Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF) 2020, Rainforest World Music Festival Fringe (RWMFF) and Rainforest in the City (RITC) events, originally scheduled to be held in July 2020 were postponed due to COVID-19 situation around the world. This announcement by Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) was in light of the statement issued by the State Disaster Management Committee and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture Sarawak that all government and public gatherings involving more than 250 participants should be postponed to a later date. These events have been postponed and not cancelled for now and the organising committee plans to mobilise them if the situation gets better. With more than 20,000 expected visitors from over 30 countries, the RWMF 2020 was, as always, extremely important for Sarawak’s tourism industry. This is the first time in RWMF’s 23-year history that Sarawak has been faced with such a challenge. So, while we wait lets have a glimpse of the festival from an earlier visit!
It was a late afternoon of an early August day when I reached Sarawak Cultural Village- the venue for The Rainforest World Music Festival- situated on Damai peninsula, some 40-minute drive out of Kuching. The lazy afternoon gave no idea what the night had in store for thousands of music-lovers from across the world.
For any music-enthusiast walking on the face of this planet, what else could be a better setting than a lush-green tropical rainforest abuzz with musical notes and beats, two huge open-air stages coming alive in night with performances by renowned musicians from all across the world and talented indigenous musicians from interiors of Borneo island, an occasional spell of sweet-smelling showers from heavens pounding the earth as if it is gods’ way to send their applause, and thousands of young and old music-lovers tapping and swaying to the musical ripples coming through air! Well, this is a setting The Rainforest World Music Festival near Kuching on the mythical island of Borneo boasts of every year. This year I was among the fortunate ones to be a part of this award-winning music festival.
It was a late afternoon of an early August day, when I reached Sarawak Cultural Village- the venue for the festival- situated on the beautiful Damai peninsula, a prime tourist destination some 40-minute drive out of the city of Kuching. After a brief halt at the media room set up at Damai Resort to carry our registration formalities, I soon found myself amid souvenir shops, food counters, information desks and a beaming crowd comprising of people from different ethnicities and nationalities inside the cultural village. However, the lazy afternoon gave no indication what the ensuing night had in store for me and thousand others like me who had gathered there from all across the world to savour some of finest musical performances on earth.
The Cultural Village
The Sarawak Cultural Village itself is a live museum with many arts, customs and traditions of Borneo, especially of the Sarawak region, on display here to enrich and educate visitors throughout the year. And then, during the 3-day music festival every year, the traditional longhouses of Iban and Bidayuh tribes and the Malay townhouse here serve as venues for workshops in the daytime, the winding lanes turn into marts where various counters can be seen selling local artifacts, crafts, souvenirs and memorabilia, and open stretches become temporary food courts where stalls are set-up to sell local and Malaysian cuisines and drinks. The village was teeming with people when I set my foot there; and a sight of happy and excited faces was enough to instantly take away the fatigue of night-long flying from Mumbai to Kuching via Kuala Lumpur.
The Land of Sarawak
The Sarawak region has long been termed as the best-kept secret of Asia, where there is something for everyone. And the cultural village offers, in a miniature form, a true glimpse into what the whole of Sarawak has to offer to its visitors. And during these three days, the village attains a different meaning altogether for its guests. Here, they get to witness an event that has a loyal following from almost all parts of world. The audience size has been reaching up to some 20 thousand each year, and such is the mesmerizing and captivating effect of the whole atmosphere here that about 60 per cent of them are reported to be repeat visitors year-after-year.
A Fitting Start
So, the first night of this edition of the renowned music festival began with a performance by local Sarawakian artistes, whose deft fingers let the strings of Sape- a traditional guitar-like instrument- create some fine musical notes. The brightly-lit Jungle Stage was now emanating first of those sounds for which the crowd would be there for the next three days; the open ground in front of the stage was filled with gleeful souls. One performance lead to another and music kept warming souls without any prejudice of colour and creed. They say, music heals us from within… but at the Rainforest Festival, music also transcends all boundaries and unites audiences with one common feeling- a feeling of happiness and contentment.
Performances that Stand Apart
The festival never fails to charm the audience; it has never done so in the past any year. There are performances that make you feel meditative, there are performances that delight you from within, and there are performances that leave you mesmerized. This edition of the festival also offered everything it possibly could. If the melodious Shabad recitals by Malaysian-Australian singer of Indian origin, Dya Singh, took the audience into another world, the powerful beats of Dol Arastra Bengkulu from the Indonesian island of Sumatra energized each and every one present there; if non-stop rendition and dancing by Chouk Bwa Libete group from Haiti enthralled audiences, then creating instrumental sounds with the use of mere vocal chords by the Cuban group called Vocal Sampling left people awe-struck.
Growing Craze
Such is the craze of this festival among music-lovers from every corner of the world that booking for hotels, resorts and home-stays in Damai region starts about a year before the festival dates. So, it is always advisable to book your accommodation well in advance if you don’t wish to commute to and from Kuching every day and really wish to save on time and energy. A one-day adult pass was priced at MYR 120, while a three-day pass was priced at MYR 320. And the ticket prices are not likely to increase too much for next year’s edition.
Three Resorts, Some Homestays
Damai region is situated on the fringes of Kuching Wetland Areas and lies between Mount Sountubong and the southern end of South China Sea. There are three beach resorts, a jungle hideaway and some homestay operators to cater to the accommodation needs of visitors. Though, there are plenty of hotels in Kuching offering budget as well as luxury accommodation, and the festival organisers run shuttle buses from Kuching to the cultural village and vice versa at different times in a day at quite nominal fares. So, staying in Kuchinh can also be a good idea if you don’t mind spending about one and a half hours on road.
Malaysian Standards, Indonesian Hospitality
You heard it right. One tends to experience Malaysian standards of air travel and warm Indonesian hospitality together when one flies by Malindo Air. A cross-border joint venture between an Indonesian partner and a Malaysian partner, Malindo Air provides the best connectivity when it comes to travelling from Indian cities to Sarawak. The airfares are cheaper as compared to other airlines operating on this sector, and flight timings suit travellers perfectly as one can reach Kuching before noon while having just enough time as layover in Kuala Lumpur to stretch one’s legs and feel refreshed. Malindo currently flies from six Indian cities, and connects to a number of airports in both Malaysia and Indonesia.