My Journey to the Remote Town of Belaga

I first heard about a place called Belaga in Sarawak when I was still at the university. I happened to have quite a number of friends from Sarawak and some of them were from this little town in the far corner of the biggest state in Malaysia. I’d listen to them talking about their life, particularly while they were at a boarding school called SMK Belaga where they met up with other students that hailed from all corners of this very remote district.

Somehow I found their stories very inspiring. I mean, it really was amazing how these people who were born and raised in a very remote area could face the logistic challenges and eventually made it to the university. Some of them even exceled and are very successful in their own career now.

Well, being surrounded by them, and listening so much of their stories, I could only imagine how places like Belaga or even Kapit were really like in my head. When my boss told me that we were going to be heading there soon, I was ecstatic. It was an opportunity that I had always wanted to have for such a long long time.

I’ve been to Kapit and I have written about it before so I’m not gonna write about it this time. We flew to Sibu from KL and literally hopped in an express boat to Kapit where we stayed for a night before taking another boat to Belaga the next morning. The journey took us about 6 hours – departing at 11am sharp and arriving at around 5pm.

There really were long long hours but the scenery along the way was so breath-taking that all the hours passed by almost unnoticed. I spent most of the time sitting on the rooftop so that I could have a full view of the surrounding. I’ve never seen so much greenery in a single trip in my whole life before so I was very much excited. The boat was traversing along the Batang Rajang – the longest river in Malaysia – so it really was such a rare experience. Perhaps, it was the closet to Amazon that I could get to. Heh.

The ride was not without some nerve-wrecking moments, at least for somebody who was not quite used to riding on water rapids like me. The most turbulent boat ride that I’ve ever been to was in Mirrisa of Sri Lanka when I joined a day tour to a whale-watching trip but it was totally a different thrill. I knew if it had to sink, it’d sink slowly. But this one at Batang Rajang, it might go down much faster due to the turbulence. Thanks God it did not happen. Phew.

I was on the roof of the boat when the boat rode the famous Palagus rapids so I could really see how turbulent the river currents were down there. There were moments when I really thought the boat was not gonna make it past the rapids. The engine was roaring thunderously as if trying to free itself from a sheer suffocation and there were times when it suddenly fell silent as if hinting a white-flag but then we are talking about a boat handler who’s probably done it hundreds of times so he knew exactly what he was doing.

I mean, he had to. Otherwise the lives of the passengers would be at stake. There’ve been many incidences in the past anyway with the latest one happened just before Christmas last year. 4 people died when a fleet of strong waves created by a passing boat fell on a small boat and instantly filled the boat with so much water. I was told that the boat became too heavy and sank.

With all the things that happened in the past, I couldn’t help but letting out a big sigh of relief when the boat finally made it past the rapids and the waters returned to their normal calmness. Then the journey continued and again I returned to what I enjoyed most – taking in all the beauty that I was presented with as the boat cruised deeper and deeper into the heart of Sarawak.

Every now and then the boat would stop to drop off or take in new passengers. It was so damn packed in the beginning, so much so that we couldn’t even find any space to put our bags in. Some of our bags had to be put on the roof together with many others. Whenever the rain comes, they’ll have them covered with canvas. It really was amazing to see how efficient the crew was in running the things around. They knew exactly what they had to do, as if they were already programmed inside, no kiding. LOL

So – 6 hours later we found ourselves stepping onto the ground again. I knew then that we had arrived in Belaga!

Belaga that I found out is more like a very small town with only a few rows of shop lots and mostly dilapidated government buildings with wooden houses scattered all around. We checked into the first hotel that we bumped into, a budget hotel called Belaga Hotel and was run by an elderly Chinese couple. I asked them if they had any children and they told me they had eight. “But they have all moved out of Belaga now” said the elderly aunty as if trying to hide the bitterness in her voice. Somehow it came to me – who’s gonna take care of the hotel when they are gone? – I refused to give it any further thought.

The room was very basic but I had no problem with it. I’ve stayed in a far worse hotel room before so it didn’t really bother me, not even when cockroaches began to show themselves up and all kinds of insects began to fly in to get their share of the lights. Belaga is after all surrounded by thick forest so it really was a no surprise when insects, some of whom I have not seen since I was a kid, came by to give me a welcoming hi.

I’ve come to find out that there are more marts in Belaga than restaurants and there are a very limited number of Halal food restaurants. Since I was there with my Muslim colleagues, it was quite a problem looking for a place to eat in. In the end we had to return to the same Halal food restaurant all throughout our stay there, except for the last breakfast when we bumped into another Halal restaurant.

Despite the beauty of the surrounding, there really is nothing much to do in Belaga. It is more like the jumping point for people to go to Bakun which is famous for its mega-dam project. We went to the police station to get some head-ups on things around there and one of the police officers lent us his car so that we could at least drive a little bit around. I seized the opportunity to drive over to SMK Belaga – to finally see how exactly the school that I had heard so much about from my Sarawakian friends back at the university.

Then we drove on to an adjacent long house to see if there was anything interesting to see but there was none – unfortunately. The villagers including the Tuai Rumah (kampong head) were busy putting up a fence for their garbage disposal area so we didn’t really want to bother them unnecessarily. But we had a good view of the river from there. Somehow, it looked very calm and serene and if not for the passing boats the water doesn’t even look like it is moving at all.

So, we ended up doing nothing much in Belaga. But it has some of the most interesting communities that I have ever come upon. It’s like the shoplot area is dominated by Chinese who have probably been there since the establishment of Belaga as a town. Most of them had roosters that they put in cages so you can imagine the pandemonium of noises that they could come up with when they all crow simultaneously. And somehow these roosters have a problem with their biological clocks that they’d crow at the oddest of times – at mid-night and even at 2 in the morning. It didn’t take long for me to hate their existence within the vicinity.

I was told that the biggest ethnic group there is Kenyah and probably followed by Kayan and also the Penan who are mostly residing further up the river.  Everybody seems to know everybody in Belaga so people did know that we were new in town.

I was told that it would take us about 1 hour to go to Bakun Dam by road. I have always wanted to go there and somehow I felt like I was going to be heading there soon but not on this trip. I was also told that Belaga is now well-connected with Bintulu – an option of transportation that we had briefly considered taking before deciding that we should just return to Kapit and later Sibu by river so that we could see if there was anything that we had missed.

We said goodbye to Belaga on the second day. It was Sunday and I could see that more and more people were coming in and we were about to leave. I later found out that there was a local weekly market that takes place every Sunday so I was quiet disappointed that we had to leave and miss that market.  I’ve always been a big fan of markets.

So, that was about it. The return journey felt somehow shorter, probably because it was going downstream so the boat was going much faster. Again, I was mesmerized by the beauty of the surrounding as I pegged myself to the tiny flag mast on the rooftop of the boat and returned to the cabin only when it rained. But I’d peek through the windows because I really didn’t want to miss anything. We arrived in Kapit at about 1pm and instantly checked ourselves in at Meligai Hotel.

Will I be back to Belaga again? Only time will tell. For now, I’d just let the memories that I had picked up along this one trip mingle within me until they are renewed again. The meandering river of Batang Rajang, the lush greenery, the rusticity and the kampong charms of the villages on the riverside – they’ll stay in my head for a very long time.