One of the trips that I anticipated most this year was a trip to Kapit, one of the innermost parts of Sarawak in the Borneon island of Malaysia. I had always wanted to go there for the fact that I was surrounded by Sarawakian friends when I was at the university. I’d listen to their stories – ranging from their upbringing environments to the their close day-to-day relationship with rivers which according to them were their lifelines. I was so fascinated by their stories and I tried to imagine to the best I could knowing that one day I’d go to some of those places that they mentioned and see for myself if my imaginations had been anywhere close to reality. Heh.
One of the name of places that my friends kept mentioning was Kapit so when the chance of going there suddenly came knocking at my door, I was ecstatic. Of course there is no other way of going to Kapit more conveniently than by boat – or rather bot ekspres as the locals would call it. I flew from KL right to Sibu which is the point of access to Kapit and took a boat from there via Sungai Rajang, which is as known to everybody the longest river in Malaysia and one of the longest in the world. Continue reading