There were many unforgettable experience in the ‘ulu’ part of the Melupa river basin, my familiar childhood territory in the 60s.
Brought up by farming and rubber-tapping parents, I was out of the parental cobweb at the age of eight and since then, had been roaming freely in the depths of the jungle, trying to be one with nature, on land or by the river and its many streams.
Snakes, centipedes, millipedes, scorpions, red ants, hornets and bees were regular dangers but one has to learn early to be unperturbed by them.
Once, while on an excursion to look for streams with big pools that offered the promise of golden rod fishing bonuses, I hurriedly looked for a tree trunk that could offer some kind of shelter as a clap of thunder heralded an imminent downpour.
But true to what’s been said about the unreliable weather, it stopped and the sun showed its prominence with rays of unparalleled majesty.
This was when I was attracted to a special sound — a frog in distress — only to be confronted by a metre-long king cobra whose head was raised by a foot in a ready-to-strike position.
But luck was on my side as the distressed frog was dangling in the cobra’s mouth that impeded it from striking at me. It was an encounter that remains fresh in my memory.
I hastened my steps and moved away from the cobra in Olympic record time, trying another not-so-familiar spot by the side of a relatively big pool along Sungai Pentik further up.
If in a video clip, the viewer would be able to see that my mouth was opened wide, as the pool was definitely something that I had been looking for.
It housed different fish species such as my favourite carps Tebalang, Enseluai, Bangah and a few others upon first impression.
From that moment, I knew no further excursion was necessary. In the imagined video clip, the viewer would see the flicker of a smile crossing my face.
“This is it,” I said to myself in my mind, full of anxiety and anticipation.
Using the popular green grasshoppers as bait, I began my fishing quest and within 10 seconds, got hold of a large Tebalang carp, the hungriest fish any stream could offer.
By the end of the first hour — I started my luck on the spot around mid-morning — my humble fishing basket was half full and therefore was considered a bountiful catch.
But I adhered to my self-made rule never to overstay and as such made a move further up to another pool just about 80m away.
The second spot and a few more spots helped to fill my basket to more than three quarters and I hurried home to my grandma at our Bukit Tinggi residence for lunch, but not before stopping to get leaves and bamboo for her to prepare the catch in backwoods cooking.
As it was on a Saturday, Apai, Indai and Jon were in the rubber garden. I could imagine Apai cursing the sudden but transitory mid-morning drizzles earlier.
While in Primary Five and Six in 1966 and 1967 at Nanga Assam Primary School, we started another pastime which we called ‘nyabung daun’ (an equivalent of cockfighting but using leaves) and bets of rubber bands were allowed to add fun and suspense.
Kids nowadays may not know how to go about this game. Actually this game is conducted by putting on a sharp spur out of the strong ‘resam’ fibre on the stalk of a chosen leaf.
Two persons are supposed to use one hand each to hold his leaf with the spur and let your respective leaf’s spur hit that of your opponent’s.
There are specifications and rules to be adhered to avoid your spur from hitting your opponent’s hand or fingers.
This also was short-lived as those losing badly in the betting with rubber bands — costing 10 sen for 25 new ones — became disillusioned and claimed the bigger boys cheated them.
For readers’ information, no less than a dozen of Primary Five and Six boys at Nanga Assam then were in their late teens.
That put the end to the ‘sabung daun’ game. Within those aforesaid two years, few other follies came to a pause or complete stop but nothing erased my memory of the king cobra encounter.
One interesting pastime was the hide and seek (teruan) game for boys only. This was done within the bushes and rubber garden outside the school but was short-lived as some smaller boys ended up sleeping in the bushes and thus missed the afternoon classes.
There were more to come in the later months prior to our Common Entrance examination of 1967.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
