Borneo: Hello, Where are You Going?
By Radha Menon

Far away, where time forgot to gift with rush hour traffic, cable T.V or electricity, upon a plateau within Borneo, edged by the ancient Sarawak rain-forest, inhabited by indigenous tribes who live very simply and go about their business via a single dirt road which interconnects tiny villages leading deeper into the jungle.

Everyone we passed along this rocky dirt track, even those tightly packed on mopeds, slowed down and asked with smiling faces.

“Hello, where are you going?”

 “To see the Penan”, was our usual reply, which brought about knowing smiles.

 “Baskets?” And we’d nod.

An inquisitive Kelabit man, typically lean and tough, greeted us; and after establishing that we were on our way to see the Penan, another indigenous tribe of Borneo, escorted us past the longhouse and stood silently still at a woven wooden fence tethered with wire. He pointed across paddy fields full of nutty Bario rice- a well-kept South East Asian delicacy, grown solely in “God’s little acre” as my Dad calls this cloudy plateau of mountainous Sarawak.

“See there? Penan.”

Far to our right across half a dozen paddy fields, the Penan rattan and bamboo dwellings, set upon stilts, poke up against the edge of jungle.

“And there.” his hand pans counterclockwise.

Our eyes stretch onwards meeting the horizon, past fields, meadow and thick bush. One jungle dwelling in the far distance, secluded from Bario’s Kelabit longhouses and its howling dogs, peeks out through the jungle canopy.

The Penan are shy tribal nomads; they are jungle dwellers. Their food, medicines, and shelter are all derived from the jungle’s rich resources; but now that some of their children go to school, they have need for cash and so trade with the Kelabit and cater to the sparse tourists, selling their highly sort-after, strong, hand-woven rattan baskets.

We hopped the fence and trudged across the muddy lip, dividing paddy, choosing to approach the closer dwelling in search of our treasure. Balancing across a single bamboo bridge spanning irrigation channels, we arrived close to the nearest settlement after climbing a steep gorge, to find the place deserted. The lonely huts lay open but eerily silent. We called out to no avail but became conscious of a Kelabit woman standing in a paddy field, back where we had come from and waved at her. She waved back and started toward us.

“Hello. Where are you going?”

Her eyes twinkled at our mud caked sandals and feet. I eyed her rubber boots enviously and asked about the Penan. She told us that they had bundled up their children and dogs to trek across the jungle to another dwelling of theirs, and then she pointed up toward the jungle settlement.

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