This story was inspired by a pre-covid journey from the modernity of Selangor through the historical heartland of Perak, nosing into Kedah and then up to Penang; an 825km trip round the best that this part of Malaysia has to offer. In 2020, expect more masks and probably, perhaps preferably, fewer people.
After the long months cooped up with movement control orders, minds across Malaysia are turning to travel again and domestic seems to be the order of the day. Sarawak offers plenty of possibilities and everyone here is being exhorted to support their home state and the indigenous tourism operators. But this week marks Malaysia Day and flights ply the skies once again, so a journey to the West might beckon. It is, after all, the much bigger tourism option. A massive 26 million travellers found their way to Malaysia in 2019, making it the 5th most visited country in the Asia-Pacific region, but only a fraction made it across the South China Sea to Sarawak, with visitor arrivals logged at less than one fifth of that.
It is arguably the South China Sea which makes the difference, in more ways than one. For everyone craving that overseas experience, a hop across an ocean feels more like a real holiday. The airline industry has been hardest hit by covid, with flights grounded by government regulations and emptied of potential passengers by the fear of enforced proximity and sky-high prices. But people are returning to the air and, in fact, several carriers, including Singapore Airlines, are even offering trips to nowhere, landing where they boarded, so that the passengers can ‘pretend to go abroad’. Sarawakians seeking to visit West Malaysia, however, don’t need to pretend; ‘over sea’ travel is inbuilt into the itinerary.
This wide expanse of water, separating the two sides of Malaysia, also works in a different way. For us in Sarawak, it can sometimes make the peninsula seem like a whole different world and, in reality, until relatively recently, it was. The eleven states of Malaya gained their independence from the British in 1957, celebrating this momentous event – Merdeka! – with all due pomp and circumstance on 31 August every year. Malaysia did not come into being until some years later, when Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore went into partnership with the Federation of Malaya in the formation of an entirely new nation. The signatories were shooting for the shared significance of Merdeka Day, but the complexities of forming a new country brought inevitable delays and 16 September 1963 saw the treaty finally signed.
But the geographical differences could never fully be surmounted. Island Singapore was expelled soon after and the Borneo States have always stood apart. We Sarawakians like to stress that we are special, especially now as an autonomy movement gathers strength; and we are. But so is every other region of this conglomeration of a country. It is a very recent alliance and the reality is a long history of distinct Sultanates, colonisation, migration and settlement which has made each state in Malaysia culturally, socially, economically and historically unique. To the south, the Melaka sultanate and its early encounters with the Portuguese, up to the northernmost point of Kedah and its proximity to the Siamese, the influences are diverse creating the melting pot that is modern Malaysia.
There has never been a time like the present to appreciate the sheer scope and scale of our shared nation. We are all the same country, but made up of multiple worlds. In a time of covid, familiarity breeds comfort: in language, in economy and, perhaps most importantly, in our understanding of the cornucopia of new regulations and legislation that is controlling this pandemic. After all, we have a great deal in common. But, entirely different adventures still await in other corners of our own country. So, for every Sarawakian, here are six great reasons to take a journey to the West.
With no disrespect intended to the Indian community of Sarawak, it is small and, as a result, extremely well integrated. But in West Malaysia, everything Indian is enormous. Gigantic buffets of richly spiced foods, towering thosai, immense and numerous deities, extreme ceremonies redolent with the heady scent of jasmine and long festivals of lights. It all stands out. Nowhere is this better personified than in Batu Caves, a stone’s throw from KL city centre. This site of pilgrimage and the end point of the annual Thaipusam procession, famous for its thousands of flesh piercing devotees, does everything on an epic scale. Since 2006, it has boasted the world’s tallest statue of Lord Murugan, standing at 43m high and glistening gold in the sunshine. But even that is eclipsed by the ascent to the caves themselves, up 272 steps each painted in the primary colours of a 100m high rainbow ladder.
All this climbs up the sides of a 400-million-year-old limestone crag and then into the caves inside. It is simply spectacular. The caves were once occupied by the Temuan, one of the Orang Asli (or original people) communities, but entered recorded history under the eye of colonial administrators in the 1870s. In a cursory connection to Sarawak’s history, the caves also caught the attention of William Hornaday, the famed American naturalist who spent some years in Southeast Asia, in Singapore, Malaya and also Sarawak. Just as Hornaday’s predictions of the future tourism potential of Batu Caves were to be proven true, his advice to the second Rajah on the shape of Sarawak’s museum, as published in a long letter to the Sarawak Gazette in 1878, was a major impetus in its establishment. As the eventual founder of the Bronx Zoo, we can only marvel at what a wonderful modern Tourism Minister Hornaday might have made!
Back to Batu Caves, it was in the 1890s that they became holy for Hindus, when an Indian merchant, K. Thamboosamy Pillai, struck by the resemblance of the cave mouth to the head of a vel – the celestial spear seen clasped in the gilded hand of Lord Murugan – founded a temple in his honour. As a result, it is now one of the most visited Hindu sites outside of India and certainly one of the most popular tourist attractions in Malaysia. It is unmissable – a monument to the enormity of Indian culture in Malaysia and the majesty of its natural environment.
(With two harvests a year to Sarawak’s one, the best time to see fields of green is in March/April or September/October)
Sarawak has over 40 species of rice, cultivated in a patchwork of smallholder farms, either stuck in the mud of the lowlands or clinging to the sides of high hills. So, a trip to Sekinchan is astounding. Situated in Selangor, just a short drive from the capital, this village is a sea of padi fields stretching far out of sight. While, in Sarawak, rice growing has been highly ritualised and remains deeply personal, Sekinchan is a rice industry built on grand economies of scale; irrigated, organised and cultivated to produce one of the highest yields in Malaysia. But despite all the industry, the sight is absolute serenity.
When Sarawakians see rice, they often think seafood, and this fishing village certainly delivers. Watch the boats head out at Pantai Redang and then any number of seafood centres serves up their catch alongside a steaming bowl of Sekinchan’s finest crop. It is a genuine escape, ideal for these uncertain times. If you want to make a wish – prosperity, longevity, good health and a full rice bowl perhaps – then tie a red ribbon round the old wishing tree. If wishes have weight, then this towering tangle of scarlet streamers is unsurpassed.
The British were everywhere at one stage, the sun always setting on some Englishman sipping a gin and tonic on a veranda somewhere after a hard day overseeing the extraction of one mineral or another. Just as gold and antimony irrevocably altered Sarawak with an influx Chinese miners and overseas administrators, Perak was transformed by tin. The city of Taiping is testimony to the tin fortunes of another time. Take a stroll round the Taiping Lake Gardens, the first public park established under the British, rather fittingly on the site of a disused tin mine. In the true Victorian tradition of the recreational garden, it houses the Taiping Zoo where Sarawakians, so well exposed to wildlife, can meet the Malayan tiger and the tapir.
But save some time for the Perak State Museum, the earliest to open on the Peninsula. The strange connections to Sarawak continue here in the lives of the Low family. This museum, worth a visit for the building itself, saw its genesis in the collection of Sir Hugh Low, the fourth resident of Perak and it comprises a glimpse at the varied zoology, botany, ethnology and geology of the state, as well as a fascinating collection of vintage cars outside in the driveway. But Sir Hugh and his son, Hugh Brooke Low, each spent time in Sarawak, the elder collecting for his nurseryman father and the younger in service under the Brooke State. Collectors, administrators and avid documenters both, the Low family have certainly made their mark on the world’s knowledge of both Malaya and Sarawak, now united in modern Malaysia and displayed in the Perak Museum.
Penang can feel just like Sarawak’s capital city, but on steroids. Art adorns almost every wall and the staccato sound of Hokkien fills the air accompanied by the aromatic whiff of the charcoal wok. Penang listed as a world heritage site in 2008, largely as an example of an important interchange of human values over time. This is perhaps why Sarawakians feel so at home here. It is epitomised in Penang’s Street of Harmony, where the Goddess of Mercy Temple, Kapitan Keling Mosque, Sri Mariamman Temple and the St George’s Church sit comfortably side by side. This will be no surprise to any Sarawakian, entirely used to the same style of urban integration.
In fact, Sarawak’s first Rajah, James Brooke, set sail for Southeast Asia already inspired by the exploits of British adventurers such as Stamford Raffles in Singapore and, though he never specifically said so, perhaps also the earlier example of Francis Light of Penang. Though Sarawak steered a more unusual course than Penang as a colonial centre, this spirit of harmony seems to be a shared feature of both. Many Sarawakians are hoping that modern Penang can remain a model for the future of Kuching, both in its preservation of heritage and its celebration of culture, especially through the arts. It is truly inspirational, and Sarawak has imported a lot of ideas. Through festivals, murals, heritage trails and easy island life, Kuching has followed Penang’s lead and then taken it in its own direction. In the end, Penang’s familiar feel makes it easy to feel at home.
Sarawak has no sultan. Once a contested part of the Brunei Sultanate, there was a single Sarawak Sultanate, between 1599 and 1641, under Sultan Tengah, a Prince of Brunei and a second son, supposedly given a seat to the south by his brother to thwart any claim he might make to the throne. But West Malaysia is regal in the extreme with nine sultans from different states taking their turn to be the Agong (King) for a five-year term. Each of these states has a palace fit for a king and Kuala Kangsar is no exception.
The Royal town of Perak, it has many wonderful Perak houses and almost as many amazing palaces, including the official royal residence of the Sultan. Just nearby is the Istana Kenangan (as opposed to Sarawak’s Astana variant), which has recently been under renovation. This evocatively named ‘Palace of Memories’ is the ultimate example of Malay carpentry, built in 1926 by Encik Sepian of Bukit Mertajam without a single nail, but was being restored, we were reliably informed, with timbers sourced from Sarawak.
(AND ALL OTHER LOCAL FOOD)
Ask any Sarawakian: our laksa is the best. There is no debate. Unless you happen to be from Penang, perhaps, whose assam laksa apparently rated 7th out of the 50 most delicious foods in the world in a 2011 CNN poll. That’s not to mention the curry laksas, famous in Melaka and Ipoh, or the endless alternatives across Malaysia and even Southeast Asia. Eat them all, we say! The same goes for ABC (Ais Batu Campur), the shaved ice dessert eaten in almost every state. Get yourself to Ipoh and order one with a huge dollop of durian. Really, it’s delicious. Every familiar food has its own local versions: Kuala Lumpur has its own brand of Hokkien Mee, Penang of Char Kuey Teow, Taiping of Popiah and Ipoh of its own coffee. Just eat first and argue after over which would bring you back for more. There is nothing more Malaysian than that!
