands which forces some of the elders to actually move back to their old homes up in the mountains.
This is a gentle old lady we met at the longhouse. She has on her head the traditional rattan-woven hat used by the womenfolks (the men's are more elaborate and colorful) and her ears are elongated which is part of the Orang Ulu tradition for women to elongate their ears with bronze (and certainly heavy) earrings.
The hostess of the longhouse, who is also the wife of the Mareng Uma (Ketua Kampung) presenting me with a traditional hat as worn by the old lady pictured above. Note the white hat with the kenyalang motif on the tray held by the lady in yellow. That is the hat for the menfolks which was presented to my male colleagues. The Mareng Uma is seated on the far right of the picture. He too is wearing the rattan-woven hat.
