My guess is no. In fact, I don’t think HAIR and TEMPOYAK should even come together in a sentence!
I, however, a few days ago, have had the privillege of having a pungent smelling fermented durian paste catapulted out from a glass bottle straight onto my freshly washed, bouncy curls. The said tempoyak hit one Datin, a few Bruneians, one Filipino, one Thai-American, a white ceiling and a 6-feet portrait of the Queen.
A series of unfortunate events preceeded the stench that was “The Tempoyak Incident“.
As you’ve all was probably informed (or not), over the last week, I was busy with the proceedings of the AUN Educational Forum and Young Speakers Contest. What basically happens is 17 AUN (short for ASEAN University Network) member universities from nine ASEAN countries – namely, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Brunei come together to share ideas, network and erm, other stuff. Myanmar was absent, for obvious reasons. The theme was as appropo, “How ASEAN can move forward as a single community”. Extremely relevant, especially ASEAN plan to do so by 2020.
Anyway, I apparently volunteered to help out sometime back, and in a whoosh, I was called in a meeting, and was immediately informed of my duties as a rapporteur. In hindsight, I think it was all great fun, with a concrete outcome (which was the joint-statement we came up with in the end) and a head fuller with knowledge.
So, back to the Incident of the Tempoyak, during one of the lunches, the Secretariat decided to dazzle the foreign delegates with our national dish, the ambuyat, or specifically the skill and elbow grease needed to produce ambuyat semangkuk agung. We had the works laid out on the table, various kinds of cacah (dip), ambulong (sago flour, derived from the Rumbia plant), pais daging (smoked buffalo meat), and rojak (chopped veggies in peanut sauce) enough to last us a year!
One of our Thai delegates, J, joined us at the ambuyat table and attacked our tempoyak dip with fervor, so much that Datin decided to award him with a bottle of the dip to bring back to Thailand with him. So she took one bottle which was unopened, and in three catastrophic movements, shook the bottle, causing the bottle’s cap to propel itself off into the air, and the strong-smelling tempoyak blasted itself out into the air, hitting many innocent victims along the way.
WE ALL RUSHED TO THE NEAREST TOILET. Worst thing was that it was a MALE toilet! Hahahahahah. Needless to say, the epicentre of the cataclysm was Datin, who actually got it in her eyes, and Azam, who got it all over his jacket. The rest of us got spatter patterns of tempoyak of various sizes, while the carpet and ceiling suffered the most damage. The smell will not be going away from the VVIP lounge anytime soon. Nope, definitely not in the near future.
All photos in this post creditted to: Tajul Al Barakat
iammaurina 
hahahhahaha….Mau,that is so funny…imagine having tempoyak splattered all over the place,looking at those pics,it look like one hell of a food fight that have just broken out,hahahha…tempoyak food fight,imagine throwing some one with a hot ambuyat,smacked to their face…urrgghh…ugly scene….bebakat mua eh…
LikeLike
berbau tu eh. damn. sounds fun though. haha..cali
LikeLike
hahahaha.. wuhoooo i guess that was such a great event..somehow ruined by tempoyak.. if sorang sja grenti malu brabissss tuu.. baik jua skampung ah sama2 dipped by tempoyak hahhaha… padanth ku rasa ada bau tempoyak tdi d office.. hhuhuhu.. kidding.. anyway.. left school about 10am tdi, coz hav to do my weekly work at OngSumping (hate it)… so just dont have time to say gud bye to all of u.. siukkk ehhhh I WISH I HAV A BREAK LIKE THAT!!!… something that hav an ending… hhhmmmmm.. anyway… gud luck in all ur endeavors
LikeLike
So how come there isn’t a picture of you with tempoyak in your hair and looking all disgusted? Hahaha. Majal. Lawa tu Mau mun ko masukkan siniiii.. *hint hint* 😆
LikeLike
actually maurina still looked good after the tempoyak incident!!! lol; must learn her beauty secrets–or is tempoyak HER beauty secret? lol. miss u maurinaaa
LikeLike
Imagine if the tempoyak melatup in the plane on the way to thailand haha.
LikeLike
Hi Maurina,
Indeed an incident that will be remembered by all delegates. Luckily i was not in the room at the time of the incident as i was busy munching my lunch outside the room. Cool shot and pics. I will post mine soon .. 🙂 With a picture of you with candas in ur mouth hehehehe 🙂
Nantikan candid shotnya hehehe
LikeLike
THERE YOU ARE AJ! I was searching for your site tadi to link to. I’m hopeless with numbers. Anyway, I hope kurus sul ku! HAHAHAHA, atu lagi tu diingaukan! Bah will be waiting for the pics! BTW, do u have facebook? OH and and, these pictures are creditted to Tajul Al Barakat, our “techie” for the whole of AUN! 🙂
Fraees, YATABAH! In a way, it’s good that it exploded before it got on the plane or BOY does J have to get a whole new wardrobe! Haha.
Mena, actually, what I do is slather the fermented durian paste all over my hair as treatment. HAHAHAHAHAHHA NOTTTTTTT!!!! miss you too love!
Atul5353, aku anonymous kali ah mana boleh simpan gambar. HAHAHAHAHAH.
She, eh nda jua apa tani jumpa jua amsih online hehehehehe. Oh I’m glad u sampat makan the nasi lemak, inda seberapa but yatah termampu~ *eseh* Anyway, kesian ku kau ani kesana kemari, but at lease rezeki halal nda ja? One day maybe aku dangani kau Insya Allah right? Hehe.
Bil, MUN ATU JUA NDA BEBAU! Heheheheheh.
Barunaiku, eh u so graphic! Hahaha. Ada lagi beumbanan ambuyat. Nya urg tua tua jangan main sama makanan, inda kuasa!
LikeLike
yatah bah what else would we expect other than FOOD. same to me… mcm its all about FOOD sja… Brunei=Food kali bah.. nda g tau apakn activity dbuat dBrunei ani… btw u dint realize i took d food twice? hehe menambah lgi skali pasal SAMBAL blacan nya nyamannnn…
LikeLike
haha fermented durian dip…tastes like heaven and smells like hell!!! pluz it has quite the blast appeal…i wonder if it can be catagorized as a lethal weapon after all it did get incredible distance. i couldnt believe it made it all the way to the vaulted ceilings but the look on everyones faces was absolutely priceless. memories of brunei, all of you totally rock. made the trip memorable to say the least lol everybody
LikeLike
So lame
LikeLike