Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Padi Planting - Nuruk

The traditional way of hill padi planting can be both strenuous, back-breaking and fun. After the land has been cleared and burned, and more tiding up, the farm owner will determine a date for planting. No fix system is used nowadays as padi planting has become a part-time farming hobby.

The common practice now is to do planting on weekend or public holiday as the farm owner will be able to call for more free labour (akin to mutual help). This get-together-padi-planting kind of thing is called gotong-royong. Don't be surprise if you meet a total stranger who help with the planting.

Another thing about this important day, is that the padi planting for hill padi must be done within the same day. Work must be done when everyone is around. Anyway, the planting system for hill padi is device in such as way, that menfolk will lead the planting each carrying a "turuk" or heavy stick (with sharp end) to puncture a hole (called "nuruk") on the ground and the womenfolk following from behind will throw the padi seeds into the holes.


Nuruk time. Men lead the way puncturing holes into the ground with spear-like heavy stick (called "turuk"). Try it for a solid 2 hours without glove and you'll get your hand blistered.


The padi seeds inside the basket (called "tambok") are pinched and thrown into the holes, punctured earlier by the turuk. For young people, bending like that for a couple of hours would be a real torture.


Womenfolk taking a short break. Notice the lady on the left have a tele-conversion on her cell-phone. Some Bidayuh farms, due to its proximity to Kuching city are accessible to mobile telecommunication.


A Bidayuh lady digging into the tambok for padi seeds.


Messy hole. The padi seeds landed at the rim of the hole. Must be man's work.


Neat hole. Notice all the padi seeds landed inside the hole. That's the correct way to do it because you don't want the rain water to wash away the seeds. Remember, it's hill slopes and gravity rules.


Related posts:
* Pesta Birumuh - Bidayuh Rice Growing Festival

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Bidayuh Pesta Berumuh - Land Clearing - Bertabun

During padi planting season, once the land has been cleared of big trees and thick bushes, it is burned. This is call the big fire or called "ngitugan" in Bidayuh. See also Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Land Clearing and Burning

However, clearing continued after the big fire when the vegetation are not fully burned. Yeah, it like half-cooked thing. Blamed it on moist leaves and unpredictable rains.


Bidayuh ladies would then collect small twigs and pull out unburned plants and lumped it together and burned them separately. It's like a lot of mini bon-fires (called "tabun" or "bertabun" in Bidayuh) in the farm and it's a lot of work. Where there is smoke, there's tabun.


Bidayuh kids also help and they like to have fun, torching the dead stumps and twigs. However, kids are not allowed to be in the burning zones for too long because it is heaty and smoky and not good for their health.

Related posts:
* Pesta Birumuh - Bidayuh Rice Growing Festival

SEO: Bidayuh padi growing festival | Pesta Birumuh | pestabirumuh |Pesta Berumuh | rice growing cycle | padi planting | slash and burn | shifting cultivation | paddy planting | pestaberumuh |

Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Land Clearing and Burning

Before planting of padi commenced, the hill slopes are cleared of vegetation and bushes. A few weeks after that, when the dead vegetation are dried, it will be burned to produce alkaline ash which act as natural nutrients for the small padi.

Nowadays, chemical fertilizers compliment the alkaline ash to promote better padi growth. Land clearing usually started as early as July and burning would be done latest by September. During this period, the weather in Borneo is usually hot and dry.

For the case of hill padi, the land is cleared and burned will also facilitate better planting as you won't want to walk around the ground which is littered with big fallen trees and haphazard dead branches and twigs.


The land before clearing with green vegetation and clear sky.


Once the land is cleared, the dead vegetation are burned.


Portion of burned land. See the blackened ground covered with ashes.


And during the burning season, the sky is filled with smoke and particles and it become hazy. The sky will be clear soon after a short-spell of raining days. That's the time when the padi started to grow.


Related posts:
* Pesta Birumuh - Bidayuh Rice Growing Festival

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Pesta Birumuh - Bidayuh Rice Growing Festival

What is Pesta Birumuh? It's a Rice Growing Festival among the Bidayuh community of Borneo. Rice is the staple in Borneo and the Bidayuh people’s expertise in growing it is a big part of the reason for their developed culture.

The inaugural Pesta Birumuh, a showcase of Bidayuh culture, heritage and arts at Serian Mini Stadium on March 20 to 23 2009, is expected to attract more than 15,000 visitors including foreign tourists.

For the Bidayuh, the first stage of the rice (padi or paddy) production cycle for wet padi is burning the stalks, which creates an alkaline ash. For hill padi, the hill slopes are cleared of vegetation and burned. This is also known as slash and burn (or shifting cultivation).

See photos of Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Land Clearing and Burning and Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Land Clearing - Bertabun

Rice production either start in the sawah (rice field) or hill slopes (for hill padi) . Rice seed is planted in a protected bed for wet padi while rice seed are throw in a hole punctured on the ground for hill padi.

See photos of Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Padi Planting - Nuruk

For wet padi, when rice seedlings start to mature, they are pulled and transplanted by hand to the sawah, where they are planted in rows, about a foot apart. In the various stages of maturing, the sawah is flooded and dried to maximize growth of the rice plants (padi).

For hill padi, the farmers will wait for the rain to nourish the padi planted in the hole punctured at the ground. See photos of Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Padi Shootlets

When the padi is about a foot tall, weeding of weeds and grasses are done to make sure the padi get all the nutrients from the ground so that the padi will bear better grains. See photo of Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Weeding - Ngebu

In between weeding and before the padi turned yellow, there is little farm activities but you can still be busy with activities such as snapping photo of waterdroplets or watermarbles on the padi leave blades. See awesome photos of water marbles on padi blades at Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Young padi with waterdroplets.

See Bidayuh Pesta Birumuh - Padi bearing fruits

Harvesting or ngutum, comes when the rice plants/stalks are a meter tall and the grains ripening (turning bright yellow). Whereas the first stages of rice growing are done by men, it is the women who harvest, using a small palm-held knife.

For wet padi, the rice stalks are threshed right there in the field, with the separated rice seeds now called beras. In traditional villages, the beras is kept in an elevated rice barn, to protect it from wet weather and rats.

Once the rice seeds are separated, drying of padi will take a few days (weather permitting) before the padi can be stored or send to the miller for processing.

The last stage of the rice production cycle is burning the stalks, which creates an alkaline ash.

Rice production is still extremely important to the Bidayuh and it will be interesting to how future generations take to it.





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Macro photos of red fire ants

Fire ants, are stinging ants with over 280 species worldwide. They have several common names including Ginger Ants and Tropical Fire Ants (English), aka-kami-ari (Japanese), and Feuerameise (German).

For these red fire ants, it is not easy to take the picture because the ants won't keep still. And a zero macro is not possible as the ants would climb to the camera's lens.


Red fire ants giving an alarm


Angry red fire ants, ready for a fight


David the little red fire ant, biting Goliath (me) hand

Nabau, Borneo giant snake

Photograph shows Nabau, the 'giant snake' lurking in Borneo river. Villagers living along the Baleh river in Borneo fear a 100-foot snake could be lurking in the murky waters.


It is not clear whether the photograph is genuine, or a clever piece of photo-editing. Some suggested the 'snake' was in fact a log or a speed boat and others complained the colour of the river in the photo was too dark.

The most common theory is that the photo has been manipulated on a computer. This is known as photo-shopped image.



What do I think about the photos? It's a totally low-quality amateur photo-shopped. In short, FAKE.

Instead of putting your interest in a snake hoax, why not check the real issue of Siltation that killed thousand of fishes at Batang Rajang , a real freak papaya photo from Borneo or a snake head fish photo.

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The Borneo giant snake has become a hot news topic and even being published by foreign media such as:
* Telegraph.co.uk - Photograph shows 'giant snake' lurking in Borneo river
* LiveScience - 100-Foot 'Borneo Monster' Said Photographed
* DailyMail.co.uk - Picture of 100ft-long 'snake' sparks fears of mythical monster in Borneo
* Mirror.co.uk - Is '100ft long snake' mythical Borneo monster or just a photo fake?


SEO: Philippines Naga | giant serpentine animal | Titanoboa Columbia | Borneo monster | Water serpent legends | Suspicious snake photos | bigger than anaconda | snake in a river | big asian snake | fake reptile

Two cats and a string

I'm trying out Google Video so I uploaded two short clips of two mixed breed Siamese cat playing with a string.


Two cats and a string - Part 1


Two cats and a string - Part 2

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Makna nama Proton MPV Exora

Sebenarnya, perkataan Exora tidak membawa sebarang erti. Ia adalah kata suara seperti kata Bahasa Inggeris, Ixora. Ixora adalah sejenis bunga yang tumbuh di tanah tropik.

Di Malaysia, Ixora juga dikenali sebagai Bunga Santan.

Hal yang menarik tentang bunga Ixora ini adalah bahawa bunganya macam bergabung atau berkumpul sama seperti sebuah keluarga dan kereta MPV Proton Exora memang sesuai untuk orang yang berkeluarga besar.

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* Exora Proton latest MPV named after Ixora
* Gambar Ixora (Bunga Santan)