Batu Niah - Not Just a Mountain of Bat Shit

It's funny the things that stick in your mind from a journey.  Batu Niah is one of the most spectacular of Sarawak's national parks.  It comprises a vast cave network full of bats and swallows in a setting of jungle and limestone cliffs straight out of "Jurassic Park".  There are mysterious wall paintings, mountains of acrid bat shit and a profound sense of darkness and silence as you grope your way along a two kilometre subterranean boardwalk.  And what do I remember best?  The National Park canteen.

From the second you walk in the door there is the smell of desperation.  The National Park is three kilometres from the town of Batu Niah, so the canteen has a captive market of tourists.  It's located in a brand new building with new steel and formica tables and chairs and yet the place is empty.  In one corner there are a few lonely boxes of potato crisps under a notice warning that "thieves will be prosecuted".  There is also a set of swing doors leading, presumably, to the kitchen, with a large "no entry" notice scrawled across it, as if hastily put up by someone who, having murdered the cook, now needs time to dismember him with the rudimentary kitchen tools available.

Suddenly the kitchen doors burst open and a Malay man in his late thirties emerges with a panicky smile on his face.
"You want food?  I have food.  Please to sit down.  Chicken and rice set?"
I am with Martyn, Janina and Eva, a dad, mum and teenage daughter I first met at Simlilajau.  We look at each other doubtfully, Janina and Eva are vegetarians.
"Do you have any vegetarian food?"
"Rice?"  He offers, nervously.
I settle for the chicken and rice set, which is bland and under-seasoned, while the others just have drinks.

We try the canteen one last time in the evening.  By the time we arrive there are already several tourists ploughing their way resignedly through platefuls of dry and bland chicken rice.  In a desperate search for variety I try a new tack:
"Chicken and rice set?"  Your man asks.
"You have noodle?"  I parry.
"Yes we have noodle."  He offers with a matter of fact air.
"OK, chicken noodle."
This arrives ten minutes later looking moist and actually fairly appetising, to the obvious chagrin of the other guests.

Later, I spy a letter on a notice board inviting tenders to run the canteen dated a few months ago and I surmise that our man has won the contract and having done so has not the slightest clue what to do.  He presumably wants to sell food and make money and the visitors, having no other choice, are keen to buy it.  But, his lack of understanding of what tourists actually want is almost total and the communication gap near unbridgeable and this seems to be the story of so much of Sarawak's tourist industry.  I want to tell this poor man - "look, tourists want snacks and lunches to take with them on walks and a price list and pictures of the things you can cook."  But I know it will not register, he is the wrong man and is probably doomed to fail, concluding that tourists are mean and have no appetite.

This lack of communication is also evidenced by the bus journey here from Bintulu.  I bought a ticket for "Batu Niah", but no one at the point of sale, on the bus or at the drop-off, felt it necessary to explain that by "Batu Niah" they really meant "the Batu Niah service area", actually twelve kilometres from the town of Batu Niah and fifteen from the National Park.  Tourists have been getting off these buses at the service area possibly for decades looking desperately for the National Park and yet nothing has changed, other than that there is now an established going rate for charging the benighted backpackers for a lift to the park gates.  Sometimes here it's like looking across a canyon at the people on the other side and trying to work out whether they're laughing, praying, crying or dancing.  Fucked if I know, but if all else fails just stay calm and keep smiling.

Similajau National Park

From Bintulu I travelled by taxi the thirty-odd kilometres to Similajau National Park.  Much of the journey is dominated by what I guess is a large oil refinery with a sinister grey cloud sitting above it, like an upside-down pyramid pointing to a bright flame at the top of a pencil-like chimney.  The National Park itself is a long strip of coast with sandy beaches fringed by forest which, from the look of the logos around the place, appears to get some funding from Shell, perhaps as compensation for the sinister cloud next door.

The Park offices are smart and air conditioned and staffed by smiling young women in green polo shirts.  I book a room for the night, which requires the completion of several forms.  This is done, in mandatory Malaysian bureaucratic style - like a new procedure introduced two minutes ago with no training.  It must actually take a lot of concentration to repeat this pantomime several times a day, week in, week out.

Finally, key in hand, I make my way to my hostel, which looks modern and clean and faces the beach, about two hundred metres away through a patch of woodland.  As is so often the case in Sarawak appearances can be deceptive.  My room is large and was no doubt cleaned after it was last used several weeks ago, but is now littered with the aftermath of a vicious air battle between two armadas of flying insects.

In the afternoon I cross the suspension bridge that leads to the National Park trails along the coast.  These are splendid, allowing one to stroll along paths and boardwalks in the shade of the forest and discover remote beaches with smoothe yellow sand.  Swimming is prohibited, most likely because the staff don't have the language skills to explain what to take care of.  I'm hot and sweaty and I decide "sod it" and take a skinny dip anyway.


Back at the Park HQ in the afternoon I meet a number of other travellers, mainly white and European and all clutching the mandatory Lonely Planet Guide which brought us here.  There was a young East European woman who dismissed most of the places she had been as "nothing special", as if the world existed solely to tickle her jaded palette.  She herself was, I have to say, quite good-looking, but "nothing special".  Also a Canadian woman who was travelling with her three year old daughter around Southeast Asia for several months, so they could "get to know each other".  Tired, under-stimulated and separated from her two older siblings and her dad, I'm sure the poor little mite was having a whale of a time circumnavigating her mum's ego.  Then there was the mum, dad and teenage daughter from the English midlands who spend their summers travelling on a shoestring, dawdling and taking photographs.  Also two lugubrious young Poles throwing themselves enthusiastically at Borneo with smiles on their faces.

Next morning I spent some time at breakfast with two local Chinese journalists.  We talked about democracy, or the lack of it, and corruption in Malaysia, the UK and Italy.  Serious, intelligent young women with a thirst to change things in their country, while making the inevitable compromises which living in a place like Malaysia demands of you.  While discussing tourism in Sarawak they asked me what all these white folk were doing here in an out of the way national park.  I showed them my "Lonely Planet Guide" and explained that if you use the Guide to tour Sarawak in more than about seven days you just inevitably seem to come here.  They didn't seem entirely convinced and remained incredulous at the strange ways of foreign tourists.

Looking for Borneo

After failing to get to Belaga up the river Rejang I went back to Sibu in search of a bus to Bintulu.  This was my first experience of long distance buses in Sarawak and it was easy and pleasant.  The only difficult part was actually finding the long-distance bus station, which in common with every major town in Sarawak, it turns out, is several kilometres from the centre.  There are several competing companies offering big air-conditioned coaches, with three armchair-like seats in each row, and the two hundred kilometre journey cost me twenty five ringgits (about £5).

As the bus left Sibu I pulled the Lonely Planet Guide from my rucksack in search of where to stay and what to do in my journey north to Bintulu and then Miri.  To be honest the Guide doesn't tell me much about the country I live in, it's more of an inventory of interesting things for outsiders: beaches, National Parks, restaurants and nightlife and "authentic" things to "experience" and take photographs of.  It doesn't have a lot to say about Bintulu, not even a map, although it has a population of about 180,000, but it does give the name of an OK sounding hotel on the riverfront, called, aptly enough, "the Riverfront Inn".  It also contains the interesting factoid that "Bintulu" means "place of gathered heads" in some long-forgotten or possibly fictional ancient dialect.

When I arrive at Bintulu bus station I walk over to a waiting taxi and say authoritatively "Riverfront Inn, please" and spend the next fifteen minutes frantically pumping an imaginary brake pedal as my suicidal driver hurtles us into town.  My prayers are answered as we pull up outside the hotel rather than die trying.  Bintulu is neither a Sodom filled with drunk Hawaian-shirted roustabouts and Chinese prostitutes, nor a collection of smokey wooden longhouses with shrivelled heads hanging up outside, but yet another ordinary Sarawakian town.  What is that exactly?  Well, a few grids of steel and concrete blocks in various states of repair, many cracked and mould-stained, with an array of shop signs in Chinese, Malay and English, such as the "Homey Guesthouse" and "Lee Hing" the greengrocers.  Interspersed between the blocks are empty spaces, usually with billboards containing a picture of a new hotel or row of semi-detached houses, also nineteen fifties looking churches, simple mosques and Disneyesque Chinese temples.

Like most towns in Sarawak Bintulu is also sited on a river, the main means of transport and communication before the highway was built in the 1960s.  On the far side of the river are the other essential components of a local town or city - the Malay kampungs or villages and the tribal longhouses and small ferries ply to and fro throughout the day.  The river itself spews muddy brown water out into the nearby South China Sea, as well as logs and debris.  From time to time vast barges are towed downriver from the interior by sea-going tugs, labouring under the weight of their cargo.  I'm reluctant to call this the "rape" of Borneo's rainforest, but they are certainly harvesting one hell of a lot of timber.


The Riverfront Inn is cheap and pleasant, although my room smells of stale tobacco smoke.  Next
morning, cool and naked in the air-conditioned room, I peek out from behind the curtains at Bintulu, simmering quietly in the morning sun.

Kapitulation

With time on my hands following my return from Raleigh International in Sabah, I've decided to spend some time exploring Sarawak.  Sue had arranged a weekend of luxury at the Marriot Hotel in Miri, so I resolved to join her by getting boats and buses from Saratok.  My plan was to travel by boat up the River Rejang from Sarikei to Belaga, where I would get a four wheel drive taxi to the main Sibu-Miri highway.

On Sunday 21st July I got a lift to Sarikei then a ferry to Sibu, where I changed for a boat to Kapit. The Kapit boat was packed with people returning home after the weekend.  The ferries on the Rejang above Sibu are battered steel tubes with two stonking diesels at the back which hammer the boats through the water at an ear-splitting thirty knots.  Inside the passenger compartment has a similar atmosphere to a meat cold storage warehouse as the a/c units are always set to "max" for some reason.

The mighty Rejang was actually more of a trickle due to the operation of the Baku dam more than 100 kilometres upriver, forcing the ferry to go aground on the shingle at every stop to disgorge its cargo of people, chickens and other assorted baggage.  For the last hour of the four-hour trip from Sibu the boat had emptied out enough for me to fight my way onto the roof and warm my bones in the hot afternoon sun as the ferry continued to zigzag from one longhouse community to the next.  At Kapit I was met by Tibor, a British Council mentor who had kindly agreed to offer me a bed for the night.

Next morning I made my way confidently to the Kapit jetty ready to get the 9.00am boat for the six-hour journey to Belaga.  "Where boat to Balaga?"  I asked in my best grammar-free English.  I was greeted by shrugs of incomprehension.  "No boat" someone said, looking at me like I was an idiot.  Finally a Chinese lady selling snacks to the ferry-goers kindly explained:  "Dam make water too low, no boat 'till 26 July."  "26 July," I moan, "but it's 22 today!"

I wandered around town helplessly for a while, stopping for a hot, sweet, coffee to formulate a plan.  According to the "Lonely Planet" Guide when the water is too low for the ferries you can get a speed boat for an affordable price.  I try this tack at the ferry jetty to be told this may be an option if I have a few thousand ringgit to spare.  In the end I made my way resignedly to the ticket counter, where I joined two strapping but confused Scandanavian girls who have given up their quest to reach Belaga and decided to go back to Sibu.  "Welcome to Sarawak" I say to myself as I buy a ticket back downriver.

Kota Kinabalu Airport

On Monday afternoon a Raleigh International Landrover dropped me and my bike at KK airport.  I gave Mel, the Volunteer Manager who drove me there, a farewell hug then trolleyed my gear to the check-in desk.

After the formalities I wandered back out of the terminal to take a last look at Mount Kinabalu, unusually clear and visible in the evening light and looking like the extinct volcano it is.  I took a few pictures, trying to capture the moment and thinking "I climbed you, but I've never seen you this well before".  Returning to the terminal building the sunset over the sea and the nearby islands was like a cosmic bruise, all yellows, purples and reds.  I couldn't take my eyes off it as I walked to the departure gate at the far end of the airport, knowing that both of us would be gone shortly.  Just one more sunset and one more memory lodged for the time being in my old cranium, like water in a leaky bucket.

I had a little time on my hands so I 'phoned Dad, talking absently while looking at the sunset and the reflections of the airport neon signs in the big plate glass windows.  He's had an accident in his electric wheelchair and has torn some of the skin off the back of his hand.  "Down to the tendons" he says, proudly.  I commiserate, forcing the pang of guilt which I suddenly feel, back into my unconscious.

I had expected to be with Raleigh International in Sabah for about twelve weeks, but issues, which are not for this blog, compelled me to leave.  I feel tired and a bit battered.  Hopefully a long sleep will help restore my joie de vivre.