I don’t plan to issue this post but because friends are asking for my experience to a long house, Annah Rais long house located at Padawan District, Kuching, Sarawak, East Malaysia, I have decided to share these rather poorly taken images with brief narrations..The long house is about 45 minutes drive from Kuching, capital city of Sarawak.. They have some celebrations on and we are visiting a long distant relative who is living here.
OFF WE GO
Before we go… Stopped at Kuching and buy some hand gifts… Meat steamed buns and the famous Sarawak Butter Buns..
The weather was good and not many cars in the main road
We arrived the long house 45 minutes later and we selected another entrance to go to the Long House
The car needed to pass by a wooden bridge
After we were aligned, ..
we need to climb out various type of wooden stair cases
And this traditional thin teak stair case in the exhibition house.
Above the stair case is mostly bamboo mats and bamboo verandas.
What is like under the bamboo verandas?
You can see peep down and have a look!
What you saw is this high! may be at least 3-4 meters tall or taller..
And the building was supported using these type of round tree trunks….
Some of the old items that can be seen and reminded us times really flies..
GREAT TIME AT VERANDAS
At times, they wash their dishes at the verandas and I am unsure where the water went? Ha-ha!
Some chickens were well treated in certain corner of the verandas.
Some area were used to keep some firewood..
Verandas are also for rest..
Women did their house chores…
Kids have their way of games to pass their free times
Some of the unused tires become their hula hook and swimming floats or live buoys…
hmmm, besides simpler life, they do watch cable TV and internet is available
And there is a government bank
Some unique urn belong to the Bidayuh brothers
Some unique bamboo knapsack
How about a bit old kettle?
A typical kitchen cabinets in the early 1970s and 1960s..before inbuilt kitchen cabinet were introduced..
Do you remember kerosene lamp?
How about this radio that looks familiar?
How about this special post box?
And not forgetting the government conserved heritage in one of the houses…
FOOD
Food was served and some demo was on at this particular day..
We were served with traditional Bidayuh food like pansoh ayam (bamboo chicken) penyaram, pucuk ubi (tapioca leaves), bamboo rice and many others
And glutinous rice being cooked in pitcher plant..
How can I forget this famous bamboo chicken where rice and chicken were stuffed into the bamboo and smoked for 2-3 hours..
And after 3 hours..
and we brought some back as hand gifts…
OFF WE WENT FOR SOME FUN AT MOTHER NATURE
We walked to the destination for about 15 minutes….
and we reached a jungle track….
Some “rescues” is required before reaching the destination
They then saw these crystal clear water
They jump and have some swim using the tyre “life buoys”
On the side there are wild fruits
and some butterflies…
And all these belong to this river…
When they are back to the long house, they found these little chair that become their source of funs for sometime…
and they have to sit down in the bamboo verandas to rest before it departs…
Before we go, I found that next to the house window, is the rambutan trees and you can easily pluck it from your window when ripe.
on the way to the car, there are some sour soup tree
and this childhood plant that we used to play with and brought lots of fond memories….
GUAI SHU SHU 
Interesting visit to a longhouse. They are no longer ‘remote’ or ‘ulu’ now with internet and Astro is satellite TV (not cable) so their technology is same as anywhere else in Malaysia. Thank you for sharing.