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One of Sarawak’s most famous historical sites is located around the riverine bazaar of Siniawan and Mount Serembu — a place with a potpourri of tales and legends, many of which have been long forgotten.
It is the enclave of an old Chinese settlement going back 200 years amidst the Bidayuh community who built their longhouses around the 1,646ft high Gunung Serembu mountain complex at Bung Muan.
Only 16 miles from Kuching, Siniawan was made famous by Rajah James Brooke who built a cottage high up in the hills, and within 30 years had attracted world-famous 19th century personalities to Sarawak.
Among the dozen or so prolific VIPS were British colonial administrator and naturalist, Sir Hugh Low who spent the first 30 years of his life in Labuan before he became the first European to travel to Upper Sarawak to explore the region.
Others who visited Rajah James Brooke’s Mountain eyrie which received International acclaim were Governor-General of Labuan Sir Spenser Buckingham St John and author of “Life in the Forests in the Far East”.
Austrian woman traveller and author Madam Ida Laura Pfeiffer, Italian naturalist Odoardo Beccari, British admiral Sir Henry Keppel and world-renowned Englishman Alfred Russel Wallace, who was described as one of the greatest scientists of all time. His paper was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin’s writings of the “Evolution of Man” in 1858.
Brooke’s first journey up the Sarawak River
James Brooke first travelled up the Sarawak River in 1839 to quell a rebellion led by the Sarawak Malay aristocracy under their chief Datu Patinggi Ali who had challenged the authority of the Brunei Sultanate who had colonised the State from as early as the 15th century.
In 1841 after making peace with the Sarawak Malays, Brooke became their Rajah and their Bidayuh allies at Bung Muan and planned to develop the area. He also extended the protection of the British navy to the region.
On July 15, 1843 a young mid shipman, artist-cum-author Frank Marryat from H.M.S. Samarang was sent on an expedition to the antimony and gold mines in Bau when he wrote:
“A short distance inland is a mountain, called Sarambo (Serembu), which it was proposed to ascend, as, by our telescopes, we could perceive houses near to its summit and were told it was the residence of some of the mountain Dayaks under Mr Brooke’s sway.”
What Marryat saw was “Bung Muan” where a cluster of three villages — Penijau, Bumbok and Serembu — where the Bidayuh had built their longhouses community.
The Bidayuh had chosen to live 1,000 feet high up in the mountains to protect themselves from the occasional raids by Sea Dayak pirates during the reign of the Brunei sultanate.
In one raid alone in 1838, the “headhunters” from Skrang and Saribas had pillaged a neighbouring longhouse community several miles upriver at Bung Bratak, killing hundreds and taking many slaves.
After Brooke became Rajah, he put an end to head-hunting and built a cottage just above Bung Muan at place called “Peninjau”.
Spenser St John said Peninjau got its name from a large rock jutting out of mountain from where the Rajah would sit enjoy a panoramic view of Gunung Santubong and the meandering Sarawak River.
In November 1854, Brooke met the illustrious Alfred Wallace in Singapore and invited him to enjoy the cool weather at his idyllic cottage where the latter spent four months.
Wallace returned to Peninjau in December 1855, with a Malay boy called Ali which by that time it had been developed into a quaint cottage and describes it as a rude wooden lodge where a cool spring under an overhanging rock just below the cottage furnished with refreshing baths and delicious drinking water.
Italian naturalist Beccari who stayed at Peninjau in 1865 said Brooke’s bungalow was 300 feet above the longhouses at Bung Muan which was describes as “a place with an extensive view”. Beccari in “Wanderings in the Great Forests of Borneo” (1865) said a “stream (waterfall) gushed out of a great cave where the rajah’s men would wash and bathe.”
St John described Brooke’s bath as “a most remarkable natural bathhouse under a huge rock 70 foot in length and 40 in breath at which Brooke and his guests bathed.”
Over time and after James Brooke’s demise in 1868, and with his nephew Charles at the helm, “Peninjau” fell into disrepair.
In January 1912, Sarawak Curator J.C. Moulton, spent a fortnight at Serembu using the longer but flatter “Western Paku-Merembeh Route” as a homage to Wallace. Accompanied by American Harrison W Smith who took photographs, they noted there were just remnants of the “belian” (ironwood) posts left from the Rajah’s time and, as for the locals, “All they remembered was that the first Rajah, Sir James Brooke had a bungalow which they helped to build”.
Brook paid the Peninjau Dayaks one “Bedil” (small cannon) as the fee to build his bungalow. Moulton and Smith returned to Kuching using the Peninjau side to Siniawan, which was shorter route home but with a more difficult descent down the steep mountain.
Rajah Brooke’s cottage at “Peninjau” which in Malay means “the lookout”, remained forgotten until the 1980s when an English Earl Lord Cranbrook, took an interest in this famous location where Wallace had carried out his studies on the Orang Utan. Between 1854 and 1962 Wallace collected an estimated 5,000 new species (mostly animals) during his eight-year tour of the ‘Malay Archipelago’.
It was Wallace who ‘discovered’ a rare Sarawak’s two-clubbed spider (Friula wallacei) which has been preserved in the Oxford Museum of Natural History in UK. Wallace told a friend that he caught the spider in Sarawak and specially noted its remarkable form.
A former University of Malaya lecturer who first arrived in Sarawak in 1956, Cranbrook said, “I had been looking for Bung Muan for a long time. This had led me to visit Kampung Peninjau and from the visit, I discovered that the villagers here knew the way to the site of Peninjau.”
In 1988 he told the Sarawak museum authorities about the old site of Brooke’s cottage and suggested that the government to rebuild the bungalow, and restore a massive “outdoor bath” under a massive 70-foot boulder where the Rajah, his officers and VIPs washed.
On September 27, 1989 a party from the Sarawak Museum visited Peninjau and clearing the area of two belian posts, 13 feet apart. They also found Brooke’s massive jungle Bath.
In 1990, the Earl of Cranbrook who was later accorded the Sarawak title “Dato’ Sri”, village elder Stephen Sinyum Mutit, and others visited and discussed the possibility of rebuilding Brooke’s bungalow. Later that year Sinyum who was the Member of Parliament of the area organised a trip for me up Serembu (NST October 17, 1990) with his relative John Jeffry.
In 2003, I went up Serembu for a second time with former RMAF Commander of East Malaysia General Datuk L.C. Soon and explorer Adnan Osman finally found a massive dried-out cave which was Brooke’s famous ‘Jungle Bath’ in the Star (September 25, 2003) entitled “Bid to Restore Serembu’s Glory”.
In 2009, Cranbrook renewed his appeal to get the Ministry of Tourism interested and a year later the Kuching Branch of the Malaysian Nature Society visited the area.
Some interest was taken when it was suggested that the authorities build “grand restaurant cum rest-house” with a cable car “for visitors to ascend to the mountain top”, with the prospect of para-gliding and rock climbing in future, and where Rajah Brooke’s descendents would foot the bill.
In October 2011, it was announced — in tandem with a proposal to create a Geopark — that funding was in place and the project should start the following year in two phases.
Deputy Federal Minister of Tourism, Dato Dr James Dawos Mamit said that the project would comprise a Tourist Information Centre at Kampung Peninjau Lama, a staircase up the Wallace Trail to the reconstructed, a Brooke’s Cottage and a ‘Baruk’ (head house) as a resting place for tourists
By March 2012, tenders were to be sought for, first, an access road, car park, and tourist information point, plus ‘Wallace Point’ and ‘Brooke observation platform’, followed by ceremonial house, longhouses, Brooke’s cottage and outdoor bath at a cost of between RM1 to RM2 million. But it fell through because the Ministry felt that the cost was too high and unreasonable.
In 2012, Cranbrook contacted me and suggested we organise a boat journey up the Sarawak river — similar to the one taken by Wallace — and thanks to the SEDC chairman-cum Sarawak assistant Minister for Tourism, Datuk Talib Zulphilip, we were able to retrace and, retraced the steps of the first White Rajah and his visitors.
Later at the Brooke Heritage headquarters at Kampung Peninjau Lama, Cranbrook also suggested the re-building the old path from the village at the foot of Serembu to a saddle on the mountain and name it “The Wallace Trail”.
On this occasion I went up the mountain with the 78-year-old Cranbrook, for the third time.
In the subsequent years a local committee under Wilson Spilak from Kampung Peninjau Lama organised several trips up the hill and help a meeting recently.
In an interview with Wilson, 64, who is Secretary of the Brooke Committee, he said that so far his committee had received only RM20,000 which has been used to buy “belian” iron wood to build Brooke’s cottage.
“We have done some work by improving the cave where Brooke and his guests washed and bathed but we are still very short of funds” funds.
In late 2017 the Federal Minister of Tourism Datuk Nazri Aziz visited Kampung Peninjau Lama and promised a grant of RM1.6 million. But the BN lost the elections and the project was put on hold.
Two months ago the Brooke Heritage Committee held their annual general meeting to decide on what steps to take.
Wilson who led a party of villagers to clear the pathway up to the site of Bung Muan and Brooke’s cottage at Peninjau last weekend, said “Even though the funds have not been forth-coming, we understand that some of our Bidayuh leaders want to help to ensure that the Bung Muan-Bung Peninjau project will be completed”.
But the money is still not forthcoming
Wilson said that the villagers from the Peninjau Lama village at the foot of the mountain, will continue to upgrade the Wallace Trail on a voluntary basis.
But without sufficient funds, Brooke’s cottage may turn out to be just a pipe dream.
