Men want a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. That is what is written in their hearts. That is what little boys play at. That is what men’s movies are about. You just see it. It is undeniable.
– John Eldredge, American author
A ramble into the heart of the Central Highlands straddling the Sarawak-Kalimantan border has never failed to excite the imagination of the avid traveller.
With many six-foot-tall ‘highlanders’ towering over the natives from other tribes in the lowlands, I made my first foray into the highlands more than 30 years ago.
Armed with these stories of giants who etched their images on massive rocks and boulders, I decided to investigate the origins of their tales as I roamed the hinterland.
I had heard about the Seluyah giants who were as tall 11 to 13 feet and seen etched images of these human beings on massive rocks – centuries-old megaliths, monoliths, menhirs and dolmen the giants had erected in Bario.
As the Kelabits and their Lun Dayeh ‘cousins’ shared the same culture, they have formed an association of ‘highlanders’ called Formadat to protect their ancestral land.
To further explore North Kalimantan, I sought the assistance of local cultural experts from Long Bawan – the administrative centre of ‘Kabupaten’, a regency within the Kerayan district.
My adventure commenced after a 1,000km journey by Boeing from Kuching to Miri then by Twin Otter to Limbang-Lawas and Ba’kelalan.
After a night at the ‘Apple Lodge’, its owner and former pastor Tagal Paren sent me off early the next morning.
Our driver Alpius drove us by a four-wheel-drive vehicle through the 15km stretch where we entered foreign territory.
In the old days, the road was a timber track until it was upgraded in 2002 and tarsealed 10 years later.
But alas, over the years the timber trucks continued to plough through creating a muddy track.
Today the stretch resembles a minefield with its many potholes which become ‘craters’ especially during the landas season between October and February.
Our Toyota Hilux continued to rumble through the broken road to Long Bawan – the capital of the Kerayan district – and we passed through the Malaysian and Indonesian immigration and army checkpoints; we had to ‘surrender’ our identity cards to the Tentera Nasional Indonesia (TNI) as the border still was not an official CIQ (Customs, Immigration and Quarantine) border crossing.
Since time immemorial, the Ba’kelalan-Long Bawan stretch had been used by the Lun Dayeh of Indonesia for trade; it was especially essential for the Indonesians because the Kerayan district (also spelt Krayan) was cut off from the rest of Indonesian Borneo.
It was part of East Kalimantan until President Jokowi decided to form a fifth province – Kalimantan Utara (KALTARA) for better administration.
Tagal Paren in his mid-80s said: “For centuries, the people of Kerayan would travel on foot to Ba’kelalan to trade – a journey of at least a day. We felt sorry for them because they are our cousins and are cut off from the rest of Indonesia (it still takes two weeks to walk from Long Bawan to the nearest town off the coast, Malinau) until they built their first airstrip about 15 years ago.”
A member of the Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM), he is the father of two famous politicians – former Lawas MP Mutang Tagal and the late Ba’kelalan assemblyman and an assistant minister Dr Judson Sakai Tagal who was killed in a helicopter crash at the nearby 7,950ft Gunung Murud, Sarawak’s highest mountain, in 2004.
One of my Lun Dayeh associates, a businesswoman Sinang Meru, who was one of the pioneers in the construction of the small Long Bawan airport, recalled that in the old days she had to walk with at least 10 kilos of rice to exchange it for essentials in Ba’kelalan.
Sinang, 47, who still shuttles between Sabah and Long Bawan at least twice a month, recounted: “In the early 1980s it took me two weeks to walk from Long Bawan to Lawas. I remember that when I was about 10, my uncle had to carry me on his shoulders as we crossed a deep and fast running stream.
“Now the road to Ba’kelalan is much improved but there is much to be done because the main connection to Sarawak is not tarsealed and during the rainy season, the 25km Ba Kelalan-Long Bawan stretch can sometimes take as long as five hours,” she lamented.
Despite the upgrading of the Long Bawan airstrip built by American missionaries, there are only a few weekly flights providing one or two airlines and chartered air services which charge exorbitant fares. The other alternative is to fly by the American Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) which charges 50 per cent of its rate for missionaries.
Sinang, whose family were originally from Long Adang, a Kelabit village in Limbang, is also a rice dealer offering competitive prices for Kerayan’s famous aromatic ‘Pade Adan’ (Adan rice) to customers as far as Jakarta.
The Lun Dayeh of Kerayan are the biggest rice growers in the central highlands.
Several years ago the Kelabits were the greatest rice growers who cultivated the famous Bario rice which has found its way to Malaya.
Now growing Bario rice has become a pastime as the educated younger population have left the village for employment.
The dilemma became acute when it was difficult to employ Indonesian workers because of strict immigration laws and low wages. As such ‘Pade Adan’ is re-packed and sold as Bario rice.
Next week: Part 2 – In search of ‘Upai Semaring’ the leaping giant
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
