Original subtitles

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 upriver 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 longhouse 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

♪

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.

This is where a wandering soul such as myself

can dive right in and get some of that straight Chinese food

I've been missing.

First order of business, dinner.

Been on a plane for, like, I don't know, it was long.

Very long.

Saw, like, five Mark Wahlberg films.

I can't tell you how excited I am about the prospect

of getting some black pepper crab...

and some pork gladed noodles and a regional beverage.

Reasonably cold.

I don't even know what this is.

I love you, noodles.

Don't want to get all heavy and philosophical at this point,

but why I'm here, what my mission is,

what I expect to find,

basically me tracing my steps and all that.

We'll talk about that later. Right now, noodles.

Good.

This place is most excellent.

Ah, char kuey teow. Char kuey teow.

Char kuey teow, bitches.

Oh, look at the greasy, fatty, yes, come to daddy.

I'm a bad man.

This is, like, a random restaurant,

with like a purloined Minnie Mouse logo

and their food is unbelievably good.

Oh, yeah. Black pepper crab.

Right here. Reveal yourself to me.

Hot, hot, hot.

Ooh! Oh, yeah.

Wow.

All right. The frenzy's over.

Now to eat in a more relaxed phase.

Kuala Lumpur rises up out of steamy, equatorial jungle,

Malaysia's capital city.

A chaotic, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural

modern metropolis of Malay, Chinese and Indian.

This is where you start out when fulfilling a decade-old - promise

To your ex-headhunter friends

to return for Gawai, the annual Iban rice harvest festival.

What's interesting the last time I was there was

the old guys with their tattoos and rings on their fingers.

Yeah, the old people,

a lot of them have passed on.

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 a tradition where every tribesman

was 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.

Basically the tattoos signify knowledge

and the wealth they brought back to the longhouse,

what you probably would want to get is a...

Something like this.

Ah, like that. Yeah.

Since last I saw you, you were, and you gave me this.

And it's still there. Still there.

Ten years ago at his shop, Borneo Ink,

Eddie David tattooed me with an Iban style ouroborous.

The 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.

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.

Just be careful of the...

Yes, they had it in every type of bottle.

This is clear sort of cloudy liquid with particles in it.

Sometimes they put weird stuff inside.

My dad used to tell me they take mosquito coil

and leave it inside the...

A mosquito what?

Coil.

Like the pesticide?

Yeah.

Just make it, like, stronger.

I would imagine so.

That's a natural staple,

Gawai, usually drinking, passing out, waking up, eating, drinking

passing out again then getting up and drinking some more.

Yeah.

You're going to have fun, man.

Wow. All right.

♪

So I'm headed upriver again.

Yeah, sorry I can't be there.

I promised them, I said I'm going back.

About nine years late on your promise, but...

Nine years late.

That happens.

You know, promises come liberally.

It was David Moggie who first took me up to the longhouse.

On that previous trip we met at Aunty Aini's

on the outskirts of KL.

Everything moves exponentially.

Feels like some things remain exactly the same,

some things haven't changed at all.

This place is certainly one.

The charming and for lack of a better word fabulous Aini,

was an actor in the Malaysian film scene

who now runs a very successful kampong style restaurant

specializing in beloved village or country classics.

All of them prepared

with a staggering finesse and precision.

This is delicious, delicious food.

Welcome.

It's been so long. Oh, my God.

And you still look as handsome as ever.

All right.

Well, let's pick up right where we left off,

which started with this.

Help yourself.

Thank you.

You're going to have the roast beef and poached egg

and our favorite will be our chicken rendang.

So good to be back.

I love watching you guys eat.

Who taught you to cook?

Who was the good cook in your family?

When we were small,

my grandmother would say stuff like, I don't care who you are,

if you can't cook, you're nobody to me.

Oh, wow. -Yeah.

There's no teaching Malay cooking here.

It comes from your grandma's kitchen, your mom's kitchen.

And you learn by smelling, by seeing...

It's how I teach my children to cook.

All these dishes, when you do them,

the aroma just floats around.

I know exactly when the chili paste

frying in the pan is ready or not.

It's from here.

Basically it's from here.

After a two-hour flight from Kuala Lumpur, I land in Borneo,

third largest island in the world.

Divided between Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia.

Kuching, capital of the Malaysian Sarawak.

It's a sleepy city with a colorful 19th century

boys' adventure story history.

Pirates, headhunters, opportunists.

The former domain of Sir James Brooke,

an Englishman who came to be known as the White Raja.

For a century, generations of the Brook family

ruled Sarawak as an independent kingdom.

They created their own army, the Sarawak Rangers

who also acted as the Raja's personal guard.

Tomorrow I follow the pavement as far as it goes,

then it's boats the rest of the way.

But first, breakfast.

And fortunately, I know exactly where to go.

I sat at this same table last time.

If I look at my life as a continuum, a trail of noodles,

going round and round the world

until it comes right back to the same spicy bowl.

Oh, yeah.

That is... can I say tumescent on CNN?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can.

Oh, yeah, baby.

This is a magical dish.

I don't know. It's two types of noodles, I think.

Chicken, prawn, coconut, chili.

You know, the main event of this is the broth.

The wisdom of the ages is contained in there.

It's, like, super complex.

Ooh. Ooh-ooh-ooh.

Might need more of this.

All right.

I'll have another one of these.

More.

It's the broth. The broth.

Look at it.

Thank you.

Now I'm becoming the object of much amusement.

People have noticed I'm on my second.

Damn.

Best breakfast ever.

Love that sound.

♪

Before heading out to the longhouse,

I'm meeting Kuching native Alex Wong

at a dockside karaoke joint on the Malay side of town.

What's up with the karaoke here?

It's popular everywhere, but this is alcohol-free karaoke.

Yes.

In my experience, you got to be really [ muted ] up

to do karaoke, but here apparently not.

No, no. It's the spirit.

Our people here, they can party any time.

♪

So you're coming upriver with us?

Yes, I am. Exciting.

Four days of non-connectivity. You know that?

Yes.

I'm committed to that. It's the drinking.

I'm worried about that, too, seriously,

because I'm past my drinking days, you know?

But I don't think there's an escape from it.

Why are you back in Kuching after ten years?

All the places in Borneo?

It's a good question.

Um, I'm revisiting some stuff.

Just some... I was in a weird place in my head

when I first came here.

I was personally, professionally,

everything in my life was changing.

I was in this sort of nowhere land between previous life

and whatever came next.

I'm retracing my steps to a lot of this

to see if it still hurts.

Ah, okay.

And also I said I'd promise these guys in the village,

the chiefs, that I'd come back.

Well, I made a promise, and I'm going to live up to it.

Yeah.

♪

Even the jungle wanted him dead.

This river, what's the line?

Snakes through the Sarawak jungle

like a main circuit cable,

plugged straight in a, somewhere.

A place.

A state of mind.

I don't know.

I was a basket case last time I went up this river.

My mind miles away.

Is this how you remember it, Tony?

Yeah.

Exactly the same, huh?

Ten years later? Pretty much. Yeah.

So far.

You pick your way upriver,

like walking up a gradual flight of stairs,

getting out often to push.

With several hours still to go,

a stop for lunch.

There we are.

We're even right on a beach, too.

All right. That's cool.

Looks like bamboo chicken there.

♪

Good.

Good, right?

It's great.

That means delicious.

Yeah, how's your Iban?

It's possible, I guess.

Basic words.

I gather the plan is to try to get there before dark.

I don't think it's going to happen.

Yeah, me either. No.

♪

Hey!

Hello.

All those years ago

the man who looked after me at the longhouse

was named Itom.

Over 80 years old back then,

he led us bounding uphill through the jungle

like a young gazelle.

He still had the marks on his fingers

of a man who'd taken heads,

in his case, presumably communist guerillas

when he'd fought with the British

during the Malay insurgency.

We drank shots of whiskey together under human skulls,

trophies from another time.

And I promised I'd come back for Gawai,

a big deal in the Iban calendar,

when friends and relatives return to the longhouse.

A lot has changed since he tracked commies

through the jungle and much has changed

in the ten years since I've been here.

Itom passed away the year before last at the age of 92,

and the evidence of how timbering

has depleted much of the forest is everywhere, scandalously so.

♪

It's dark by the time we arrive,

but someone has been waiting for us.

Please advise me of protocol.

Thank you.

All for me.

Oh, yeah. Just like old times.

There you go, my man.

Custom must be observed.

Thank you.

Woo.

♪

More cell phones than last time.

♪

This is a great welcome.

Pardon?

Yes.

My respect, my condolence.

She cannot stand longer. Of course.

Thank you.

♪

Back after a lot of years and a lot of miles.

I wake up to the sounds of early morning village life.

Roosters call.

The coughing and clearing of lungs

as the elders rise to do chores.

The whole village lives here in separate apartment,

sharing a communal space

that runs the length of the building.

Some things have noticeably changed.

The longhouse I first stayed in

has been replaced by a somewhat more modern version.

These days there's electricity

from a reliable diesel generator.

And while there's no cell phone signal, the plumbing works,

the washing in the river is still,

the way I see it, anyway, the preferable option.

♪

In this part of the world,

you live or die by the rice harvest.

Less so these days as timbering has changed,

well, everything out here,

but traditions run deep with the Iban, and Gawai,

the harvest festival was and remains like

Christmas and New Year's rolled into one.

We will need pork for Gawai.

And unfortunately, that means a pig must die.

More awkwardly, custom,

and my personal history in this village demands,

once again, that I do the job.

"Down by the river, I shot my baby."

What did Neil mean by that?

Why would he do that? Shoot his baby?

Unless baby was a delicious, delicious pig.

♪

I'd like to tell you that this is never easy,

that I felt this time like I did the first time.

Sad, nauseated, complicit,

aware that I crossed a line,

been changed by the violence and the blood

and the awful noise.

But that would be a lie.

This time, I plunged the spear in

without hesitation or remorse.

When the pig dies, finally gives it up,

I feel only relief.

I have been hardened by the last ten years.

I don't know what that says about me, but there it is.

Far up the Skrang river,

the countdown to Gawai is on,

and I can't help but be struck by one particular upgrade

since my last visit.

♪

Karaoke.

As I come to learn, constant karaoke.

Never-ending karaoke.

From a limited playlist of favorites.

Nearly 24 hours a day

accompanied by copious amounts of beer,

tuak, and other strong spirits.

♪

It should be pointed out Gawai isn't just about

consuming potentially blinding amounts of alcohol.

It's also about food.

And one would be well advised to eat a lot.

Lay down a solid base for the torrent to come.

Oh, thank you.

I feel so guilty.

No, no, not at all, actually.

Should not.

So delicious.

Oh, no, that's good. All right.

That's Iban tradition that people put rice on their plate.

Common. Yeah, yeah.

Delicious.

Welcome back. I mean, thank you.

Cheers. Cheers.

As the revelry kicks into high gear,

there is nowhere to hide.

I know only that if I sit still

anywhere within range of hospitality,

there will be a river of booze.

Beer, tuak, which is rough hand-crafted local rice wine

and its more lethal distilled bigger brother, langkau.

Then somebody's pouring you Johnny Black or J.D. or Vat 69.

Then langkau again, then who knows?

You only know it keeps coming until you sag facedown

onto the handwoven mats and pass out.

Perfectly acceptable practice, by the way.

Bring me back to paradise.

I wake up, I go to sleep, I wake up again.

The party has moved down a few doors, but it's still going.

This is an experience that will repeat itself again and again

for the next three days.

One time it's the ladies still standing,

partying like it's 1999, dancing and drinking,

and another time it's the old dudes,

the village chiefs and elders,

and everybody, elders, women, children,

visiting relatives and their families from Kuala Lumpur

Puchong and abroad.

Wherever circumstances took them.

Ba, ba, ba.

The party expands and contracts

according to mysterious patterns

that I am in no shape to discern.

One, two, three...

Morning routine.

Wake up, feed the chickens,

rake the pepper drying in the sun,

then it's time to rock the bike, people,

and it starts all over again.

♪

While the party continues up at the longhouse,

I've got an appointment.

If you were wondering, by the way, if this hurts,

two guys hammering away at my sternum

with a bamboo club, sharp needles?

Yes, yes, it hurt a lot.

And you could be damn sure if it was not on television,

I'd be whimpering and yelping like a gutshot poodle.

Right. There, stand up.

All right, good? Very happy guys, thank you.

All right, let's party.

Another tattoo is never going to make me younger,

or tougher or more relevant.

It won't reconnect me ten years from now

with some spiritual crossroads in my life.

No. At this point I think

my body is like an old car,

another dent ain't gonna make a whole lot of difference.

At best, it's a reminder that you're still alive

and lucky as hell.

Another tattoo, another thing you did,

another place you've been.

A final, long gaze at the river.

Take in, probably for the last time in my life,

the slow rhythms of the village.

One more thing to do,

say good-bye to an old friend.

♪

He was a very strong man. Yes.

I remember him well running uphill, faster than all of us.

So what do we do?

We leave him the beer, some cigarettes?

Yes. He would like that?

Yeah, he'd like.

♪

First cigarette in two years for you, man.