Our next stop with our wonderful guide, Gosli, was the Annah Rais Longhouse, selected as a community based eco-tourism site by the Joint Tourism Development Cluster.

 Annah Rais village is predominantly Bidayuh, with the exception of cross marriages to other races and, according to Gosli, has a written history of 175 years and an unwritten history of over 500  years.  The longhouse village population is estimated to be about 1000, spanning 8 generations.  Ever since the tourism boom in Sarawak, the Bidayuh community here has turned this traditional longhouse into one of the most popular tourist attractions in the Kuching area with tourists from all over the world coming to visit Annah Rais Longhouse to witness the Bidayuh people going about their daily lives.

The longhouse is the very center of communal life and there are over 4,500 longhouses in Sarawak. These communal houses, built on stilts, may contain up to 100 individual families, usually related to one another, in separate 'apartments' built under one long roof.

The massive longhouse is interconnected by a wooden or bamboo walkway, which is the main common area where families sit around and talk and kids play as well as preparing some of the local products that are sold at the longhouse. Annah Rais is so huge that it seems like one entire village is connected together with home run restaurants, grocery shops and the local homegrown products.

When we entered the longhouse, several very friendly ladies greeted us with small glasses of Tuak, the local brewed rice wine.  It was quite good and, I could imagine with the sweet and mild taste, this homebrew could really sneak up on you.  There were several other ladies selling tapioca chips (keropok).  We bought a few bags and they were thin and crunchy and very tasty.  As we walked along the wide walkway, we saw piles of the keropok, drying in the sun before they were packaged. 

Next, Gosli took us into the "Headhouse" or skull house.  This was literally the house where they kept the skulls of slain enemies, invaders of the longhouse whom the Bidayuh people had caught and beheaded.  The skulls were in a cylinder wire cage hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room.  I have to say, it was a little creepy.

As we continued down the walkway we spotted three really interesting murals on the walls and one of the doors of the houses.  Gosli told us that a very world famous Lithuanian artist, Ernest Zacharevic, was invited to Annah Rais to paint these murals in 2014.

Towards the end of the main section of the longhouse there was a group of school children that were being entertained by two of the village women, dressed in the traditional garb, who were doing a traditional welcome dance.  They were accompanied by the music of an elderly man who was playing on a very unusual instrument.  According to Gosli, the musician is quite famous and  travels all over the world. (SEE VIDEO BELOW)

Then, we were treated to an incredible lunch at the homestay of Rebecca. (There are 9 registered homestays in the village).  She prepared a huge amount of food which included chicken bamboo...one of the very traditional Sarawak tribal meals. 

They put the chicken in a huge fresh bamboo stem, closed at one end, along with numerous spices and water.  The moisture of the fresh bamboo allows the stem to burn slowly when put into the open fire and the flavor from the bamboo stem mixes with all the spices resulting in a wonderful taste. 

 I think this was the best meal we had eaten so far. 

After our filling meal, we continued to walk through more of the village that was connected to the main longhouse by bridges and pathways.  Once Gosli discovered that Bill had collected tree seeds from many of the countries where we had traveled and had them growing behind our house in Mexico, he was quick to point out the huge variety of trees that were growing throughout the village and presented him with some palm oil seeds and some seeds from a variety of small Jack fruit and seeds from the cacao tree.

  Needless to say, Bill was delighted.

On our way back to the Resort, Gosli gave us a condensed version of the history of Sarawak which was very interesting and, stopped at a store in Kuching where Bill was able to buy some local beer for a great price.  What a wonderful day and we couldn't have asked for a better guide than Gosli!!