Bamboo Music Festival at Tamparuli '12

Spent the whole week indoor and sleeping really early the whole week of last week. I wanted to rejuvenate my body and made sure my weekend was freshened. I really disciplined myself. Lights off before 12am, proper meals and minor exercises and stuff.

So with what good week I had, last Sunday morning, when Morris told me that he’d pick me up at 9am I got up at 6.45am instead! I was well rested, energized and it felt like I could start the day as early as I could.

We decided to spend our Sunday at a bamboo festival in Tamparuli. It's basically an event to celebrate the multipurpose use of the bamboo. Anyway, you guys can check out here for more information. I'm also trying to promote this event for the festival in future :)

Morris suggested having brunch in Tamparuli itself, and we agreed. Morris had his good ol’ Kon Lau Men Char Siew, while I had Kon Lau Men mixed and Aaron Tuaran Mee. After that heavy breakfast, we walked to where the festival was supposed to be. Everything was near so it was all good.

When we reached there – we saw probably the quirkiest game ever. Five bamboo sticks tied together at one end, all spread out, with one dude chucked up there in between all that craziness, which we assumed is supposed to be the "driver" or the person taking charge of whatever that thing was. I was so intrigued by the game, I had to ask around.

The game is called Mimtakayan. Basically you'd have to race up all the way to the finishing line on that ensemble, and all of your teammates have to help each other out by pulling the strings that are tied to the bamboo to a rhythm where you can finally slowly move around lead by the "driver".

The first team to reach the finishing line, wins. Quite frankly, it's almost impossible to even move a couple of metres even, I don't how they do it -_______________-"

Insane.

Other than that, we spent the day just roaming around and discovering the bamboo musical shows performed by the school kids from around Sabah in the hall.

I was so fascinated looking at all the bamboo musical instruments I discovered the other day. There were these huge ones where the player literally had to juggle with both of the huge bamboos to craft notes. I mean, look, it nearly covered the boy's face for heaven's sake.

Besides musical shows, they had field games too like "Pertandingan Menyumpit". "Sumpit" is a famous weaponry used by the local natives of Sabah and Sarawak. It is a natural craft, deemed to be made out of only carved woods, shaped and designed in such a way that you get to aim at a specific target. Check out this lady rocking it out.

All the ladies were nailing it like they've done this their whole life. I mean, they probably have done this their whole life. Right.

Besides some field games, there was a booth that started breaking on a traditional dance every few minutes; a Dusun Lotud dance called Mongingol to be specific if (I hope I get this correctly). The dance was graceful, the traditional costumes were gorgeous. I really liked it :)

This was actually one of my favourite musical instrument too. Can someone tell me what exactly this instrument is called? I know it before, but I no longer remember it. I tried Googling Bamboo drums but everything else that's not this came out.

Can't wait to catch next year's. They had the field games and the musical shows simultaneously so we had to miss either one in order to catch the other. Oh well. I hope I'd get to catch more of the quirky field games next time. I wonder what other games out there that use bamboo as their tools.