After a short stop back in Australia to financially recover from the last expedition my feet were gettin' itchy, the weather was getting colder and there’s a convention brewing in Borneo, the first one there. This was all I needed to start packing and be on my way. Borneo is a small island of the east coast of South Malaysia, pretty much on the equator. This should explain the weather, humid and very hot. After a 12 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur with an overnight stay, it was off the Borneo in the morning. When I arrived I spotted a few obvious convention goers and two of them had their arrangements taken care of, but there was about three of us that had to bribe the bus driver to get a ride to the hotel. The hotel had a fairly large cultural centre to show visitors how they lived in long houses etc. without the long drive and boat ride to see the real thing. This by the way is where the convention was held. Tattoo stalls were located all around the lake, right on the grass with bamboo furniture, which as you can imagine gave the place that tribal feel.
 
 

The convention was held by Ernesto and Jerry from the Borneo Headhunters, who I had met previously in Japan and this was a good excuse to catch up with them again. The convention ran for 5 days from the 1st to the 5th of June. The people here earn fuck all so it was hard for the locals to actually get any tattoo work after paying the entry fee. It was good to hear that a few got some work done due to some of the tattooists doing it for free. The majority of the people that were getting tattoos were just all the other convention goers.
 
Whilst in the hotel we spent anywhere up to two hours having breakfast with the all you can eat buffet which contained just about every breakfast menu from around the world! I met up with Simon and Eddie from Borneo Ink, they turned out to be the most, for lack of a better word, bestest people I’ve met in a while. After the convention they organised for some of us to go to the long houses with them. We hired a bus for a 6 hour journey to get to the river stop, then another 3 hours in long slim wooden boats. The minute we went up river on the boat I let out a primal scream as I felt like I was leaving civilisation behind and getting into God knows what.
 
 
The next morning I woke up to the noise of tattoo machines buzzing so it was time to get up and do some work. By the time I finished setting up the whole place was buzzing. There was around 7 artists working on the locals. I was very proud to be asked to tattoo a chief from another long house up the river.
 
For more of this interview Issue 43 of Tattoos Down Under
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