Borneo Blog :: Mari-Mari Cultural Village

Saturday 

Today I was invited to visit Mari-Mari Cultural Village with my new friend Desmond. Let me tell you about his name. He was the only boy at school with a non English name, so his friends told him to choose one. He chose Desmond because of a Beatles song that was popular at the time. Now if that's not destiny then I don't know what is. (I was born in Liverpool, home of the Beatles...) 

Des was picking me up at 4pm so I had the morning and early afternoon to laze around and take it easy. I went to the coconut stand and had one of the biggest coconuts I think I've ever seen (the previous day I had the biggest I've ever seen lol) and it was really sweet, but nothing beats the one I had at the beach so far that tasted like milkybar. 

I was sure I wanted tarap, so I got one from the market. I should have known that when it dripped on me in the market it was not a good one. Nevertheless I bought it. When I opened it the pods were purple and some had gone pink, gooey and rancid. So determined to get a good tarap I went back to ask for a better one or my money back. I ended up getting half my money back because the woman who sold it to me was only looking after the stall. Fair enough, I'm glad I got something back. 

So I didn't get one after that. 

Des picked me up early and we went walked around a park. He showed me where he does Tai Chi. It was a beautiful park. 

Then we went to the Brahma Kumaris centre that teaches Raja Yoga, which was interesting and I hope I taught them something about eating clean with my raw vegan lifestyle! 

After our visit we headed to the Cultural village. It was beautiful, a stream, bamboo buildings, trees, so much greenery. It got dark soon after we arrived so the photographs and videos will be quite dark. Stay tuned. There were many tasters, all non vegan of course but at the end after watching a dancing show with music you get to eat a buffet meal. Fortunately Des speaks many languages so he was able to pre order a raw vegan meal especially for me. I had watermelon, papaya, carrots, tomatoes, cucumber and then shredded salad. It was so good! 

On the way back (by motorcycle of course) I felt so chilled out, almost in a meditative state. I had my eyes closed for the majority of the journey allowing my senses and body to feel everything, from the wind in my hair, to the vibrations from the foot pedals on my feet through to my legs. Wow. This was probably the best journey I've ever had. I kept repeating the question "who am I?" and the sensations became stronger. Incredible. 

Perfect day.