#SamaiSurvival

We woke to an authentic Malay breakfast, a feast lay before us. Boiled eggs, sweet noodles, rice noodles, rice, chicken, nuts, passion fruit and green beans. I didn’t know where to begin so I just piled my plate with a bit of everything.
It was an interesting mixture of food but somehow it worked. Once finished, we were led to learn about jungle life with the Semai tribe leader John

#Blow pipe
First he taught us about the blow pipe. Made from bamboo, there is an inner pipe and a protective casing carved with Semai carvings. To make the carvings he cuts the design using a knife and then uses a charcoal to die the wood beneath it. The bamboo is light and durable as well as perfectly straight and hollow which allows the darts to fly through and reach great distances, some tribe members can reach their target up to 30 meters away.

#Darts
The darts are crafted from a

different type of wood called Rentik ben bam and a cork nib is used for its tail and then shaped similar to a dart arrow. To connect the two parts together they melt tree sap and use this as glue to meld the two together. The final step is to cover the tip of the dart in poison. This poison is sourced from tree sap from the Ipoh tree and when caught in the human blood stream, it can kill you within seconds. The poison travels directly to the heart through the blood stream. Luckily the darts we were using were left clean.

#Aim,fire
They are loaded with the arrow and a ball of cotton taken from a plant. To hold it, you cup your hands around the pipe, close to your mouth, your top lip rests on the top while your bottom sits just beneath the hole, aim it at the target and use your diaphragm to blow out (Don’t suck in because you might breath in the cotton). Ready, aim, fire!
Nicole went first expertly shooting the dart into the distance, she missed the target but the dart stuck into the top of the board. She tried again, this time she hit the 60 circle. Then it was my turn.

I exhaled sharply into the bamboo tube, I never heard the satisfying noise of the dart firing out. My dart had flimsily drafted out the pipe and landed softly on the floor; not sure if I’m quite ready for deer hunting. John suggested I imagine the target to be the pack of dogs that had caused my injuries, I had another try, this time the swoosh sounded and dink! I had also hit 60! Let’s just hope if we ever have to hunt for survival that all our targets are unmoving and large.

#Traps
He led us around to show us mini versions of the traps used in the jungle. They still hunt in the jungle to this day and actually it was only 7 years ago that a main road was built to connect their village to a town. Before that they would have to walk 8hours to find civilisation so they survived purely on hunted and gathered food.
He showed us each trap allowing us to have a go leading the ‘chicken’ (it was just a stick) into the various traps. The first one locks the chicken leg into the rope and then flings it above ground, another is a booby trap for larger animals. A huge wooden spear punctures any animal that tries to walk past it. The inventions were so cleverly designed and completely man made using plants.

#Games
Our final lesson was to play a game. It started off as a tool to combat the Spirit of confusion and disorientation. If someone was feeling lost in the jungle, they would

throw down these puzzles in order to rid themselves of the spirit confusing them. Now it is just used as a fun game. The aim is to free the string, we tried countless ways but in the end we had to surrender and ask one of the chief’s children to help us.

Afterwards, we could buy his handcrafted gifts. On the table lay an arrangement of different things, woven baskets, book marks and bracelets made using the Mengkuang leaf. We could buy the bamboo game that was shown to us and other small trinkets. He sold things for a humble price and donates all the profits to support the rest of the village. I bought a few things to take home and then we went to visit the village.

It was just a short walk up the hill. The surrounding landscape was rich in jungle trees and the sounds of its occupants. The village was small, around 10-15 white stone houses were dotted around the area while children and chickens ran freely between them.
“Hello!” We said to a small group of girls.
Their faces lit with excitement.
“Hello!’ They answered back. Then continued to chat away to us in Malay. We tried to ask them their names and then we were out of conversation.
“Bye!” We called to them. Clearly they weren’t ready for us to depart.
“Hey you! Hey you!” They called after us. We turned to wave and headed back to the lodge.

We chatted to John some more about the politics of Malaysia and the

level of education available for his children. He said that native tribesman don’t get as much funding to support their communities and he spends 3-4 hours a day teaching his children himself on top of sending them to school. It wasn’t long before it was time for me to depart and head to KL. It had been an incredible experience of traditional Malay culture and I was sad to leave the peaceful confines of the jungle