Gathering of the Tribes

14 January was quite a memorable date for those who had taken their time to drop by the Borneo Convention Centre. In fact it runs from 14-16 January. It is about tattoo. Tattoo artists from many parts of the world: Europe, Asia-Pacific, Indonesia and Malaysia congregate at the Borneo Convention Centre exhibiting their skills in tattoo making with all kind of motifs. I spent about three hours mingling with them and reduced into photographs part of what I saw and observed.

First Day Programme

Tattoo artist at work

Another tattoo artist at work on the lady's lap

Some of the participants 

An Australian showing his Mentawai's Tribe's tattoo

A lady braving herself with hand tapping tattoo with Indigenous Dayak's motif 

Proudly showing his tattoo

The dancers performing in one of the programmes

Giving full concentration to his work

Lundu and some of its components

On 30 December 2010, I accompanied a friend who had a little bit of business to do at the Lundu District Office. I say a bit  but in fact quite a complicated matter involving the transfer of one real property. The deceased, who was the administrator of his late father's estate, did the transmission but just left it as that and did nothing to transfer the property to the beneficiary, i.e, he himself. I suspect that he must have thought the transmission would have perfected the execution of the Letter of Administration, which in the eyes of the law, has not. Later, the deceased passed on intestate. The problem now arises involving the the above property which transfer the deceased had not perfected. Surely this friend of mine would have to make a few more visits to the District office to have the matter resolved. But the reason I am writing this note is not about his problem but about my journey to Lundu and some of the pictures that I took while waiting for him to have his job done. To those of you of who live outside Kuching and have never been to Lundu but may have some business to do at the District Office in the future, I am exhibiting herein the photograph of the District Office so that it would be easy for you to locate it.

District Office building

Part of Lundu town

The water front

The District Mosque built of a former aircraft runway

Gunung Gading seen from Batang Kayan Bridge

Sarawak River Cruise on second Day of 2011

Early on the morning of 2 January, five of us, self-declared as 'Hang Lima Sekawan' [The Five Friends], assembled at Pengkalan Sapi jetty in front of the State Governor's Palace. A decent high powered boat belonged to Sarawak Rivers Board was ready to ferry us up and down the Sarawak River. The weather was gloomy but with God's grace the sky cleared the moment we took off from Pengkalan Sapi with two excellent skippers. With its twin 115 horsepower engines we chose to go upriver first. We managed to spot one alligator sunbathing on the right bank of the river. One of us managed to take the photograph of the reptile. By almost noon we reached the 'Green Astana' [our newly created terminology referring to the residence of the Chief minister, which means 'Green Palace']. By then it started to rain and we instructed the skipper to return to our original starting point.

The boat that ferried us

Part of the Sarwak River just below Batu Kawah Bridge

Also part of Sarawak River

Some anglers enjoying themselves with their hooks

Water catchment near Batu Kitang

   

My first day of 2011

I welcomed the first day of 2011 by taking part in photograph mentoring organised by the Sarawak Photo Arts Society. Some not less than 20 of us armed with cameras took as many photos as we liked of the two pretty models. I used the Nikon D3 DSLR camera and took more than 100 shots. It was a real fun day. At night we assembled at the Society's House to have our photos reviewed an commented upon by our experience mentor. 

Nikon D3 I used

One of the models

Also one of the models