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Published: July 17th 2008
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Mukah
Mukah's concrete icon is a pink, salmon-like fish. But this 19th century brick chimney is more interesting. It is all that is left of an old sago-processing factory. All Sarawak towns have an emblem, something familiar from their locality. It is always represented prominently in painted concrete, oversize.
Mukah
Mukah is a sleepy place on the coast, pausing between the old and the new. The old town has a few wooden shophouses left, but change must be rapid, because it far less cute than the guidebooks suggest. The tall houses are long gone as the Melanau people converted to Islam and Malay ways of living a long time ago. It is friendly community with villages all mixed up: Malay, Melanau, Chinese, Iban; a friendly community where all the children ridge bicycles and everyone gathers to watch an early evening game of soccer. Once access was by boat and air only; when the road was built the flights from Sibu were discontinued. The locals are gently disappointed about this, but the road will be renewed in time. The town has a healthy, pink concrete fish leaping near the market place, which unfortunately I forgot to rephotograph - but similar to the one I show here.
Nearby Kampung Tellian Tengah is worth a visit. In it is the guesthouse Lamin Dana. One family has built a
Sibu
Whitish concrete swans are common in Sibu.
traditional Melanau tall house, and run it as a friendly retreat, a perfect place to spend a lazy weekend in a traditional water village, with restaurant, craft shop, mini library and internet all on site. Luckily flights from Miri and Kuching to Mukah still operate.
Sibu
Sibu is a brash, energetic, Chinese city. It is going somewhere. It is the watery gateway to places we visited three years ago
on the upper Rejang . And it is the main town in its region, with suburbs, a civic centre, and a new bridge. The old town is a jumble of architectural styles: traditional Chinese shophouses, functional concrete, imaginative modern, Chinese temple jostle each other happily. Civic pride is obvious. There are concrete swans almost everywhere. I put my money on Sibu becoming Sarawak’s third city.
Miri is already a city. -- The envy is thick in this shopkeeper’s voice.
Pakan
This is Pakan. Kanowit is a different road. I feel I should have followed the map and my nose to Kanowit. Why did I imagine people in Sibu knew the way around their locality?
I park outside the first coffee shop I find, go in
Pakan
Pakan's concrete durian dwarfs my little Suzuki Jimny. and order coffee. I watch an old man walk over and inspect my Brunei number plates. He peers through Jimmy’s windows, then joins me at my table. I admit to being lost. He draws a shaky map in my notebook, the backroute from Pakan to Kanowit. The story he tells with it seems coherent, but his directions are confusing. After Peter has finished a younger man brings over a blank piece of paper and draws a clearer map that tells the same story; his directions are full and coherent.
Pakan exemplifies for me the country towns I read about in history books. There is a District Office, school, and ‘Klinik’ on one small hill, a small market and shops on the opposite rise. There is a large concrete durian on a concrete post. Some wag has lodged a blue Domestos bottle between its spikes.
This bazaar was built in 1996. It has twenty-nine doors. The old one was down there. It only had ten doors. It is great to hear Peter applying terminology from the longhouse to this modern shopping street. When I leave, the café owner refuses my attempts to pay. This is a new definition
Kanowit
This concrete betel nut graces Kanowit's municipal park. of a welcoming town: one that doesn’t charge its tourists.
Kanowit
Kanowit does not live up to my expectations. I have over romanticized it. It is the highest point on the Rejang reachable by road. The river is too wide here to bridge easily. Charles Brooke built Fort Emma here to pacify the headhunters. It is a frontier town.
Several intact blocks of old shophouses set against this mighty river full of sludge do make it picturesque. But perhaps the feeling of the frontier is not a comfortable one. Some of the locals eye me suspiciously; they seem a muscular community, busy with physical labour.
Fort Emma is constrained behind a barbwire fence and appears to have been covered with some modern cladding material and an additional roof; it looks like an old shed. Nothing flies from any of the three flagpoles. Outside the fence, a concrete mermaid preens herself beneath a palm tree. One the road out, I catch site of another concrete icon: some sort of nut, betel nut maybe.
Sarikei
Sarikei is an amalgam of the other central Sarawak towns: relaxed, coastal, busy, concrete, riverine. It is another
Sarikei
Serikei's concrete pineapple is particularly lurid when it is floodlit at night beneath the palm trees. jumble. It is set on the lower Rejang, a narrow river near its mouth due to many distributaries sucking its water away from the main steam. My simple hotel is guarded by both the
Hope of God Church and the
Victory Family Church Calvary Charismatic Centre across the road. At the foot of the wharf torpedo boats wait to carry passengers upriver to Sibu. The sunset is stunning. A sailor throws a net into the river and catches nothing. Night falls. Beyond the wharf I find a concrete pineapple empedastalled; it is flooded in green light.
Travel Notes
Mukah is three hours from Sibu, two hours on the short, but very poor, side road. The turn-off is one hour from Sibu.
It is possible to drive from Sibu to Kuching in six hours. That it took me three days and twenty-six hours may be irrelevant!
Sibu: I stayed at The Premier Hotel. Cheaper rooms not being available I enjoyed a superior room on the 13th floor which had a picture window view of sunset over the Rejang and super room service . RM200, with very secure parking (needed in this town, I was assured). Tel Near Kanowit
There has to be a concrete oil palm fruit somewhere in Sarawak. 045-323222.
The road to Kanowit: if you want to got to Kanowit, use the Batang Rejang bridge, not the new bridge visible from the town centre:
whatever the locals advise.
Sarikei: At the Dragon Inn it was
Maybe not safe, lah.; so I stayed at the Wawasan Inn (RM60) because the night watchman’s job includes watching cars parked directly outside the glass doors. It is better than the Dragon Inn (RM50) and the Southern Hotel (RM18). None of them have secure parking. Twenty miles out on the Kuching Road is the Sebangkoi Country Resort. This has national park suites and hostel-syle (and walking trails). RM 100-200. Tel 019-8868067. It has excellent parking and is right beside the highway.
How I’ve been
Trying to keep the driving down to four hours a day doesn’t work when I get lost! I crave more time for writing, drawing, reading. But I’m having a wonderful time; for me there is nothing like reaching 4pm and thinking
I wonder where I’ll sleep tonight. I’m looking forward to hooking up with friends in Kuching, although Grace and Chico dropped out before I left Brunei, and I had a text from Hunny
Spaoh
And finally ... an excellent concrete fish stands against the sky. tonight, to say that she’s stuck in KL and can’t make it to the music festival either. Sad.
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Wen
non-member comment
The Adventure Continues
Such spectacular photography and amazing architecture. I’m pleased you are having such a great time and you have chosen to share the adventure with us all.