Borneo: Cultural Village and Hari Raya

On our third day in Borneo, we headed to the cultural village which has different houses built in the styles of different Borneo tribes as well as traditional instruments and food - a bit kitsch we thought but friends told us kids really enjoy it so we figured we would give it a try.  

Noah at the entrance of the cultural village.

The place itself was gorgeous green and lush with mountains in the background.

Noah looking back at Daddy before crossing the bridge.

The troupe crossing the bridge.

View from the other side.

In the first hut, a man was making (or taking a break from making as the case turned out to be) sculptures out of coconuts.

Noah... clearly miserable!

In the second house, a women was making cookies.

Noah was very intrigued by her methodology.

He sat down in front of her and would not budge. We bought some of the cookies she made and almost had to bribe him with them to get him out of there.

Further in that house, a woman was weaving. Again, Noah sat down by her very interested and would not leave!

Noah standing at the top of a "staircase" looking a bit apprehensive...

 Climbing down.

Yay - he made it!

Next, Noah had a music lesson.

View on our way to the "show".

The show - traditional music and dances. Noah really enjoyed the show and happily sat through it. At the end of the show, they asked to see if anybody from the audience wanted to come up and dance with the dancers. Noah seemed interested but a bit shy. When he was finally mustering up the courage to go up, they announced the end of the show. Noah had missed his opportunity to dance on stage and he was very unhappy about that. He wanted to dance on stage with the dancers. So we danced outside with him and that soothed him a bit. 

View from the theater (I think).

After the show, we went to visit the last few houses we had not yet seen. Above, Noah found another instrument to play with.

In my (completely objective, of course) opinion, he sounded pretty good.

The quiet part...

And the finale...

Our little musician clearly very proud of his accomplishment and enjoying the accolades from well.. us (nobody else was around).

We had been told that at the end of Ramadan, on Hari Raya (also called Eid in some countries I think), many people open their houses to the public. We asked the cab driver if there were any such open houses we could go to... so we ended up in the house of the tourism minister (who according to our B&B host does not have a great reputation for arms-length dealings). 

Getting food at the minister's house.

Noah, who had just woken up from a curtailed nap seemed completely unphased and happily ate his noodles and drank his juice.

The minister's pool with people milling around.

Do you want this piece of bread Suza? Although Noah LOVES food, he is usually pretty good at sharing even the pieces he really likes.

The scene at the minister's house.

Selamat Hari Raya cakes at the minister's house... unfortunately the big day for Hari Raya open houses was the next day (we almost got to go to the governor's house but the open house for the public was tomorrow) but at least we got to experience a little bit of it. 

Home sweet home - back at our hotel "living room" for some relaxing.