anthony: when i first went up this river, i was sick with love. the bad kind. the fist around your heart kind. i ran far, but there was no escaping it. it followed me up river all the way. that was ten long years ago. a previous episode of a previous series in a previous life. yet, here i am again. heading up to that same long house in the jungle. i took a walk through this beautiful world felt the cool rain on my shoulder found something good in this beautiful world i felt the rain getting colder sha la la la la sha la la la la la sha la la la la sha la la la la la la [ boat engine ] anthony: last time i saw all this, i think it s fair to say i was at a turning point in my life. i promised some people i d come back, and i am back. my life has changed a lot. how much have their lives changed? kuala lumpur. happy to be here, but brimming with mixed emotions. surrounded by all the sights, smells and flavors i remember so well. t
a mosquito coil and leave it inside the lancau. anthony: a mosquito what? eddie: coil. anthony: like the pesticide? eddie: yeah. just make it, like, stronger i guess. anthony: i would imagine so. eddie: that s the natural staple. gawai is usually a party, drinking, passing out, waking up, eating, drinking some more, passing out again, and then getting up and drinking some more. yeah. you re going to have fun, man. anthony: wow. all right. so, i m headed up river again. david: yeah, sorry i can t be there. anthony: i promised them. i said i m going back. david: about nine years late on your promise but anthony: nine years late. david: that happens with lancau, you know. promises come liberally. anthony: it was david moggie
something like this. anthony: oh, i like that. eddie: yeah. anthony: since last i saw you, and you gave me this. eddie: and it s still there. anthony: still there. 10 years ago at his shop borneo ink, eddie david tattooed me with an iban style ouroboros, a symbol of a snake eating its own tail. life, death, the eternal ebb and flow. i think i was going through a hippy phase. eddie does great work, and he s known for traditional tribal tattoos, but i m looking forward to getting it done old school this time. hand tapped in the jungle. so i need your advice, because i m going back to the same village that i went to last time. eddie: just be careful of the lancau. anthony: the lancau. yes, they had in every type of bottle. this clear, sort of cloudy liquid with particles in it. eddie: sometimes they put all kinds of weird stuff inside. my dad used to tell me they take
fulfilling a decade-old promise to your ex-head hunter friends to return for gawai, the annual iban rice harvest festival. what was interesting last time i was there was the old guys with their tattoos and the rings on their fingers. eddie: yeah. the old people, a lot of them have passed on. anthony: i hear no more skulls. they made them put the skulls away. the iban once enjoyed a truly formidable reputation as trackers, warriors and ritualistic takers of heads. they were and continue to be wanderers. valuing the bejalai, a tradition where every tribesman will set out from the longhouse of his birth to travel, learn, to bring something back. each tattoo he gets over the course of his life represents a different experience, a different journey. eddie: basically, the tattoos are just to signify knowledge and the wealth that you brought back to the longhouse. what you would probably want to get is a bunga terung.
this is where you start out when fulfilling a decade-old promise to your ex-head hunter friends to return for gawai, the annual iban rice harvest festival. what was interesting last time i was there was the old guys with their tattoos and the rings on their fingers. eddie: yeah. the old people, a lot of them have passed on. anthony: i hear no more skulls. they made them put the skulls away. the iban once enjoyed a truly formidable reputation as trackers, warriors and ritualistic takers of heads. they were and continue to be wanderers. valuing the bejalai, a tradition where every tribesman will set out from the longhouse of his birth to travel, learn, to bring something back. each tattoo he gets over the course of his life represents a different experience, a different journey. eddie: basically, the tattoos are just to signify knowledge and the wealth that you brought