It was a good day to fly onboard the Twin Otter on the Miri to Bario sector on Thursday 18, November 2021. The flight was less than half full, a paradoxical truth knowing that usually there are many looking for vacant seats on the limited numbers available on the small aircraft.
This time around, the limitation of available seats was an artificial construct, a necessary imposition. A nod to the need to maintain social distancing in line with the standard operating procedures applicable in these times of a pandemic ravaging the whole world. A subject I’ll return to later in this essay.
Sometimes, I wonder whether social distancing will really make any difference in the confined space of a small aircraft where everyone is basically sharing the same air circulating in the cabin?
I have flown this route countless times over the years since 1974 when I made my first flight out of Bario to study in Form 4 at SMK Marudi located not very far from the eastern end of the Marudi airport. Until only the last couple of years, flights have been the more realistic option for travelling to and from Bario, and to some of the other settlements in the Kelabit Highlands.
Other possible options included a combination of days or even weeks of jungle trekking and travelling by boat on the Telang Usan and the Baram River. Telang Usan refers to the upper parts of the Baram River.
The so-called road that takes oneself from the coast to the highlands is an upgraded version of the old timber tracts from those decades ago when wide scale logging of the rainforest was prevalent. I remember many people leaving their villages to join the timber camps, not knowing that it was not going to be a lifetime or permanent job, as the trees will eventually run out.
Even then, it was mainly a dirt road which was navigable only to the most hardened of drivers, especially during the wet season when it is practically impassable. The risk of being stuck in the muck, as it were, and being stranded in the middle of nowhere, as was often the case, is ever present when taking these backwoods, sans the woods, journey.
Only a small and almost select breed of seasoned young men from the highlands who, out of sheer necessity, makes the trip on a regular basis, thereby providing a lifeline to the urban centre. They are the modern-day version of frontiersman in a perpetual battle against the challenges that Mother Nature seems to relish throwing in the paths of those who dared forge a passage through the wild landscapes or opening up new frontiers.
With the latest emphasis on building roads and infrastructure in the rural areas hopefully all these travails and tribulations will be a thing of the past.
Despite the heavy cloud cover enveloping the higher mountain ranges, the scenery below the flight path was nonetheless stunning. Well, at least from such a distance and height that we were.
Gunung Mulu and the outcrops of Batu Lawi are two of the major landmarks along the route. That morning they were visible, a vista of phantoms appearing and disappearing, as the clouds floated by, as we flew past and onwards towards the gap called the Pengapawan pass on the saddle of Tamabu range beyond which lies in the Lam Bah or Bario valley of the Kelabit plateau.
Mount Mulu, the mountain made world famous as a result of the discovery of the amazing Mulu caves, is also known as Buduk Ubung in the local Kelabit dialect. A sandstone and shale mountain, it is the second highest mountain in the state of Sarawak, after Mount Murud.
The sandstone and shale perhaps pointing to its marine origin but now posited in the middle of Borneo. Mount Mulu now sits within the boundaries of the Gunung Mulu National Park, which is obviously named after the landmark, and for the nature lovers, take note that Mount Murud is reputed to be one of the most majestic and exciting nature destinations in Malaysia.
From Buduk Ubung onwards, it is Kelabit and Berawan country all the way up to Bario, and onwards beyond Bario, up to the Indonesian Kalimantan border. The Kelabits have a strange and unique tradition of erecting stone monoliths, megaliths and dolmens, making rock carvings, gathering rock and stone collections called perupun, all of which are found scattered all over the Kelabit Highlands.
These serve as territorial markers showing that generations have lived and settled in these places throughout a long and extended period. And those structures were not simply erected in an impromptu way but after elaborate preparation and the conduct of traditional rituals and adat practices where the energy and collective strength of the entire community were harnessed, often with massive feasts and plentiful supply rice wines of 30- 40 jars per occasion, accompanying the feats sought to be achieved.
The Berawans, a close cousin of the Kelabits, with many similar words between them and their arts, names and culture being very much identical, have also stayed in these parts around the Buduk Ubung, especially along the banks of the rivers emanating from these mountains.
The Penans too consider this as part of their realm but being nomadic, they need to cover vast areas to ensure themselves of the availability of adequate territory to scour for sources of food for survival. Their food resources included all kinds of games and products from the forest.
In the absence of wild animals to hunt, they would survive on the flour made from the wild sago of the kanangan palm tree and also the edible shoots of the plant. The forest is their main source of sustenance in a symbiotic relationship between man and nature nurtured and perfected over the ages.
The Penan’s and the forests’ survival is so intertwined that the destruction of one will lead to severe and adverse consequences on the other. A sad tale made more poignant and real when the jungles were decimated for logging.
Not far from the foot of Buduk Ubung and to the eastern side, sits the Kelabit settlement of Long Seridan. To the mountain’s north lies the sources of the Limbang river.
At the Long Seridan settlement, one of my cousins had married the tribal chief of this community, reinforcing long standing relations between the community here and those in the highlands.
A beautiful country lies here, with an agreeable and wholesome mountain stream filled with plenty of fish including the famous, and now very rare and expensive, empurau.
Well, correction, the fishes are no longer that plentiful anymore. Thanks again to the logging activities which not only harvested the valuable timber but decimated most of the animal life and the fisheries.
• Part 2 next week
