I went to the much anticipated Rainforest World Music Festival 2005 on 10.7.2005 and well, frankly speaking, the performances were just ok. RM60 for a day pass is a bit steep I have to say, considering that the workshops only started at 2.00pm in the afternoon, followed by a concert in the open field at 7.30p.m. On the third day of the festival I think about 3,000 people turned up, which means that the organisers were short of 5,000 participants to reach their 8,000 per day target.

I was pleased that they did not achieve their target, because parking was a nightmare. I was assured that we would be able to utilise the ample parking spaces at Damai Lagoon on the day of the festival. You can imagine my dismay and anger when the security guard at Damai Lagoon rudely asked us to back off and park at the roadside. Of course, being the person I am, I gave him a piece of my mind and when I entered the Sarawak Cultural Village, the organisers were not spared from my tongue lashing session. They survived anyway.

The one good thing was that because the RWMF was held at the Sarawak Cultural Village, most visitors are able to kill to birds with one stone. A ticket to enter the Sarawak Cultural Village would cost RM45. By participating in RWMF one would be able to visit all the model houses of the various ethnic tribes in Sarawak and attend the concert at the same time. For your information, one of the model houses was even open to tourists for accommodation (RM480 per room for 8 persons per night). Of course its very basic, with double deck beds and a fan. Bathrooms are shared though. Most of the foreign tourists chose to stay there for easy access and of course, authentic native lifestyle experience. Plus the mosquitoes too... hhe.

Right.. the following was what me, my bro and my friend did at the RWMF:
Time: 2.30pm ish
After much hassle, we managed to get our car parked and marched straight to the entrance of the RWMF.
This is the entrance of the Sarawak Cultural Village:


As you can probably imagine, the weather was scorching hot.
We went into the auditorium which was packed with people from all walks of life. A workshop was going on featuring Petrona Martinez, one of the most authentic Afro-American voices of the Caribbean.
This is Petrona in action (second from the left)



I have to admit that I am not a very big fan of Afro music so I left the auditorium to see what else was going on.
And I saw this:


This is Azo Bell from the Old Spice Boys, Australia playing the ukulele. He is really good at it, I tell you. The ukulele is such a versatile instrument, a cross between a mandolin and a guitar, its so light, you don't even realise you're holding it at all.
Here's yours truly trying her hand at the ukulele. Not bad eh?


We also attended another workshop which featured Shannon from Poland, but I did not take any pictures. Suffice to say that I was quite impressed with their performance, so impressed that I forgot to take pictures. I do have a video though, but blogdrive won't let me upload huge files, so you'll have to email me for it. :)
The workshops ended at 5.30p.m. which left us with some leisure time to explore Sarawak Cultural Village.
But first, we must target a "feng-shui" spot where we will sit our butts down during the concert at the later part of that evening.
Here's a full view of the stage.


Right, we went to the Rumah Orang Ulu (yep, you got that right, orang ulu) after that.
Here's how the Rumah Orang Ulu looks like:


And next to the Rumah Orang Ulu was the Rumah Penan. There was a hot hunk posing as the "Penan" man, complete with the must-have coconut shell hairstyle, oily torso and all.
Here he is:


I tried to talk him into smiling for the camera but he refused, saying that he had sore muscles from smiling for tourists for the whole day. Oh well.
Some visitors tried their hand at rafting in the lake. I found it quite amusing since they were screaming and laughing at the top of their voices. The picture turned out to be quite scenic...


Nothing like punting in Cambridge, I assure you. ;)


This is how we cook rice at home. Just kidding! This is actually nasi panggang, glutinous rice cooked with banana leaves stuffed in bamboo. It is really delicious, I tell you. And this old lady has a story to tell too! Now on normal days, when you enter the Sarawak Cultural Village, you will be given a booklet introducing you to the different houses of the ethnic tribes in Sarawak. When you visit each house, there will be a place for you to stamp your booklet, which they fondly call as "stamping your passport." Now I saw two tourists (ang mor) who thought that the "passport" meant their International passport and spoke at the top of their voices " hey we can stamp our passport here!" Now the old lady in the picture heard them and left her cooking in order to stop them from doing something stupid which could result in their passports being detained. Kikikih.
Right... next stop Rumah Melanau.
This is how it looks like from the outside:


And this is how it looks like at the 1st floor:


Remember I said earlier that some tourists actually stayed inside the Sarawak Cultural Village? Yep, they stayed at the Melanau House.

And finally, the concert itself:
The performers for the night were Paya Kajan & Wasti Laweng (Sarawak), Jerry Kamit( Sarawak), Chulalongkorn University Ensemble (Thailand), Old Spice Boys (Australia), The Foghorn Stringband (USA), the Acquaragia Drom (Italy) and Yelemba D' Abidjan (Ivory Coast).

The evening started out fine. What irritated me was that the Chulalongkorn University Ensemble spent way too much time on stage. They gave the wrong impression to the audience by bowing profusely after each song. So everybody applaused in "relief" thinking that their performance was over.

This ishow they look like. SO if you are planning to invite any artists over, never ever invite them. They are a pain to watch and a bigger pain to hear.



The other performances were good. The Old Spice Boys and the Foghorn Stringband were really good. They had everybody on their feet with their performance.
Everybody was getting groovy by then:


More people on their feet later:


This is a close up of the Foghorn Stringband. I had to elbow my way through to get this picture:


And 10 brownie points for anyone who can guess who this is:

The guy in the black T-shirt I mean.

I left the RWMF by 11.30pm. All in all, it was not too bad. But I don't think I will attend the next RWMF. Need to save money. Heheh.
And the beer on sale at the Festival, was atrocious! Considering there were so many kids around. It was like a beer fest by the time we left. People were drunk everywhere.
Hmmm.