O-haa! Regatta Kuching

People come from everywhere, during
Regatta activities in 60s. The differences
were so nostalgic and luminious.
(credits: KuchingProsper 2009)

Regatta Kuching is back, again! Every year, Regatta Kuching becomes a culture, the icon of Sarawak festival. The spirit of long boat, dragon boat, all kinds of boats that being used before never failed to summon people all over Sarawak to come and frying themselves over the heat of sun. And that was what I did during Saturday morning.

Since this year is the year of VMY (Visit Malaysia Year) suddenly collided with few tragedies that we never thought before, the responsibilities to ignite the tourism attraction must go on. Back to Brooke's time, Rajah was so happy and so he promoted it to his English buddies. To make everything more hectic and interesting, he prepared good rewards and send his ships to join the competition. It was a very good old days between we, and colonials. I don't think that I have to explain the whole history inside here. The things I can say is:

"Because I come from the land of cats,

Certain people out there seem to think,

I am expert about the boat paddling,

So I don't want to severe their think,

Or disappoint their culture vulture

I just smile as cool as as a breeze

But let we get down to business,

Tell me what do you want to know,

How this boat paddling began?

What is the beautiful boat I ever see?

What makes it so special?

Don't expect me to be brief,

Cause boat paddling history

is a long-long story"

(Uh, I got really-really absorb with John Agard's poetry. I'll talk about it in some other time)

And now, never missed the scene, I came to Kuching Waterfront with my low cost camera (obviously, just my phonecam), although I felt kinda inferior with others with supershot-powerful-expensive and 'lemang' lenses, I walked out under the sun and jumped into the ocean of people. I mean really, so many people, don't know where they come. There were few activities before long boat competition begin such swimming across Sungai Sarawak and catching 'itik', so many 'itik' and I began to think about roasted duck in the afternoon. Besides, I also roaming around Eatof Ceremony (I will talk about that later, not related in here), so, I got some pictures to show. It might be not so pretty and stylish like others but I do a bit of editing so it won't look too ugly.

O-haa! Regatta is coming! Set up your boat, buckle up your shoes and muscle up your body! It's time to paddle UP!

Early in the morning, I walked around the kayak base,
it was the old Pasar Ceko and look it now, the view of
kampongs are magnificent and these kayaks are
ready to cut the river.

The 'kayakers' are practicing, before swelling their
whole muscle, paddling over the river. I've heard that
they started at Pengkalan Abok. 

The grandpa and the grandson, they stand next to me.
The grandpa thought that his head disturb my view.
But actually, I was planned to catch his reaction
silently. So I was failed in this mission.

Oh, the dragon boat. I was born in dragon year, so
I'm kinda fond with the dragon things. The members
are waiting their turn to compete. It must be a great
experience for them.

Caught few groups that joined the international
categories. The yellow shirt from Brunei (obviously
the colour of the King) and the red shirt is probably
from Taiwan. I'm not very sure but I am sure they're
not from Singapore. When I go there, the Singapore's
site is empty, I don't know where they go.

The white group is ready to jumped inside the dragon boat.
They are already wearing their safety jacket. As far as I remembered,
the MC did say about the other countries participated in competition
such as Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Australia,
Kanada, Macau, Taiwan, and HK.

This people just the small portion of visitors.
There are so many people along the waterfront.
People standing, people walking, people sitting,
people squatting. All I can see is the evolution
of human race, and boat race.

Told you before, this two men with machine
photo capture. With tripod, with lenses and all
kinds of photography gadgets and anecdotes.
They are part of the dragon boat committees.

And that was the time, the boat paddlers from
other countries prepared to test some energy inside
their dragon boat. The heat was killing me at the moment.
I am very sure that they also got tormented, more than I feel.

The last picture I manage to catch before it blows up
and gone with a wind. This victory moment among local
paddlers that joined the long-boat competition. There's a
slight hassle that happened after that but everything is okay.
It is just a normal adrenaline rush.

I guess, this is quite enough time and space for me to babble about Regatta. Other writers will add up later, just search that on Google. Whatever it is, let the spirit of Regatta with us. O-haa!

@themagi2014