16th October 2011
Today we went to Samarinda. First stop was Tenggarong. We went to the Mulawarman museum which is an old Majapahit palace, with a royal cemetery just behind it. In the museum there is a lot of Javanese palace paraphernalia including the King's bed which was pretty huge, preserved in its chambers.
Next we went to the wood museum, you can see the many types of wood produced from trees in Indonesia there. They also have a huge monster crocodile that was caught in 1990 after it ate lots of people! Its at least 3 metres long, I think its degraded a bit but its still huge! The news paper cuttings they have on display show some people opening the stomach of the crocodile and removing an arm and leg! Grim
There was some road works on the road leading to the wood museum. It looked pretty sketchy to cross this in the car but the workmen seemed convinced it would be ok. We stopped and they shouted "bisa" "bisa", as in you can! We made it over though.
Afterwards we went to Pampang to see a Kenyah Dayak ceremony in a longhouse there. These happen every sunday. We arrived a little early and after waiting til the start time (and being interviewed twice and photographed by many Indonesians!) we were informed that the ceremony would not take place because someone in the village had passed away. Even the people performing the ceremony didn't know until the last minute. Its a shame we could not see it but we still got to meet some Dayak people though so all was not lost. Dayak people were feared in the past as they are violent warriors and had a tradition of head hunting.
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Today we went to Samarinda. First stop was Tenggarong. We went to the Mulawarman museum which is an old Majapahit palace, with a royal cemetery just behind it. In the museum there is a lot of Javanese palace paraphernalia including the King's bed which was pretty huge, preserved in its chambers.Next we went to the wood museum, you can see the many types of wood produced from trees in Indonesia there. They also have a huge monster crocodile that was caught in 1990 after it ate lots of people! Its at least 3 metres long, I think its degraded a bit but its still huge! The news paper cuttings they have on display show some people opening the stomach of the crocodile and removing an arm and leg! Grim
There was some road works on the road leading to the wood museum. It looked pretty sketchy to cross this in the car but the workmen seemed convinced it would be ok. We stopped and they shouted "bisa" "bisa", as in you can! We made it over though. 
Afterwards we went to Pampang to see a Kenyah Dayak ceremony in a longhouse there. These happen every sunday. We arrived a little early and after waiting til the start time (and being interviewed twice and photographed by many Indonesians!) we were informed that the ceremony would not take place because someone in the village had passed away. Even the people performing the ceremony didn't know until the last minute. Its a shame we could not see it but we still got to meet some Dayak people though so all was not lost. Dayak people were feared in the past as they are violent warriors and had a tradition of head hunting.View Larger Map
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