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.