Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Bamboo boardwalks















What interested me while window shopping at the Spring yesterday was a small set depicting a rural village house.  It was tucked nicely  at one corner of the shopping mall.  The floors were made of bamboo strips and the hand rails were of bamboo culms.  You can still see a lot of the rural longhouses still using these materials for their decorative as well as functional appeal.  Another interesting thing I saw were the decorative poles that are made from soft wood and shaved with a sharp knife, thus producing its unique curls ( see top picture).  I have seen many of these in Bintulu where  the curls ( shavings?)are dipped in various coloured dyes.  These decorative poles are widely used among the natives during auspicious occasions.  By the way bamboo boardwalks can withstand rain and shine and thus used in the open though their life span will even be longer indoors and coated with varnish etc. where they are used as walls, ceilings or for table tops.

1 comment:

Zuzana said...

Very interesting! Are these curls soft or hard? As you say it is made of soft wood, but it seems as soft as paper.;))