Whatever that may ails you, a look at the sweet smiles and pure innocence of these children at Tringgus is bound to lift one’s spirit. A reminder that we were once perfect - pure and free.

“My life is brilliant, my love is pure. I saw an angel ...”

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I was not feeling my normal self yesterday with minor aches and pains and feeling general lethargic; and it’s likely that I could be coming down with something as I was feeling slightly feverish too. The wisecracks out there are probably thinking that unker must be feeling his age … But after an early night and taking plenty of fluids and supplements; I’m feeling that much better already.

But guess what? Come Saturday morning when I hit the water; all that ails me will be banished in an instance! Here’s wishing you a wonderful weekend.

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After about half an hour to 45 minutes paddling from the put-in from Bengoh you would reach the bidayuh village of Danu. Before the construction of the road, the river used to be the only means of travel to get to this village. A suspension bridge spans across the river to allow access to this road.

We usually take a short break at a little pebbled island in the middle of the river to stretch out legs and to check if everyone is alright before we carry on down the river for another hour and half of paddling. On this trip Kevin, the anthropologist, suggested that we walk up to the village to have a look as he wanted to say hello to some of the villagers he knew.

While there I noticed that the villagers were taking advantage of the sunny weather to dry the crops that they harvested – rice, pepper and rubber; and it was then I noticed that one particular place has what appeared to be sentinels at the corners to guard the harvest. As I got nearer I realized that the ‘sentinels’ were unexpectedly actually cute soft toys! They must have been washed and laid out to dry like the rice husks. Or do you think they are supposed to act as scarecrows? But whatever it is, it made me smile! I am sure it did on you too!

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Kuan Nee did not believe her colleague when told by her that there are dolphins in Kuching and neither did Jessicca (no typo, her name is spelled that way; don't ask me why!) who had been to Kuching umpteen of dozens of times and being the hard-nosed senior bank executives from Kuala Lumpur that they were, they just had to check it out for themselves on their next visit to Kuching. Both had "been there, done that” and greeted me with a haughty laugh when I went to pick them up from Kuching Hilton. I did not know what to make of this as well as the curious stares from the staff. when this guy in a CRV with kayaks on top turned up to pick up 2 hot chicks!

We arrived at the beach and the weather was perfect as Azmi who was already there helped me to unload the kayaks and we soon hit the water with all of us in a cheery and expectant mood.

To cut a long story short – did the lady bankers have fun and did we manage to see dolphins? You can bank on it that we did! Not only that but the next time they are back in Kuching, they would want to go kayaking through the rainforests with us then!

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We were out shopping for groceries when we spotted 2 puppies on the five-foot way of a shophouse from our car but we drove on as there were vehicles behind us. On the way back we spotted them again and this time we parked our car to take a look at them. There were a few vegetables vendors there and they told us that the 2 puppies were abandoned there as they were already there when they turned up early in the morning.

We decided to bring them to the Sarawak Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (we are members) instead of leaving them there and so I went back to my car to collect the plastic box I used for my wet gear and stuffs after kayaking, to put them in. My other half recalled that one of her mahjong kakis is looking for dogs and she hurriedly called her while I went to collect ‘Blackie’ and ‘Brownie’ but which my daughter later named as Paris and Nicole instead since they are both females. *sigh*

The good news is that they are both adopted by a good family and running around the large leafy compounds of a bungalow. Just take a look at those cute puppy eyes and tell me who have the heart to just leave them there to fend for themselves. Not us.

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Living in this ‘screwed-up’ world, one can sometimes feel that one is losing one’s mind when one reads about the insanity that is going on this very minute. Like what is happening between Israel and the Hizbollah in Lebanon and which if one tries to make some sense out of what’s happening and the reason for the conflict; one would soon not be able to tell night from day and the sun from the moon.

Getting a little closer to home it would appear that some people have lost all their sense of courtesy and respect not being able to discern the difference of having harmless fun and showing disregard to others. Would you litter in someone’s garden or spit in their living room? It virtually amounts to this but unfortunately while it would be obvious that we can tell night from day and the sun from the moon; sadly this is not the case. It's no fun and I really dislike having to delete comments from my blog much as I hate taking the garbage out. I don't mind taking out the garbage but this is distasteful.

I’m not making a mountain out of a molehill or to embarrass my fellow bloggers but I have this photo that I took on Monday that perfectly illustrate this momentarily lapse of good judgment where one can’t quite tell black from white. If nations cannot even tell the difference and show restraints; how much can one expect from loose individuals? Everyone is welcomed to visit and free to comment; all I am asking and would apppreciate is for you to show some common courtesy and respect not just to me (which you should) but also to the other reserved, sensible and more matured readers of this blog.

By the way, this untouched photo was taken in the late afternoon. And I wish you clarity of vision and mind, lurkers, hecklers and all. Be well.

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Thanks to Kevin, a guest on our kayaking trip on saturday and an anthropologist, I was introduced to the friendly folks of Tringgus, the furthest village at the uppermost reaches of Sungai Sarawak Kanan or Sungai Pedi as it is commonly known as by the locals there. I had previously only been as far as Pengkalan Terbang and Fullmoon; yes I’ve found a put-in at the source of Sungai Sarawak!

This 'road' less travelled is basically an old logging trail but ,surfaced, with loose gravels and has been left unsealed for the longest time (we're talking about years here) but it is only now being given some attention on account that it is no longer under the opposition - one of the more unpalatable aspects of the oxymoron politics of development. *sigh*

A longer post will follow (eventually) to do justice to this place and the friendly villagers there but for now I’m posting some photos of the road there. As Kevin was saying on the way back, he was wishing that he could stay the night there instead of having to drive back to Kuching. I wished I could too but I have a family and four dogs that would miss me! But Kevin, you know that we would certainly be back as Sungai Pedi beckons! And the riverways need no surfacing nor sealing!

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Since my posting on the Lui Cha yesterday, I had received further information on it via email on this dish from an old schoolmate now residing overseas (whom I’d not met in over 30 years and whom I cannot recall! Sorry Angelia!) and whose friend has emailed her to ‘correct’ the misinformation I had given on the authenticity of the revered Lui Cha. Her friend was positively peeved with me! Sorry lah, but I’m attempting to redress this now ok?

The ‘version’ that is being served nowadays is an adulterated modern version! As in most things that are modern I suppose. This dish historically belongs to the hakka monks who lived in the hillsides in China and are normally eaten only in August/September. No reasons are given for this.

From this lady’s childhood recollection, the dish is never that green in colour and the bitterness comes from the black tea that is boiled with just another ingredient. Herbs, I suppose? There should be 10 different chopped vegetables and crushed peanuts. The minimum number of different vegetables should be 7. There is significance to this but which I’m ignorant about. This lady’s mum gets hysterical if there are less than 7 kinds of vegetables (!) so there must had been some significance to it!

It’s sacrilegious to add tauhu (bean curd) and you’ll get thrown off the hill slopes too for adding ikan bilis (dried anchovies) to the soup! These monks are vegetarians remember and it would also be hard to find stuffs like these up on the hills.

There is also a ‘proper’ way to eat this dish! A bow of white rice, pile on the various chopped vegetables and then pour in the soup with the peanuts being added last.

Now I feel positively like a peasant for not fully appreciating the historical background of this dish and I hope this post goes a little way in redeeming me in this regards. Irregardless, I’m going back to Jalan Intan to savor the modern version on a regular basis (not just August or September) but I'll remember and am appreciative of the legacy of the hillside monks while doing so! But unlike Angelia's hakka friend, I this hainanese glutton positively LOVE Lui Cha. Happy Eating!

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My son Tim, who is the eldest of my three children is a little bit like me when I was his age - introverted, sensitive and a bit of a geek. So I was pleasantly surprised when he nonchalantly handed me his Certificate of Award and the essay which won him second prize in the English Essay Competition with the terse, "You can blog this!"

This is his wish. So here is "The Wish" and wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Hmm…if I had one wish, I’d wish for something spectacular and wonderful something so majestic that even makes the kings and queens green with envy. But what would I wish for? World peace? Endless riches? No, not that. I can’t possibly enjoy such a gift, that gift I wish for…perhaps…maybe. Immortality.

Eureka! Under no apparent reason, I was inbound to an eternal enchantment that is superior to a thousand blessings. I am immune to age, disease, pain, suffering but not to greed. Now that I’m immortal, I can do whatever I want. Fixed in a body at its prime age, I can acquire every skill that any human body can feasibly acquire. Breaking countless world records, reading every book, experiencing every level of expertise of infinite jobs. I cannot die.

Under my natural behavior I develop changes in personality. Becoming a better person, a shell of my former self stuck in the ice of the past that never existed. I have become a grain of sand, stuck between the fine neck of the hour glass, never falling through as if I held my magic. Magic? Still being immortal limits my boundaries, if it were to defy gravity, defy the law of physics I’d ask for another wish…

The greatest gift god has given us is life. Human flesh will decay, rot and disintegrate into nothing. Where does the soul go? Which religion to believe? Years of effort gets wasted away, it is not like everyone on earth leaves a mark before they go… Where do I go? My soul permanently incased in this flesh, bone and blood. There’s nowhere to go, only up. Up? Yes you dimwit, up to acquire my wildest of dreams, the greatest of luxury, the epicenter of all that human creations, skills and power.

Ah…I’m committed a sin of greed and gluttony. I’ve become a parasite that cannot picked off form the world. A stain of blight growing outwards and getting larger. The enchantment continues its existence and so does the envy of mankind wanting to acquire my gift. Is that so? Perhaps they wished for something that is only a moment’s pleasure, a mere shimmer of happiness. NO! GO AWAY! IT’S ALL MINE! That’s it. I succumbed to greed.

“What is thy name?” (Soft echo)

“I will not speak.”

“Who is this one that defies the very essence in which be the natural order?”

“It is I.”

“Then shall you be stripped of all your gifts. Gift of sight, hearing, taste, touch…immortality.” (Thunderous echo)

“Never, it belongs to me, it is mine… mine…” fades into distance.

Woke up, bad dream. Had I made the right wish? It feels that life is becoming a curse. No. It’s just a bad patch, pull yourself through, the grass is greener on the other side.

Then I sat, thought. What do the others wish for? Something less significant, more significant perhaps? But what can be better than infinite regeneration? Immortality? I’m cracking up. The walls closing in, no! Stay away! Pictures talking, haunting echoes… thunderous shakings. Earthquake? Resolve mind, get a hold of yourself, relax, inhale. Walls still not stopping, I need company.

Jenkins, my butler. His face, disintegrating, rotting. The plants, wilted, brown, dying. The atmosphere is dying, threes no life. No life? Maggots popping from flesh, died as well. Leave me be! My flesh is impenetrable, impeccable, indescribable, I am… I’m…

Mental…

Insane…

Dead…

Done By: Tim

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Ivy and Stephanie dropped by my office late yesterday morning to say hello as it had been a while since we all last got together and I suggested that we can catch up over lunch. I’m partial to good food and good company so when Ivy insisted that we must try this place which according to her serves the best Lui Cha in Kuching and which was introduced to her by yoga friends about a month ago and after which she had been back there weekly since; who was I to argue.

Lui Cha is basically a vegetarian dish that is mainly eaten by the hakkas but is now popular with all the other dialects as well. It consists of chopped/shredded vegetables in a bowl of rice and eaten with a thick herbal/vegetable broth/soup that is green in colour looking and smelling almost like a thick green tea! The name Lui Cha translated in hakka literally means ‘grinded tea’. The old fashion and time honoured way is to grind the herbs in a ceramic bowl with a wooden pastle. As it's tedious work, most people just use the blender these days.

I eagerly waited to taste the Lui Cha prepared by Mr. Lee and her daughter where they had been selling from their house for the past four years. This is truly one of the best kept culinary secret in Kuching as I had not heard about this place until now! I had tasted Lui Cha at various places in Kuching but they paled by comparison with what was served here. You could eat the vegetables (chopped long beans, radish, etc) with bean curds, peanuts and white rice or the green soup on its own alone. It's that delicious and the servings including the all important soup were generous. Most Lui Cha are quite bitter in taste and is an 'acquired' taste to most; but not the Lui Cha here as the soup was actually quite sweet. Mr. Lee explained that the sweetness of the vegetables is attributed to the choice of radish used and the sweetness of the soup is due to the quality of the high-grade 'ikan-bilis' they used. The taste of crunchy vegetables mixed with the earthy musky taste of the broth is simply sublime. Now I know why people get fat but not on Lui Cha as it is so healthy being basically a vegetarian dish. It's so good it could probably wean a carnivore off meat! I'm salivating dreaming of it even as I type!

They are opened daily from 10am onwards till 5.30pm in the afternoon except on Sundays. The normal bowl is RM3.50 and the bigger portion is only one ringgit more. Truly a bargain for such a healthy and delicious home cooked meal. I am definitely coming back to this place for more.

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We are all so used to our highways that we tend to think of them as the only means of transportation. So it is quite a thrill for our guests taking our Borneo Highlands kayaking trip to encounter the local bidayuhs on their traditional wooden boats using the river as a primary mean of getting from one village to another.

Some of the boats do have a small outboard motor engine which is needed when going upstream against the flow of the river. We would be happy to fix one too to our kayaks if we want to do the same!

So how was your commute to work today? Obviously not as delightful and picturesque as these folks making their way down the river. So who wants to go 'poking' down Sungai Sarawak Kiri with us this weekend? It'll be fun and I'll promise not to 'poke' fun at your balance and paddling! Hehe!

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