My name is Tham Kok Hui and I am a student of University Technology Malaysia. Here I would like to share with you an eye opening experience that I had on my semester break in one of my university’s programmmes- Lestari Bario, which was made possible by the kind support of my favourite airline MAS.

Lestari Bario is a community project organized by the Students’ Representatives of Residential College Tun Dr Ismail of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) at Bario, Sarawak from 16 to 19 June 2009. Under UTM’s new Vice Chancellor’s leadership, all community programs have been made mandatory to impart technological impact on the society, and Bario is the right candidate that fulfills the criteria. Remotely located in the rainforest, Bario is privileged with unspoiled nature, and enjoys cool and refreshing weather all year long. Bario has been well known as a producer of premium quality rice known as ‘Beras Bario’ and other highland products.

The showcase of the program is to introduce and promote the employment of the ‘Effective Microorganisms’ or popularly known as ‘EM’ in agriculture sector in Bario. Through biotechnology, EM has been widely used to enhance agricultural productivity, to minimize infestation of pests, to convert organic wastes to premium grade biofertilizer, and to overcome malodours and the leacheate problems in landfills.

The preparation for this program took approximately 4 months. The week prior to this program, we went back to our college to carry out our final preparation for the trip. There were a lot of things to do during the course of the week, such as getting the flight tickets and finalizing the documents, packing the stuff and some of the members were busy practicing Johore’s traditional dance- the Tarian Zapin that they planned to present to the folks in Bario on the Cultural Night at the long house.

Everything went well and smoothly during the final week of preparation. I would like to take this opportunity to extend my gratitude towards Ms. Wan Tipah Wan Yaacob from MAS Communication Division as she had been a great help to us in preparing for this trip.

Our journey started on the 15^th of June 2009. We took the 12:30 pm flight from Senai to Kuching. We departed from UTM at 10:20 am to the Senai International Airport; we decided to leave early so that we would have ample time to check-in our luggage at the airport.

Just according to plan, the traffic was fine and we reached the airport at 10:45 pm.

Transferring hundreds of kilograms of stuff into Bario was one of the challenges for this program as goods can only be transported into Bario by a tiny 19-seater plane that travels in and out from Bario twice a day, weather permitting.

There were a lot of things that we brought over to Bario for the folks there, there were clothes, school books, stationeries, apparatus needed for the ‘EM’ showcase and etc. We took 12 trolleys to mobilize our stuff in the Senai International Airport. The boxes and luggage shown in this photo were just the tip of the iceberg. We are grateful that MAS had granted us extra luggage weight allowance or we would have had to leave behind half of the things at the airport.

Group photo taken at the Senai Airport

At the MAS counter, we were informed that our flight would be delayed for about an hour due to a minor defect on the plane. Although all of us had to spend another hour waiting at the airport but the anticipation was still running high in everyone of us.

Why so? As for me, this was my very first time flying with MAS, one of the best commercial flight services in the world. Moreover, this trip was my first time flying to Sarawak. I was overjoyed when I got to know that MAS agreed to sponsor us the flight tickets to Bario. I have heard so much good comments from my friends and family about the services provided by MAS for both of their domestic and international flight services.

I had always been looking forward to experience it myself. Besides that, I was very much excited about this trip as I had always wanted to step foot into the land of a thousand handshakes (which is Bario) and to experience the locals’ unique culture and lifestyle.

Our wait for the flight to Kuching ended in about one and a half hour. We did not really feel the hours because we were chatting and moving around the departure hall while waiting to be called for boarding. I noticed that we caught a lot of attention at every airport that we had been to because we were moving in a big group and all of us had the blue MAS cap on our head. We like the cap very much and once more I would like to thank MAS for it. I am sure the people were wondering what this big group of UTM students were up to.

The time for us to board the aircraft finally arrived and everyone was extremely excited. We walked through the boarding gate and the aerobridge and finally we were at the entrance of the aircraft. There were smartly dressed cabin crews with their friendly smile standing at the doorstep to welcome us on board. The cabin crew was extremely friendly as they acknowledged each and every one of us.

The colours of the seats in a MAS aircraft were absolutely unique and have caught much of my attention. The combination of the colours i.e. blue, red, orange and green has indeed given me the cheerful impression towards the flight and eliminates the dullness and boring interior of most airlines.

After all the passengers settled down and the safety briefing by the cabin crews were done, the aircraft took off. I was super anxious when the plane took off as I do not travel very often.

Lunch was served after the take off.

Nasi Goreng with fish or Spaghetti with chicken, sir?

I chose spaghetti and a lunch set was handed over to me. The food was nicely placed in a big lunch box and it was quite a complete set of lunch as it has the main course which is my spaghetti with chicken and also some broccoli in it, besides that, there were fruits, mango juice and a green cookie which looked like a soap that tasted surprisingly good. I enjoyed my lunch very much.

At 3 pm, we had our first activity with the students of SK Bario. The children were just adorable, check out these photos.

At the beginning of the activity, we did a round of self introductions to the students and teachers. The children have pretty amazing memory though as they could remember all our names although we only did introduce ourselves once.

It was quite normal for children to feel shy to strangers, so we did some ice-breaking activities together with the children so that we could break the divide between us.

The most interesting part of this session with the school children was when we had a quiz challenge for them. They were very enthusiastic about it. Everyone was rising up their hand wanting to answer the math, science or general knowledge questions. Goody bags from UTM were awarded to the students who managed to answer our question correctly.

Board games sponsored by SPM were handed over to the headmistress of SK Bario, Mdm. Dora from our college principal Dr. Firdausi.

The classroom of SK Bario

After the photo session with the school children and teachers of SK Bario, we were invited to the teachers’ office for refreshment. The teachers were very kind to us; they have prepared their locally grown Bario pineapple which is one of the sweetest and juiciest pineapples in the world and also their local delicacy which is the Nasi Kelabit for us to enjoy.

There was no water and power supply on the first day due to the drought season where their reservoir had dried up. For that evening, we went to the small reservoir not far from the school to wash-up.

The small dam was built at a slope is actually the source of water for the community, non the less it is also the source of electricity for them as the water pressure stores in the dam is used to generate electricity by using the micro-hydro facility. Even though there is the micro-hydro generator but the families in Bario are still very much depending on expensively fuelled generators to get their electricity because the hydro-plant built in Bario is only able to supply electricity when there is rain that provides enough water to be stored in the dam to feed the turbine of the generator. Only the army camp and schools have 24 hours electricity supply as the authorities have spent millions of Ringgit in storing the fuel to generate the electricity for these facilities.

In the evening, after we had our dinner, we went to the Secondary School of Bario to have a movie night with the secondary school students. The students enter the hall with very much discipline and settled down according to their class within a minute. I believe that the school teachers have done a good job in training their students. The students enjoyed the movie very much and we were pleased that they liked it.

When the movie was over, the students quickly took up their duty and got ready for supper. I am impressed by the way the students carried out their duty as it was very systematic. It was 9.30pm when the movie was over and we were informed by the school teachers that the students will normally have their supper at 9.30 pm and get back to their dormitory to rest at 9.45 pm. Without fail, the dormitories’ lights were all off at 9.45pm and the children were at their beds already.

Both the primary and secondary school children have to stay in their schools dormitory because most of their houses are situated in other more remote villages that are far from the school. These children can only return home by foot during the weekends to be with their family. The journey for them to go home will usually take not less than an hour; some even have to take routes through the jungles just to get home. Learning the life of the students here in Bario, it made me feel how fortunate I was when I was schooling as I have either my parents or the school bus to send me to school everyday. Moreover I had everything i.e. my room, meals and laundry all taken care by my mom. One of the things that made the children here special from all other students that I have met is that they have learned to be independent since they were barely 7 years old.

After the light supper and chit-chatting with the school teachers, we headed back to the long house to prepare for the activities that we had on the next day. At around 11 pm the electricity was cut-off and the night started to rain. We had our briefing and discussion for the next day’s activity done in the dark. It was quite late then when the meeting at the Rang family’s living room was over, since it was still raining and dark outside, my friends and I were quite tired so we slept over at the living room for that night and did not go back to our lodge which is at Auntie Joy’s house.

17^th of June 09,

After having our breakfast prepared by the Rang family, we headed out to the community hall at the town area for our first program of the day which is showcasing the EM technology to the folks of Bario who are involved in agriculture and also the official launch of our program at Bario.

On the way to the community hall, we dropped by at Dato Sri’ Idris Jala’s home in Bario. Dato Sri’ Idris Jala is one of the brilliant and successful Kelabits who was born and brought up in the Bario community and who is now the CEO of Malaysian Airlines. Dato Idris’ father was not around in the house that morning; we were welcomed by his mother. The hospitality offered by her was overwhelming even though we knocked on her door early in the morning without any early notice. She was very glad that we came all the way from the Semenanjung to visit the Kelabit’s highland; she told us about the festivals that they celebrate here in Bario annually and she extended her warmest invitation to us looking forward that we can come during the festivals so that we can witness more about their culture and also sharing the joy together with them.

Dato Sri Idris Jala’s home in Bario

After the short visit to Dato Sri Idris Jala’s home in Bario, we headed to the community hall in town. The weather was quite cold that morning due to the downpour last night; everyone was shivering after bathing in the morning.

On the way to the community hall, we noticed all the folks have already started working at their padi fields and etc; on the contrary during the 7-9 am in central town like Kuala Lumpur, everyone will be stuck in the jam on the way to work during these hours.

We did the necessary setup such as hanging up our banners and setting up our sound system and etc when we got to the community hall. The folks slowly started to fill up the seats after 9 am and our program started at 9.30 am without any delay.

We were honored that on behalf of YB Nelson Balang Rining, who is the ADUN of Ba’kelalan, CR. John Terawe who is the councilor of the Bario community represented him to officiate our programme at Bario and also delivered his opening speech in both Malay and Kelabit Languages. A speech by our UTM Tun Dr. Ismail College’s principal AP. DR. Firdausi Razali was also delivered to explain to the folks about the objectives of our program at Bario.

CR. John Terawe, councilor of Bario

Before entering the highlight of our program, we did a lucky draw session just to make the program more lively and interesting. The locals seemed more eager to learn about the EM technology that we were going to introduce to them.

In introducing the EM agriculture technology to the folks, we had the support from the Chemical Enginnering Pilot Plant (CEPP) of UTM, Mr Aidee Kamal bin Khamis and Dr. Firdausi Razali giving their expert explanation to the folks on applying the EM technology in their agriculture. For your information, CEPP has been actively disseminating the EM know-how in agriculture and environment for the past four years throughout Malaysia.

Dr. Firdausi was explaining to the folks on some of the uses of the plants in enhancing the yield of their plantation

The folks and the Lestari Bario team were getting their hands on in preparing the organic fertilizers. Through the demonstration and explanation by CEPP, many of the folks learned that there are a lot of organic materials around them that can be turned into valuable fertilizer for their plants.

Everyone enjoyed the program and I hope that the folks would be able to benefit much from the new technology that we introduce to them.

After lunch, we chatted with Auntie Joy’s mother and her neighbor at the fire place in her house. They were so excited that a young group of people like us who were willing to sit around them and to chat with them. Personally, I was more than happy that they were willing to share with us their precious lifetime experience and also some interesting facts about Bario.

After having a few hours of rest at her house, we went out to the primary school for some friendly games with the school children, teachers and the army personnel.

The games were arranged by the primary school teachers, we had games like football, volley ball and Ping-pong. It was very enjoyable, playing football with the kids although my side was trounced by our opponents. Some of the kids really have good potential in playing football for the country though. Playing sports at highland was another sort of new experience to me as the weather was cooler and I did not sweat much as I would back in KL.

After playing games with the children at the field, they brought me to the hill behind the secondary school where they told me that it is the spot where I can have a good view of Bario. I had a race with the kids to the hill. We ran across the field and climbed up to the hill. I felt like I was back in my school days then where I could run freely and laugh like nobody’s business. At the top of the hill, the children sat with me and enjoyed the peacefulness and great view of Bario.

Here, I also found my best pal in Bario who is the boy wearing the red t-shirt in this photo. His name is Sageng. He is a brave and friendly young lad who has been around with us for the days in Bario. He taught me a few words in Bahasa Kelabit and after the visit to the hill, he brought my friend and I to visit some other spots in Bario. Although we knew each other for only two days but he did not treat us like strangers and he told us much of the things he knows about Bario. We enjoyed his accompany in Bario very much.

In the evening, after we had our lunch, we were invited to attend the cultural night that was specially arranged by the locals for us. It was one of the activities that I was looking forward to attend in Bario. I was overjoyed when I met the children there as I saw all of them were dressed in their colourful and unique traditional costumes and accessories.

Our UTM ‘dancers’ were also very much excited to present their Tarian Zapplin to the folks, they were also dressed in the traditional Baju Melayu and Baju Kurung for the guys and girls respectively.

The show started with the performance of traditional warrior dance by the school children of SK Bario. They were very good and I believe that the many requests from other visitors to see them perform are a testament to their abilities. The music was so tempting that I wanted to join them in their dance! The crowd, especially us from UTM was all applauding and cheering for them.

After the first two performances by the SK Bario students, it was our turn then to do UTM proud by doing the Johore Traditional Malay Dance- Tarian Zapplin. Our dancers did a good job as well and the dance was successfully presented without anyone forgetting the steps.

It was equally impressive when the Bario Secondary school’s students did their performance. In their first dance which is a traditional local dance, the students amazed us with their strength and uniqueness of the dance.

The second performance completely took us by surprise as they did a modern cowboy dance along to a mandarin song. The students were all dressed like cowboys with blue jeans and red scarf. They were so adorable and the choreography was so modern and lively that we were all captivated by their dance. A big applause goes out to both the SK Bario and SMK Bario students as well as their teachers for making it such an unforgettable event for us.

That night got even more interesting when the Kelabits housewives lined-up to perform their dance to us. The housewives were dressed in their costumes and their hands were carrying the fans made of feather. It was a rather slow and graceful dance that we enjoyed all the same.

Our professors were also invited to join Cikgu Dora to perform the cultural dance. We did get to see some of Dr. Firdausi’s hidden talents in doing Taichi when he was performing the dance.

After all the performances, we were each presented souvenirs by the representative of the Bario and also Cikgu Dora. Each of us was given a Bane Kaboh (a bead necklace) and Bane for the men and women respectively. We also got a packet of the famous Bario Rice each from the SK Bario as a souvenir to bring home.

At the entrance of the Bario Army Camp

After the short visit to their camp, the armies then volunteered to escort us to trek to the salt spring. They got on to the 4X4 with us and we headed off along a narrow and rough track that took us about 40 minutes and then we reached the jungle at Pa’ Umor where we had to trek.

We walked past the turn-off to the Indonesian border and arrived at the salt spring after another half and hour of trekking.

One of the army personnel explained to us that there are many versions of the origins of the salt spring. He told us one of them was that some years ago when the Kelabits who dug a well here noticed that there was salt crystallized on the wall of the well, and then they started to use the water here to produce salt for their daily use. After sometime, the Kelabits commercialized the salt from the well and selling it to the outside world. It is believed that the salt processed from the water of the salt spring contains high percentage of iodine that it can reduce the risk of Goiter for those who consume it.

Every week, by turns, one family gets the chance to make salt here. The family has to collect firewood from the surrounding and store it at a hut by the spring. Salt water is withdrawn from the well by buckets and poured into large cooking pots. The pots of salt water are then placed on the fire and left there till the water has completely evaporated and leaving the salt behind. The salt is then left to be dried in the hut by the heat of the burning firewood. Eventually when the salt is completely dry, the salt is then wrapped with a leaf into a tube and it is sealed with twines.

When we were at the salt spring, we met a family that was preparing to head back home after a week of making their salt here. They had been staying at the hut for the whole week to make the salt. We managed to get a good deal from them and it was good business for them as each of us bought at least 2 to 3 tubes of the salt from them.

The army personnel taught us some survival skill that they are equipped with when we were on our way return from the salt spring.

For lunch, we stopped by at a family who stays in Pa’ Umor.

The lady was preparing the delicious Bario pineapples for us

In the afternoon, we were all very tired after trekking to the salt spring but we were still very much excited for our following activity at the Secondary School of Bario.

The students were walking to the hall

The Secondary School of Bario only provides the early part of the secondary education which is from form 1 to 3 to the local youth. The whole secondary school has only about 160 students. The local adolescences will normally have to enroll to secondary schools in central towns like Miri to complete their secondary education.

The first activity that we had for the students was a forum on further education. The objective of the forum was to give the students an idea of pursuing their tertiary education in the future and also to create awareness in them towards the importance of education in their future. The students seemed very interested towards our topic, and most of them already have the ambition of getting into a university to further their education in the future.

After the forum, we did a quiz challenge for the students like what we did at the primary school two days ago. Indeed the questions that we asked here were much more challenging than those being asked in the primary school. IQ questions and questions related to their PMR subjects that we thought were tough were being used in our quiz challenge. The students did not disappoint us at all and the respond from them was overwhelming which the students managed to answer all our questions correctly and confidently.

Later, we asked for volunteers from the students to introduce him or herself to us in English as we wanted to tell the students about the importance of languages in the working world that requires good communication skills. We did not wait long and a girl who is a prefect bravely put up her hand and volunteered herself. She talked about her ambition, hobby and her family. Her confidence won all of our applause.

Smile on the face of a student who won himself a gift from us in the quiz challenge

The SMK Bario’s prefect board

Here are some of the photos that I snap in that evening.

The garden besides the long house

We did not have our dinner at the usual time as the time we had on the last two days in Bario as we were going to have a barbeque party later at auntie Joy’s house.

Before we headed on back to Miri on the next morning, we had a movie night with the primary school students at their school hall.

The children were not much interested in the movie as they were all gathered around us to chat with us. I miss them a lot!

After the movie, I exchanged contact with the school teachers so that we can always keep in touch.

Teachers of SK Bario and UTM students were having fun times playing games at the barbeque party.

The party ended about 1 am and we headed back to our tents to sleep.

19^th of June 09, our program Lestari Bario has finally come to an end and it was time for us to say good bye to the folks at Bario.

Friendship forever!

At the airports, we coincidentally met with the MASwings officers who have just landed to Bario. Here is a photo of us with Auntie Joy and the officers of MASwings.

Lucky me that I was allowed to feel the pilot seat at the Twin Otters’ cockpit

Our plane took off at 9.30 am and it was really good bye to Bario for us.

When we got back to Miri, we spent a few days visiting all the interesting places here. We have got a better hotel rooms this time at the Miri town.

On the 19^th, we went for bowling and movie in the evening. On the following day, we charted a school bus and headed to the famous Gua Niah National Park. We knew that it would be quite tiring after trekking into the Niah Caves, so we decided to rent a chalet at the national park so that we would have a place to rest in the evening and so we did not have to rush back to Miri then. The rental charge for the chalet was quite reasonable and the

place was indeed comfortable.

The chalet at Gua Niah National Park

We started our journey from our chalet at about 2 pm, we were reminded to bring our own touch lights as it would be very dark in the caves.

We walk through the bushes and finally we reached a cave, I thought we were already at the Niah Cave but when I saw the signboard, we were only at the trader’s cave. Niah Cave was still few kilometers away.

The small hut for the visitors to rest their legs

It took us around 3 hours to explore the whole Niah Cave, we managed to see the places where the bird nest collectors used to collect the bird nest and also most importantly we got to see the ancient paintings on the wall of the Painting Cave.

After the trip, I wouldn’t agree less that Niah Cave is a must visit spot for those Mother Nature lovers as at you would be able to enjoy the breathtaking view of Mother Nature in her full splendour!

On the 21^st June 09, we were back in Miri town again. It was a day for shopping. First, we went to the Rong Reng Heritage Store where we bought lots of the local handicrafts as souvenirs for our friends and family. We did a comparison on the prices of the items that they sell in Rong Reng with other shops in Miri and we found that Rong Reng offers the best bargain for their items. For tourists who wish to visit Miri, I am sure this is something that you might want to take note.

Next stop was the Miri Handicraft Centre, they have a variety of handicrafts here as well but we couldn’t get any better bargain here compare to Rong Reng. Our shopping spree then went on to the wet market in Miri Town; we got all the famous local products here such as the salted fish, black pepper and the highland rice.

It was whole day of shopping and at the end of the day we ended up spending our night at the Parkson shopping complex playing bowling and pool.

On the 22^nd of June 09, 8.00 am, we were back to the Miri Ariport and waiting for departure to Kuching. Everyone had so much fun in Sarawak and we wished that we could stay longer.

On the flight from Miri to Kuching, we were served by a very friendly and nice steward whom we would remember with fondness. His name is Maryazlan. The seats were almost full and he was extremely busy but I could see that he did his best in serving all the passengers equally well with a smile. Another stewardess named Swee Peng did an equally good job in serving the passengers as well. However, this should not have surprised me as the MAS cabin crew has always been recognized as among the best !

Photo of me, Maryazlan and Swee Peng

50 minutes passed and we landed in Kuching International Airport. At the airport, we still managed to do some shopping and we bought the famous Sarawak Layer Cake from the airport before departing back to Senai.

On the flight from Kuching to Senai, we were served with lunch. Unfortunately, the green colour soap-like cookie was not in the menu. However, all in all the lunch was still warm and tasty. Time passed pretty fast and we reached Senai before we even realized it.

It was indeed a pleasant and memorable to experience being passengers on MAS. Once more, I cannot say enough thanks to MAS for it’s kind support on our project and also for giving us the opportunity to have this wonderful once in a lifetime experience.