Warrior games in Pukematu Lodge
There's no need to be worried on this Maori homestay in Russell, New Zealand, says Chris Pritchard.
Here's how to be really, really safe when visiting an unfamiliar place: stay in a policeman's house. Such advice would make more sense were I not discussing Russell, a place so law-abiding that the lone village policeman tells me he has time on his hands.
This is fortunate because it allows Colwyn Shortland to run the house as a homestay, a delightful window not only onto splendid countryside but onto New Zealand's unique Maori culture as well.
The spacious timber house was his family's home for five years until, seven years ago, Colwyn and his wife Kay decided to convert it into a stylish homestay. Three bedrooms for visitors, each with en suite bathroom, would not be out of place in an upscale hotel. Set on almost five hectares of lush bushland, the house overlooks – from near the summit of Flagstaff Hill lookout – forest, rolling farmland and an intricate coastline of bays and inlets. Across the water is Waitangi Treaty Grounds, sacred to Maoris and on the edge of a resort town called Paihia.
The house, Pukematu Lodge, is unashamedly modern – but almost all of New Zealand's Maoris (one in seven of the country's four million people) lead modern lifestyles even if reverence for age-old customs is undiminished. Many even have Anglo-sounding names. Shortland, for instance, boasts parents belonging to two important local tribes.
Pukematu Lodge is in Russell, heart of the Bay of Islands region of Northland, north of Auckland, New Zealand's biggest and most commercially important city. Many visitors are lured to this thinly-populated part of the country by the white sands and safe swimming of Ninety Mile Beach (actually it's a little shorter). Much of Northland's climate is moderately sub-tropical, making it an all-year destination. Domestic flights and long-distance buses deliver some visitors but I discover a rental car's progression through spectacular countryside and tiny towns is a pleasant way to get here (allow three hours to cover the 250km from Auckland).
"I can't tell a lie," grins Shortland. "There's hardly any crime. It's safe and sleepy." A rare brawl, an occasional burglary and the odd "domestic" – that's about it for the law enforcer. Still, he is also the local marriage celebrant, and scenic Russell is a popular place for weddings.
Most visitors head south from Auckland to Rotorua, famed for Maori culture and sulphurous hot geysers, but the Bay of Islands has lately become hip. Russell, its formerly rambunctious port, was a trading tavern-of-the-seas and New Zealand's first capital before Wellington gained that role.
The little town includes, among historic buildings along its waterfront, New Zealand's oldest church with graves, from the 1800s, of Maoris and European settlers. Pompallier House, a French bishop's home at a time when French Catholic missionaries upset Protestant settlers as both groups aggressively proselytised among Maori tribes, is a museum offering an insight into a bygone lifestyle.
Next to Russell's Duke of Marlborough, New Zealand's oldest pub, a giant fig tree shields a police station built in 1870 that has served successively as a customs house, courthouse and jail. It is now the police station and also the policeman's official house. However, Shortland confides he and Kay don't live there. His address is Pukematu Lodge, where he and Kay welcome paying guests.
Russell's history is heavily skewed toward early settlers. For more of a Maori flavour, I follow Shortland's advice and hop aboard a ferry for a 10-minute ride to the twin town of Paihia, modern with abundant accommodation options, ranging from stylish boutique properties, mid-market motels to backpacker lodgings, and many restaurants.
Shortland warns me not to make light of the hongi greeting. Ignoring this sound advice tempts trouble. A hongi – not to be confused with a hangi, Maori-style cooking for feasts in an outdoor pit oven – does not require rubbing together of noses, just gentle pressing.
Shortland acknowledges his house is contemporary "but that's Maori life these days. We're part of a wider community." Guests are usually out all day, pointed by Shortland towards cultural experiences.
Burly Hone Mihaka meets me in Paihia. He changes behind his van from T-shirt and jeans into tribal gear. He takes small groups on a waka (traditional canoe) to an island 300m offshore. Called Motu Maire, it is uninhabited but sacred. Brief prayers are said in Maori. Hone recites a short introduction to local custom. His tales are plucked from the oral history of his Ngapuhi tribe as we paddle across calm water.
Ngapuhi tribesmen preceded us to Motu Maire, hiding in a thicket. Hone appoints me leader, briefing me on how to respond to a looming greeting. I step forward on cue. A tribesman appears from behind a tree, recreating a scene common when foreigners first visited these Pacific islands. Approaching me along the beach, spear aloft and tongue thrust out challengingly, he flings down a leaf in front of me.
Hone has briefed me not to break eye contact with the challenger while picking up the leaf. I proffer the leaf to the Maori, who moves close. We press noses. We are friends. I have come in peace. Tribesmen then perform a traditional welcome, a blood-curdling haka more fearsome than those preceding present-day rugby games.
More storytelling follows, with Maori dances, before we paddle to a spot where Hone dives overboard, surfacing with succulent green-lipped mussels. We eat our fill until it seems cruel to send Hone down again. His team comprises five members of the local community. Ten tourists are also aboard this long, narrow but comfortable 20-seater old-style canoe.
No experience is needed. Instruction in rowing and use of the hoe (paddle) is given before we don lifejackets and set out. During this preparation, we feel faintly ridiculous marching in military fashion on the beach making rowing motions with our paddles and shouting appropriate Maori cries.
The scene for this soft adventure is close to a revered slab of parkland on Paihia's outskirts called the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. Displays describe Maori and settler culture and history. Material is exhibited about the Treaty of Waitangi that was signed here by British and Maori chiefs in 1840. From Waitangi, an easy two-hour walk – mostly on boardwalks – slices through forest and wetlands to scenic Haruru Falls, a rushing of water alongside an old tavern from where cabs head back to Paihia.
Next day, it takes me three hours to cross from the east to west coasts because I choose to wander through the busy arts-and-crafts town of Kerikeri. At a coastal settlement called Omapere on the shores of Hokianga Harbour, I meet a group with a business as fascinating as Hone Mihaka's Taiamai Tours. Koro Carman, Joe Wynyard and fellow Maoris run Footprints Waipoua, which takes torch-bearing visitors on nocturnal walks deep into Waipoua Forest, an eerie expanse dotted with giant kauri trees.
Some experts estimate the biggest of these slow-growing arboreal oddities is 2,000 years old. Others contend they are twice as old. Most famous are Te Matua Ngahere, "the father of the forest" (New Zealand's oldest kauri tree) and Tane Mahuta, "lord of the forest" (New Zealand's largest kauri tree). The latter soars 52m skyward – 30m is more common for a very tall kauri – but at its base it lacks the five-metre girth of the older tree. Both are visited on an evening's walk.
Scuttling across my path in the moonlight is a kiwi, New Zealand's iconic, endangered but flightless bird. "You were lucky," smiles Koro. "We don't always see them."
My luck holds. Moments later I see a native owl called a morepork – so named because its call sounds like a demand for "more pork" – on a branch. Soon afterwards our group sees another rare bird: a flightless weka, resembling a scrawny chicken, foraging in undergrowth.
It is well after midnight when I arrive back on the Bay of Islands' east coast. Next morning, the knowledgeable Fern Jobbitt collects me in her 4x4. Her Maori ancestry is useful in running Fernz Eco Tours, a company twinning cultural and scenic experiences. She takes me on a drive deep into rainforest where – along with live kauri trees – we see other kauris that have died or are in poor shape.
Old incisions reveal these were targeted in the early 1900s by "gum diggers" who earned big sums by gathering kauri gum, which was once essential in varnish-making but is now superseded by synthetic substances, either tapping trees or digging up rock-like clumps of hardened gum. This hard wood, now strictly protected, was prized for furniture. The tree, celebrated in Maori culture, has been saved from extinction. Now only "swamp kauri" – wood salvaged from trees that have died – can be used.
Back at Pukematu Lodge, Shortland observes Maori culture has recently been resurgent. While the kauri may be growing rarer, the willingness of Maori people to highlight their culture is increasingly commonplace.
Getting there
Air New Zealand
(airnewzealand.com.au) flies to Auckland, with domestic Air New Zealand connections to Whangarei and Kerikeri in the Bay of Islands. Rental cars are available in both towns, with Russell reached in about an hour. Express buses and coach tours are also available.
Pukematu Lodge
(tel +64 9 403 8500, email [email protected], pukematulodge.co.nz), NZ$395 (£138) per person per night (twin share) including breakfast and transfers to and from Russell's shops and restaurants.
Information on Maori cultural tours
For more information visit Tourism New Zealand (newzealand.com), Destination Northland (northlandnz.com).
Rural bliss in thailand
A successful government-sponsored programme offers farmers an alternative income source – and allows visitor Chris Pritchard a glimpse of a vanishing way of life.
The locals carry mobile phones. Every home has electricity and piped water. But I see human effigies propped outside houses and a resident, noticing my puzzled stare, pauses his telephone conversation to explain the scarecrow-like figures protect infants from being stolen by baby-snatching spirits. No babies have been kidnapped. This, he says, proves the efficacy of the ritual. Despite modern technology, centuries-old beliefs remain powerful in this rural outpost of Thailand's history-rich northeast.
Ban Prasat is a farming village with about 1,250 residents. Most commute to nearby rice fields, supplementing earnings through traditional crafts such as cloth weaving, basket making and wood carving.
Now, however, Ban Prasat is also part of a successful government-sponsored programme to boost the homestay niche nationally. While people in other Thai villages also host homestay visitors, usually only a handful of households are involved. But 35 of Ban Prasat's 239 homes take guests.
There is a twofold aim: to create an alternative tourism-based source of earnings so people are less affected by droughts, which routinely plague provinces in Thailand's Isan region; and, to supply a method for foreigners to sample village-style family life.
Ban Prasat households taking part in the programme share its total income – a clever strategy ensuring guests staying at one house feel welcome throughout the village. By chance, I find myself staying at the mayor's house. He tells me a fortuitous peculiarity which prompted the settlement's homestay involvement: it has within its boundaries the important Ban Prasat Archaeological Site, which is also popular with visitors not staying in the village.
Before the first guests arrived seven years ago, government tourism officials lectured villagers about expected standards: efficient and friendly service delivery, fresh linen, clean bathrooms, hygienic food preparation and matching crockery and cutlery. Besides sprucing up local facilities, authorities built a small museum near a couple of simple pavilions overlooking protectively covered digs. The latter display a pair of complete skeletons and the unearthed bones of about 60 other humans – as well as the jewellery, pottery, utensils and other items from a society that flourished over 2,500 years ago.
Hospitable Ban Prasat is in a part of Thailand celebrated for ruins from a succession of ancient and powerful Khmer civilisations that in their heyday cut a swathe from neighbouring Cambodia's Angkor Wat temple city. The best examples of Khmer ruins outside Cambodia itself are in northeast Thailand, though I frequently hear the criticism levelled at immaculately maintained sites that, while impressive, restoration is a little too perfect.
Visitors commonly base themselves at Ban Prasat Village for two or three days' exploration on easy half-day trips. Key destinations include an 11th-century complex, now called Phimai Historical Park in the centre of modern Phimai town or, a little farther away, more splendid ruins of the same era at Phanom Rung Historical Park. Also close by is the 10th-century temple sprawl of Muang Tam.
After a morning's rambling through ruins, I spend the afternoon in Surin, a city in complete contrast with its bustling markets, shops and overall modernity. An "elephant village" in nearby Tha Klang is where pachyderms are trained to entertain tourists or, less glamorously, roll logs. Each November, a festival called the Surin Elephant Round-Up features a hundred animals in a highly commercial event luring large numbers of tourists to elephantine polo, soccer, tug-o-war and the like.
Homestays are inexpensive for Isan exploration, with villagers able to organise cars with drivers – or motorcycles for those who prefer to wander independently. However, Ban Prasat itself proves an adequate diversion for many visitors. A guest book reveals homestay foreigners encompass shoestring backpackers, well-heeled professionals briefly immersing themselves in another culture and families with children on a holiday with a difference.
Accommodation varies but guests typically lodge in a double-storey timber home. Many have conventional beds while others come with comfy Thai-style padded mats on the floor. Most have fans but a few are air-conditioned. Some have TV. Bathrooms are clean, simple and often western-style (some even with hot water) for the benefit of farang (foreign) guests.
However, for me it's the food that makes this home-stay so memorable. The Isan region's spicy cuisine is famed throughout Thailand and beyond, but other Thai favourites are also served. Aside from curries and larb gai (spicy chicken salad), with ubiquitous sticky rice in its customary little baskets, sai grob (home-made Isan-style pork sausages, heavy on the garlic) proves delicious.
For brief periods several times a year almost every house has guests – usually package tours of amateur archaeologists from Europe. Mostly, however, only three or four houses have foreigners staying (there's a strict rotation system), so travellers are likely to encounter other visitors only at community events. Homestays, though growing in popularity, remain relatively little known.
My host, elected mayor Tiem La Ongklang, manages the programme. He tells me that villagers, aside from being trained by hospitality professionals from Bangkok, must allow their dwellings to be "regularly inspected by the village council and by the regional tourist office to make sure they keep standards up."
The mayor and his wife Pranom take me on an orientation tour of his domain but then encourage me to soak up the atmosphere by walking solo along the village's narrow streets, a few of them paved. I stop at the museum and archaeological site and, on my walk home, am greeted by residents who invite me into their houses, where they pursue cottage industries such as silk, cotton and reed weaving. At several houses, I watch potters, wood-carvers and silversmiths at work while their TV sets are tuned to the day's episode of a popular Thai soap opera.
The village, I am pleased to discover, is mercifully free of pressure to buy as most output is earmarked for shipment to Bangkok's markets. At one house, an elderly craftsman makes traditional Thai stringed musical instruments. Accurately judging my interest in his work, the old man needs no persuasion to give an impromptu recital.
Religious and other festivals are frequent in Thailand, and Ban Prasat's school hall is at the heart of the action. Villagers and their guests sit on reed mats. Women arrive with platters of home-cooked dishes to be shared. Their daughters perform traditional dances. Saffron-robed Buddhist monks from the local temple say a prayer. A band of elderly men plays the instruments of old. Newcomers, though welcomed with smiles and conversation, are incidental to activities, which happen whether or not outsiders are present. Several young people, school students among them, decide to chat to me. They turn out to be proficient in English and value a chance to show off in front of elders to whom the farang tongue remains a mystery.
A network of loudspeakers fixed to electricity poles plays music across the village each morning from a control room at the mayor's house, a prelude to an off-the-cuff mayoral speech to let the locals know what events are upcoming and to spur donations to whatever fundraising campaign is happening. Thai villages inevitably have one such campaign on the go, commonly to build or expand a temple, but at Ban Prasat the objective during my visit is to extend the local school.
A morning walk reveals numerous houses with human effigies tied to posts out front. These are garments – some surprisingly fashionable – stuffed with rags and straw, and sporting faces made of cloth remnants.
Around their necks most effigies wear a Thai-script sign saying: "No children have been born here." Local belief is that evil spirits lurk, poised to harm or snatch children. The idea is to fool the spirits – which reputedly have a preference for newborns – and ensure they will not linger after reading the notices. "I suppose it's better to be safe than sorry," explains the mayor.
"The effigies are left out for several months," he adds. "Astrologers announce when to put them out and when it's no longer necessary. Sometimes it happens a couple of times in a year, sometimes people don't do it for many years – it just depends..."
Mayor Tiem is among a minority of villagers who don't bother with the custom, but acknowledges he does not altogether dismiss it. "Times are changing," he says, fielding yet another call to his mobile phone.
Getting there
Ban Prasat is 46km from Nakhon Ratchasima (commonly referred to by its old name of Korat), which no longer has scheduled flights – or about 80km from Buri Ram which does. Trains take five hours to cover the 255km from Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima, but air-conditioned long-distance express buses handle the distance in three and half hours. Alternatively, rent a self-drive car, or a car with driver. Or fly to Buri Ram which has three PB Air (pbair.com) flights a week.
Arrange with the village to be met in Nakhon Ratchasima or at Buri Ram Airport by a village vehicle (200 baht/£2.80). Otherwise, taxis charge roughly 1,500 baht (£21) from Nakhon Ratchsima or 2,500 baht (£35) from Buri Ram. Prices can be negotiated at Buri Ram Airport or at rail and bus stations in Nakhon Ratchasima. If not, head for a hotel in one of these two towns and arrange transport from there.
The village is 45km from Nakhon Ratchasima and 80km from Buri Ram. All but the final few minutes is on a smooth asphalt highway. Village cars and drivers cost about 1,500 baht (£21) a day for sightseeing to ancient sites and modern towns.
Contact
Ban Prasat Home Stay, Ban Prasat Village, tel/fax +66 44 367075 (no email or website) costs 400 baht (£5.60) per person per night, including dinner and breakfast.
For more homestay information and details on Thailand, visit Tourism Authority of Thailand at tourismthailand.org.
Malaysian idyll
Hospitality is second nature to the tribal folk of Sarawak, says Laura Lee.
When Sarawak's deputy chief minister suddenly invites you for an overnight stay in his tribe's longhouse, how can you refuse?
As a frequent guest of the Sarawak Tourism Board over the years, I've had the unique opportunity to experience – even if for only a few hours – tribal life in the culturally rich East Malaysia. Sarawak's ethnic groups have always been of great interest to me, and these trips have served as real eye openers. Along the way, I've spent the night in an Iban longhouse, set deep in the interior of the Rejang River in Sibu, and visited many similar communities such as those of the Bidayuh, Penan and Melanau, encountering many instances of warmth and comradeship.
So you can imagine my delight when Sarawak's second-in-command, Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Alfred Jabu, an Iban, issued an impromptu invitation for our group to stay at Gensurai longhouse in Betong where he and his family live. His home, we learned, was unlike the traditional ones, boasting almost unimaginable mod cons such as air conditioning.
For the uninformed, a Malaysian longhouse is simply a village under one roof. The design, usually consisting of up to 50 family dwellings attached to each other, evolved probably for defensive purposes.
Normally, longhouses are located near a river, and so was the deputy chief minister's abode. Here, we were encouraged to bathe and "do our business". Most of us, myself included, preferred to use the toilet facilities near the tanju (an open verandah).
During dinner that night, we were shown a pua kumbu, a handwoven cloth with folk motifs – obviously a valuable family heirloom. This treasure is used by the Ibans (who are also called the Sea Dayaks) in ritual ceremonies marking birth, marriage, funerals, healing sessions or a harvest.
Hospitality is second nature to the local people. I recall vividly my first welcome at an Iban longhouse in the upper Rejang River. What a sight the people made, lining up to bedeck us with beads and serve us tuak as we entered their premises. This native concoction, made from fermented glutinous rice and yeast, can be lethal for unwary newcomers. The largest of Sarawak's indigenous tribes, the Iban love to party. They kept us up until the small hours, downing their brew and teaching us to perform the ngajat dance in the ruai (an open area that's still under the cover of the longhouse).
Guests are given the use of one of the rooms in the longhouse. From the abundant supply of pillows, I picked up one and lay down on the bamboo floor of my assigned space. To get a feel of how many families occupy a particular longhouse, just count the number of doors, each of which opens onto a combined living room and bedroom area with the kitchen bringing up the rear. Outside the ruai is the tanju, which is used as a drying area for cash crops like pepper.
The longhouses of the Bidayuh closely resembles the Ibans', except that they are built on the foothills, but still close to rivers and roads. Last year, I revisited the 200-metre long Annah Rais Bidayuh longhouse on a half-day tour, an experience that made me determined to return for a longer immersion. A Malaysia Airlines employee we met, whose wife is a Bidayuh, informed us that he was in the process of organising a real homestay programme. I promised I would look into this in the future.
The Bidayuh, also known as the Land Dayaks, are second to the Ibans in population. Their longhouses include the baruk or head house, which is not where the chieftain lives but where their enemies' skulls are kept. (Not to worry, raiding expeditions haven't taken place for years.) The baruk at the Annah Rais Bidayuh longhouse is a typical example, while that in the award-winning Sarawak Cultural Village is distinguished by its octagonal shape and conical roof. Apart from the skulls, it displays urns and ordinary utensils.
There are several places for community interaction in a longhouse. Besides the ruai and tanju, there is the bamboo walkway just like the one I saw at the Annah Rais Bidayuh, which seemed to be a favourite spot for the Bidayuh women to gather to weave their rattan basketware and mats and exchange news. They appeared rather shy when we approached them, and I wondered what they thought of us city dwellers straining for a peek into their homes. Their menfolk were more chatty, and we managed to engage them in a discussion, while munching the bananas they offered us to snack on. Most of the residents, we learned, were elderly, while many of the younger folk had left to seek their fortunes in the bigger towns and cities.
Wandering around, we noticed a provision shop selling bottled drinks and knick-knacks and offering the unbelievable bargain of four cans of imported beer for RM10 (£1.45). The only souvenir shop in the vicinity carried a limited range of handicrafts such as hats and handbags made out of tree bark. A pity that no enterprising villager had yet harnessed local skills to produce the intricate rattan and bamboo baskets and woven backpacks for the tourist market.
Our morning tour ended with lunch, supplied by a bakeshop in Kuching, consisting of fried chicken, pastries and cakes, which we ate under a tree. I felt this to be somewhat of a let down as I expecting more interaction with our hosts, even over a simple meal. Nevertheless, I commend the Sarawak Tourism Board for regularly arranging these excursions. I have always come away from them richer in my understanding of my fellow Malaysians. I can't wait to go back.
Getting there
Local tour operators can arrange stays from a half-day to two or three days. Prices vary depending on the duration and itinerary desired. The Sarawak Tourism Board (tel +60 82 423 600, sarawaktourism.com); Tourism Malaysia at tourismmalaysia.gov.
If pressed for time, the Sarawak Cultural Village in the foothills of Santubong provides a convenient one-stop visit. At this "living museum", located 45km from the capital Kuching, several types of longhouse are on display, representing not only those of majority groups such as the Iban and Bidayuh but also the Orang Ulu and up-river communities. The Penan longhouse is a must-visit attraction, offering an attractive handicraft showcase. Simply buying a basket or a bracelet with ethnic designs goes a long way to providing livelihood for this tribe.
Admission fee: RM45 (£6.50) for adults, RM22.50 (£3.25) for children between six and 12 years of age. Opening hours are 0900 to 1645. Cultural shows take place from 1130 to 1215 and 1600 to 1645. For more details, tel +60 82 846 411 or log onto scv.com.my.
For those who need their creature comforts after a jungle stay, Hilton's Batang Ai Longhouse Resort is the perfect way to ease back into the modern world. It's designed very much like a longhouse but with five-star amenities. Visit hilton.com.
