Brief history
Cave-dwelling hunter-gatherers were living in Sarawak forty thousand years ago. Their isolation ended when the first trading boats arrived from Sumatra and Java around 3000 BC, exchanging cloth and pottery for jungle produce. By the thirteenth century Chinese merchants were dominant, bartering beads and porcelain with the coastal Melanau people for bezoar stones (from the gall bladders of monkeys) and birds’ nests, both considered aphrodisiacs. In time, the traders were forced to deal with the rising power of the Malay sultans including the Sultan of Brunei. Meanwhile, Sarawak was attracting interest from Europe; the Dutch and English established short-lived trading posts near Kuching in the seventeenth century, to obtain pepper and other spices.
With the decline of the Brunei sultanate, civil war erupted early in the eighteenth century. Local rulers feuded, while piracy threatened to destroy what was left of the trade in spices, animals and minerals. In addition, the indigenous groups’ predilection for head-hunting had led to a number of deaths among the traders and the sultan’s officials, and violent territorial confrontations between powerful tribes were increasing.
The White Rajahs
Just when matters were at their most explosive, the Englishman James Brooke took an interest in the area. A former soldier, he helped the Sultan of Brunei quell a rebellion by miners and, as a reward, demanded sovereignty over the area around Kuching. The weakened sultan had little choice but to relinquish control of the awkward territory and in 1841 James Brooke was installed as the first White Rajah of Sarawak. He had essentially created a new kingdom, not formally part of the British Empire.
Brooke built a network of small forts – many are now museums – to repel pirates or tribal warring parties. He also sent officials into the malarial swamps and mountainous interior to make contact with the Orang Ulu. But his administration was not without its troubles. In one incident his men killed dozens of marauding tribesmen, while in 1857 Hakka Chinese gold miners, based in Bau near Kuching, retaliated against his attempts to eliminate their trade in opium and suppress their secret societies. When they attacked Kuching, Brooke got away by the skin of his teeth. His nephew, Charles Brooke, assembled a massive force of warrior tribesmen and followed the miners; in the ensuing battle over a thousand Chinese were killed.
In 1863 Charles Brooke took over and continued to acquire territory from the Sultan of Brunei. River valleys were bought for a few thousand pounds, the local tribes either persuaded to enter into deals or crushed if they resisted. The sultan’s territory had shrunk so much it was now surrounded on all three sides by Brooke’s Sarawak, establishing the geographical boundaries that still define Brunei today.
Charles was succeeded by his son, Vyner Brooke, who consolidated his father’s gains. However, the Japanese occupation of World War II effectively put an end to his control. Vyner escaped, but most of his officials were interned and some executed. Upon his return in 1946, he was compelled to cede Sarawak to the British government. The Brooke dynasty was effectively at an end, and a last link with its past was severed in 2011 when Vyner’s nephew Anthony Brooke, his designated successor who had briefly run Sarawak before World War II while Vyner was in the UK, died.
To the present
With Malaysian independence in 1957, attempts were made to include Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei, but Brunei declined at the last minute to join the present-day Federation of Malaysia, inaugurated in 1963. Sarawak’s inclusion was opposed by Indonesia, and the Konfrontasi broke out, with Indonesia arming communist guerrillas inside Sarawak. The insurgency continued for three years until Malaysian troops, aided by the British, put it down. To this day, many inhabitants of the interior remain displaced.
Since then, Sarawak has developed apace with the rest of Malaysia, though at some cost to the environment. Politically, the state today is closely identified with the policies of its veteran chief minister, Taib Mahmud, a Melanau, who has been in power for thirty years. The support of his PBB party and allied parties has helped prop up the ruling coalition in general elections, and the PBB is often viewed as a proxy for UMNO (Sarawak is the only state where Malaysia’s main Malay party has no presence). There are signs of a backlash, however, brought on perhaps by the rising cost of living, economic disparity and allegations, from international environmental groups as well as Taib’s opponents, that Sarawak’s administration is tainted by corruption. The 2011 local elections saw an unprecedented swing to the opposition in the cities, though the PBB and allies still won through comfortably with the help of rural voters – despite their supposedly being at the sharp end of the government’s liberal attitude to exploiting the state’s natural resources.
Central Sarawak
For travellers, central Sarawak offers rather slim pickings compared to Kuching’s hinterland and the north of the state. Those visitors who venture here tend to be drawn by the prospect of travelling into the interior along the Rejang (also spelled Rajang), Malaysia’s longest river. All such trips start from the bustling city of Sibu, some 50km inland near where another major river, the Igan, splits away from the Rejang. Express boats depart daily to zip up the Rejang to Kapit, beyond which, through the Pelagus Rapids and on to the sleepy town of Belaga, eight hours from Sibu, the Rejang becomes wild and unpredictable and the scenery spectacular. There’s not much to do in either Kapit or Belaga though, and while there are longhouse communities near both, as well as east of Kapit along the Balui River, public transport is thin on the ground, so it’s best to regard the Rejang journey as an end in itself or else fork out for (pricey) local guides to arrange trips for you.
With Sibu being so far from the sea, and the coast here dominated by mangrove swamp, the main trunk road runs deep inland until it finally hits the coast again at Bintulu. Halfway along, a side road leads off through a chink in the vegetation to the coastal town of Mukah, which has an appealing museum-cum-guesthouse nearby. Bintulu itself is a nondescript but (thanks to oil and gas) prosperous town, whose main attraction is as a base for Similajau National Park, easily reached yet appealingly quiet.
The Bakun Dam
The massive Bakun hydroelectric dam (wsarawak-hidro.com), 37km east of Belaga on the Balui tributary of the Rejang, has been dogged by controversy since the project got the go-ahead in the 1990s. The 200-metre-high dam was designed to generate 2400 megawatts – much more power than Sarawak could use – but construction would flood an area of rainforest the size of Singapore, displacing ten thousand Orang Ulu and destroying many thriving longhouses.
Furious environmentalists and human-rights campaigners asked what was the point, and for years their concerns seemed vindicated as the dam was beset by delays. First, the Asian economic crisis of 1997 put the project on hold, but even so the government continued to resettle local communities to Asap, two hours’ drive along the logging road connecting Belaga with the coast. When construction resumed it lumbered on until, in mid-2011, the dam finally began operation. However, it will not run at anything near capacity, since there is still no obvious market for the surplus power (one idea, to lay a submarine cable to Peninsular Malaysia, would be technically challenging and prohibitively expensive). Despite this, yet another dam is already being built just upriver at Long Murum, and there’s talk of building yet more dams on the Rejang and Baram rivers.
Attempts have already begun to create tourist facilities at the dam lake, as has been tried with limited success at Batang Ai and Tasik Kenyir in Terengganu. Sibu’s tourist office has details of a Kenyah longhouse that accepts guests, and whose inhabitants have a fishing lodge on the lake itself.
Up the Batang Rejang
Even though it’s a much diminished experience compared to even ten or fifteen years ago, a journey to the upper reaches of the Rejang should still engender a little frisson of excitement. This area was, after all, once synonymous with remoteness and with mysterious warring tribes. Even a century ago, conflict persisted between the Iban and the Orang Ulu, particularly the Kayan. Things had been much worse before the arrival of the Brookes, who wanted to develop – and therefore subjugate – the interior. To that end, James Brooke bought a section of the Rejang from the Sultan of Brunei in 1853, while his successor, Charles, asserted his authority over the Iban and Kayan tribes and encouraged the Chinese to open up the interior to agriculture and trade.
Thus began the gradual pacification of the Rejang. Even today, despite development and modern communications, it’s still possible to glimpse something of that pioneer spirit in these upriver towns, while forts at Kanowit and Kapit hint at the lengths taken by the Brookes to get the region under their thumb. The furthest boats go upriver is the nondescript town of Belaga, reached by a thrilling ride through the Pelagus Rapids. There is, however, another exciting route into or out of Belaga – by 4WD, the road connecting up with the main trunk road near Bintulu. Unfortunately longhouse visits can be difficult to pull off – notable exceptions are a family-friendly longhouse near Kanowit and possible excursions from Belaga – unless you are willing to pay often steep sums for guides to make the arrangements.
Belaga
Belaga-bound boats make frequent stops upriver from Kapit, and some passengers decamp to the roof for views of longhouses as the Rejang narrows. Forty minutes from Kapit, the Pelagus Rapids is an 800m-long, deceptively shallow stretch of the river where large, submerged stones make the through passage treacherous. According to local belief, the rapids’ seven sections represent the seven segments of an enormous serpent that was chopped up and floated downriver by villagers to the north. Further upriver, the population shifts from being largely Iban to featuring a mix of other tribes, including the Kayan and Kenyah.
Five hours on from Kapit, the boat finally reaches tiny BELAGA, 40km west of the confluence of the Rejang and the Balui. The town started life as a small bazaar, and by 1900 pioneering Chinese towkays were supplying the tribespeople – both the Kayan and the then-nomadic Punan and Penan – with kerosene, cooking oil and cartridges, in exchange for beadwork and mats, beeswax, ebony and tree gums. The British presence in this region was nominal; Belaga has no crumbling fort to serve as a museum, as no fort was built this far upriver.
The first sight that confronts new arrivals climbing the steps from the riverbank is the town’s slightly shabby tennis and basketball court. Next door a small garden serves as the town square, containing a hornbill statue atop a traditional-style round pillar bearing tribal motifs. There are only half a dozen streets and alleys in the centre, and while quite a few shops sell provisions, there’s no market, though Orang Ulu traders may arrive at weekends to sell jungle produce in the streets.
Having made it all the way here, the best thing you can do is luxuriate in Belaga’s tranquillity, a welcome contrast from Kapit. Short walks lead through the Malay kampung just downriver or along the start of the logging road at the back of town (head away from the river till you hit the street with the town’s bank, turn left – south – and keep going), head out this way and you’ll spot quite a few surprisingly smart modern houses. In the morning, picturesque mists settle on the Rejang, while in the evening you can play pool with the local youths (there’s a small venue on the main street, Jalan Teo Tia Kheng, facing the square).
Kapit
KAPIT is the main commercial centre upriver from Sibu, and it looks it too, trapped in an architectural no-man’s-land between the modern town it could become and the rustic backwater it was a generation ago. New municipal buildings and even a small shopping complex springing up right on the riverbank are pulling focus from the nondescript concrete blocks of earlier decades, and the place feels like an utter jumble, despite a certain appealing energy. If you do end up in Kapit, you may well stay the night – either because you can’t face the journey to Belaga in one go or because this is as far as you intend to get – so it’s just as well that it holds a couple of minor sights, notably the old fort. Although the town holds several banks and a couple of internet cafés, there’s not much else to do beyond wandering the riverbank or having a look around the town’s market.
The Kayan and Kenyah
The Kayan and the Kenyah are the most populous and powerful of the Orang Ulu groups who have lived for centuries in the upper Rejang and, in the northern interior, along the Batang Baram. The Kayan are more numerous, at around forty thousand, while the Kenyah population is around ten thousand (with substantially more Kenyah over the mountains in Kalimantan). Both groups migrated from East Kalimantan into Sarawak roughly six hundred years ago; they were pushed back to the lands they occupy today during the nineteenth century, when Iban migration led to clashes between the groups.
The Kayan and the Kenyah have a fair amount in common: their language, though of the same family as the other Bornean tongues and Malay, has a singsong quality that sounds like Chinese, and they have a well-defined social hierarchy, unlike the Iban or Penan. Traditionally, the social order was topped by the tuai rumah (chief) of the longhouse, followed by a group of three or four lesser aristocrats or payin, lay families and slaves (slavery no longer exists). Both groups take pride in their longhouses, which can be massive.
Kayan art
Artistic expression plays an important role in longhouse culture. The Kayan especially maintain a wide range of musical traditions including the lute-like sape, used to accompany long voice epics. Textiles are woven by traditional techniques in the upriver longhouses, and Kayan and Kenyah woodcarvings, among the most spectacular in Southeast Asia, are produced both for sale and for ceremonial uses. One artist, Tusau Padan, originally from Kalimantan, became much revered. He used mixed media of vibrant colours to create the flowing motifs he applied to painting and textiles – adorning burial poles, longboats and the walls of many Ulu Sarawak chiefs’ homes. Some Kayan still drink potent rice wine, although now that nearly all the communities have converted to Christianity, alcohol is harder to come by.
Rejang boats
One explanation for the nickname “flying coffins” – formerly attached jokingly to the Rejang express boats – is that they are indeed long and narrow, and feature aircraft-like seating. Otherwise they are serviceable, if not massively comfortable or user-friendly: boarding means stepping off the jetty onto the boat’s rim or gunwale and walking around until you reach the entrance hatch. You may also have to fling your luggage atop the roof yourself, although sometimes staff are on hand to help load and unload.
Several companies operate the boats, but look out for people selling Bahagia and Husqvarna tickets at the boat terminal; both stand out for having more comfortable boats that are also more likely to leave on time and to have windows through which you can see clearly – though the jungle views get monotonous after a while. Otherwise you’ll have to be entertained by the onboard DVDs of Hong Kong soaps or gory Hollywood action flicks.
The coast from Sibu to Bintulu
The drive from Sibu to Bintulu is mundane, the roadscape lacking the grandeur of southwest Sarawak’s mountains, with occasional glimpses of (usually modern) longhouses by the highway to perk up your spirits. The chief point of interest on this coastal stretch is Similajau National Park, a strip of forest with isolated beaches half an hour’s drive beyond the industrial town of Bintulu. With plenty of time, you could also get a dose of the culture of the largely Muslim Melanau people by diverting off the trunk road to the small coastal town of Mukah. While not of huge interest in itself, it’s a potential base for the Melanau village of Kampung Tellian, which has an interesting heritage centre, Lamin Dana, that you can also stay at.
Bintulu
Forty years ago, BINTULU was little more than a resting point en route between Sibu (220km to the southwest) and Miri (210km northeast). Since large natural gas reserves were discovered offshore in the 1960s, however, speedy expansion has seen Bintulu follow in Miri’s footsteps as a primary resources boom town. Today some quite prosperous neighborhoods can be seen on the outskirts, though the old centre remains as unassuming as ever. In some ways it’s reminiscent of Sibu – lacking Sibu’s few sights, but with somewhat better eating. There are only two reasons why you might want to stop over: to use Bintulu as a base for the excellent Similajau National Park or, if you’re heading south from Miri, as a springboard for Belaga and the Batang Rejang. You can also reach Niah National Park from Bintulu, though it’s easier from Miri as backpacker lodges there organize trips, while any express bus headed to Miri can drop you at Lambir Hills National Park.
Similajau National Park
With its sandy beaches broken only by rocky headlands and freshwater streams, the seventy-square-kilometre Similajau National Park has something of the appeal of the highly popular Bako, near Kuching. Enjoyable trekking makes for a great day-trip, and there’s even good, reasonably priced accommodation – if only the place were served public transport, it would figure much more in visitors’ itineraries. Though wildlife is not a major highlight, the park is well known for its population of saltwater crocodiles (signs along the creeks pointedly warn against swimming), with a few dolphins also sighted each year off the coast outside the rainy season. Birdlife includes black hornbills and, in the mangroves, kingfishers.
Sibu
From its humble 1850s origins as a tiny Melanau encampment, SIBU has grown into Sarawak’s third largest city and its biggest port. Nearly half its quarter-million population are ethnic Chinese. Unusually for Malaysia, many are Foochow, descended from migrants from what’s now Fuzhou in southeast China. Their diligence is often credited with helping the city become the commercial centre it is today. Its Foochow flavour aside, Sibu is also identified with Sarawak’s controversial logging industry, which helped the city recover from the Japanese occupation, when many Chinese were forced into slave labour. Sibu subsequently became, for a time, the centre for timber processing in Sarawak. Investors, many drawn from long-established Chinese families, made large fortunes as a result.
Today the city retains one glaringly obviously link with the timber industry – its tallest building, a downtown office and shopping development, is the headquarters of the major logging concern, Sanyan. More interesting for visitors are an excellent though small history museum and the city’s waterfront, with its Chinese temple nearby. Boasting a huge central market, too, Sibu has enough to keep you occupied for half a day, which is just as well as most travellers en route to or from the upper Rejang spend at least a night here.
Sarawak's northern coast
North of Bintulu, the scenery along the main trunk road is increasingly dominated by oil-palm estates; if you’re driving, the quiet coastal highway is a more scenic option for the 210km drive to Miri, Sarawak’s second largest city. Though boasting no important sights, Miri is nearly as important a gateway to Sarawak as Kuching, thanks to good flight connections and its location amid the riches of northern Sarawak, mostly deep inland and requiring days to explore properly. A couple of national parks lie close to the coast south of Miri: Niah is noted for its formidable limestone caves, while Lambir Hills offers more predictable jungle trekking.
Sarawak’s northern coastal strip is also home to Lawas, near the Sabah state boundary. It has an air connection to Ba Kelalan that’s useful if you want to see the Kelabit Highlands immediately after or before visiting Sabah.
Lambir Hills National Park
If you haven’t had your fill of classic rainforest elsewhere in Malaysia, then Lambir Hills, the closest national park to Miri, is especially worth considering. Popular with day-trippers at weekends, it holds some pleasant trails – though leeches can be annoying – and also good accommodation. Mixed dipterocarp forest makes up over half the park, with giant hardwood trees such as meranti, kapur and keruing creating deep shadows on the forest floor; there’s also kerangas forest, with its peat soils and scrubby vegetation.
The trails
The park’s most popular trail, the short Latak trail passes three waterfalls. The furthest – Latak itself, 1.5km or 30min from the park office – is the nicest, its 25m cascade feeding an alluring pool, but is inevitably busy at the weekends.
The Inoue trail from the park office joins the Lepoh–Ridan trail half an hour along, which leads after about an hour to three more falls, Dinding, Tengkorong and Pancur; swimming isn’t allowed at the last two as their pools are deep. The end of the Lepoh–Ridan trail marks the start of the trek to the top of Bukit Lambir (2hr 30min one-way from here; set off by 10am from the park office to be back by sunset). It’s a tough but rewarding climb with a wonderful view across the park.
Miri
Before oil was discovered in 1882, MIRI was a tiny, unimportant settlement. While production has now shifted offshore, the petroleum industry largely accounts for the thriving city of today, with a population of 300,000. Some of Miri’s earliest inhabitants were pioneering Chinese merchants who set up shops to trade with the Kayan longhouses southeast along the Batang Baram, and the city retains a strong Chinese flavour, though the Iban and Malays are also well represented, along with a significant number of Orang Ulu.
Now blandly modern for the most part, Miri makes a surprisingly pleasant base from which to see northern Sarawak; visitors generally wind up staying longer than expected, sometimes in several stints interspersed with trips into the interior. In terms of sights, it holds one museum focusing on – guess – the oil industry, plus a few markets and an okay stretch of beach – in short, nothing compelling. Where Miri shines is in its great restaurants, accommodation and air connections. The hub for MASwings’ services to the tiny settlements of the interior (see Twin Otters), Miri also has flights to Kuching, KK, KL and Singapore.
Niah National Park
NIAH NATIONAL PARK, ninety minutes’ drive south of Miri, is practically a compulsory visit even if you’re already caved out from visiting Mulu. Yes, its main attractions are massive limestone caves, but there any similarity with Mulu ends. Whereas almost all excursions at Mulu are regimented and chaperoned, visitors at Niah simply wander the caves at will, in places stumbling along tunnels – lightless but for your own torch – like questers from The Lord of the Rings. Elsewhere the caves are alive, with not just bats but people, who harvest bat guano and swiftlet nests for much of the year. This potent combination of vast caverns, communities at work, the rainforest and Niah’s archeological significance – it’s famous for prehistoric cave paintings and early human settlement – makes even a day-trip to Niah a wonderful experience. It is indeed possible to see much of Niah in a day: allow two to three hours to get from the park offices to the most distant caves, with breaks along the way.
Sarawak's northern interior
For visitors who take the time and trouble to explore it, Sarawak’s northern interior often ends up being the most memorable part of their stay. Some of the wildest, most untouched parts of Sarawak are interspersed, sometimes in close proximity, with badly degraded patches, thus putting everything you may have read about the state’s environmental problems into sharp relief. The timber industry has been systematically logging here since the 1960s, with tracts of land already under oil palm or being cleared to grow it, yet the rugged terrain still offers fabulous trekking – something most visitors only experience at Gunung Mulu National Park, with its limestone Pinnacles and extensive caves.
As central Sarawak has the Rejang, so the north has its major river system, the Batang Baram. There the resemblance ends, for only the lowest part of the Baram – from Marudi, 50km southeast of Miri, to the river mouth at Kuala Baram near the Brunei border – has anything like a proper boat service, and that stretch is any case devoid of sights. Further upriver, the days of being able to just turn up and find a longboat and someone who can pilot it have long since gone. Much travel is therefore by small aircraft or 4WD, using the spider’s web of logging roads, which adds to the outback feel. Anyone wanting to get off the beaten track will most likely have to talk to the Miri tour operators, who have contacts with boatmen and drivers and can arrange accommodation in towns with hardly any formal places to stay. That said, it is possible to visit remote Penan settlements in the upper Baram using a homestay programme, though this doesn’t come cheap.
Mulu aside, the highlight is the lush Kelabit Highlands, accessible by air, where the pleasant climate is ideal for long treks in the rainforest. Of much lesser significance unless you’re an avid birdwatcher is Loagan Bunut National Park, some distance off the Miri–Bintulu road and difficult to visit independently.
Gunung Mulu National Park
GUNUNG MULU, Sarawak’s premier national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is named after the 2376m mountain at its heart. Modern explorers have been coming here since Spenser St John in the 1850s, who didn’t reach the summit of Gunung Mulu but wrote inspiringly about the region in Life in the Forests of the Far East. A more successful bid in 1932 saw Edward Shackleton, son of the Antarctic explorer, get to the top during a research trip organized by Tom Harrisson.
The park’s best-known feature, however, is atop another mountain, Gunung Api – the dozens of fifty-metre-high razor-sharp limestone spikes known as the Pinnacles. It is to catch sight of them – a three-day trek, there and back, from the park offices – and of the park’s incredible network of caves, that visitors stream into Mulu (as the park is generally known) year-round. The park contains the largest limestone cave system in the world, formed when surface water eroded vast amounts of material, dividing the limestone belt that runs southwest–northeast across the middle of the park into separate mountains as well as carving cave passages within. Most people see some or all four of the dramatic show caves, though other caves are accessible on adventure packages and yet more are still being explored (wmulucaves.org).
Attractions aside, Mulu is a national park like no other in Sarawak, for the simple reason that it has been privatized. While the Sarawak Forestry Corporation remains in overall charge, most things to do with tourism, including the accommodation, is now run by Borsarmulu, the firm that owns the Royal Mulu Resort a few kilometres away. Now Mulu feels more Singapore than Sarawak: tours are timetabled and formatted, and you can explore few parts of the park unaccompanied. The tours are certainly well run, the guides are better communicators than at any other Sarawak park, and close supervision has helped prevent the poaching of valuable plants – but if it were possible to make the jungle somehow corporate, this is it. The only way to avoid taking the tours is by having your own registered guide, which enables you to book boat charter and accommodation on the trails separately, though this only makes sense if you are in a group.
The caves
The show caves – Clearwater, Wind, Lang’s and Deer – are a must, though the interest can begin to wane if you see all four. If you’re doing a Pinnacles trek, the cost will usually include a tour of the Clearwater and Wind caves. If not, and you don’t want to spend ages underground, opt for the Lang’s and Deer caves – the last is the most impressive of the lot – then hang around for the incredible “changing of the guard”, when the bats leave Deer Cave at sunset. Tours of these caves fill up quickly, so book as soon as your plans are fixed. It’s also possible to do tours of Lagang Cave, where obscure cave-dwelling fauna is the highlight, plus more challenging caving trips.
The Pinnacles
Five million years ago, the splatter of raindrops gradually dissolved Gunung Api’s limestone and carved out the Pinnacles – fifty-metre-high shards, as sharp as samurai swords – from a solid block of rock. Erosion is still continuing and the entire region is pockmarked with deep shafts penetrating far into the heart of the mountain: one third of Gunung Api has already been washed away, and in another ten million years it might all be gone.
The chance to view the Pinnacles draws many visitors to Mulu, and the trek offers exactly that, by heading not to the Pinnacles but to a ridge across the way from where you can take everything in. It’s a three-day, two-night hike, but only the ascent of the steep final ridge and the awkward descent are genuinely demanding; you will ache afterwards in places that may never have ached before. That said, if you’re reasonably fit and suitably equipped, you should cope fine, and the guides put safety first and make allowances as appropriate for the slower members of their group. With whomever you arrange the trek, book or make enquiries at least a week in advance; base camp, Camp 5, sleeps fifty people, so there’s a firm ceiling on the number of climbers per day. The park itself charges RM325 for the trek, including accommodation but no food; tour operators offer similar packages, as well as the Headhunters’ Trail north of the Pinnacles.
Gunung Mulu
The route to the summit of Gunung Mulu (2376m) was first discovered in the 1920s by Tama Nilong, a Berawan rhinoceros-hunter. Earlier explorers had failed to find a way around the huge surrounding cliffs, but Nilong followed rhinoceros tracks along the southwest ridge trail, and thus enabled Lord Shackleton to become the first mountaineer to reach the summit in 1932. It’s still an arduous climb, a 48km round trip that usually takes four days. Few visitors attempt it, but with enough notice, the park office can usually arrange it for groups of three or more. Expect to pay around RM400 per person, including accommodation and a guide, though you’ll have to bring provisions and sleeping bags; a porter costs around RM100 extra.
Day 1, for most groups, is usually spent heading to Camp 3 roughly midway along the route, passing Camp 1 en route (there is no Camp 2). The trek takes you from the limestone belt that most tourists associate with Mulu into sandstone terrain that dominates the southeast of the park. On day 2 you spend the night 1800m up at Camp 4. Most climbers set off well before dawn on day 3 for the hard ninety-minute trek to the summit, if possible arriving there at sunrise. Big clumps of pitcher plants dot the final stretch, though it’s easy to miss them as by this point you are hauling yourself up by ropes onto the cold, windswept, craggy peak. From here, the view is exhilarating, looking down on Gunung Api and, on a clear day, far across the forest to Brunei Bay. Once again you spend the night at Camp 4. Day 4 is a very full day as the aim is to get right back to the park HQ by nightfall.
The Kelabit Highlands
Right up against the Kalimantan border, 100km southeast of Gunung Mulu, the long, high plateau of the Kelabit Highlands has been home to the Kelabit people for hundreds of years. Western explorers had no idea this self-sufficient mountain community existed until the early twentieth century, and the Highlands were literally not put on the map until World War II, when British and Australian commandos, led by Major Tom Harrisson, used Kelabit settlements as bases during a guerrilla war against the occupying Japanese. Before Harrisson’s men built an airstrip at Bario, trekking over inhospitable terrain was the only way to get here – it took two weeks from the nearest large town, Marudi, on the opposite side of Mulu. When missionaries arrived and converted the animist Kelabit to Christianity after the war, many traditions, like burial rituals and wild parties called iraus (where Chinese jars full of rice wine were consumed) disappeared. Many of the magnificent Kelabit megaliths associated with these traditions have been swallowed up by the jungle, but some dolmens, urns, rock carvings and ossuaries used in funeral processes can still be found, so the region draws archeologists and anthropologists from far and wide. The Kelabit are not the only inhabitants of this part of the state, however; there are also populations of Penan and Lun Bawang (formerly called the Murut).
Despite logging in the Bario area, the Highlands remain generally unspoiled, with occasional wildlife sightings and a refreshing climate – temperatures are only a few degrees lower than in Miri by day, but at night they can drop to an untropical 15°C (60°F). As such the region is a great target for walkers, and it is easily accessible by air, with three villages served by MASwings. Most visitors head to Bario or Ba’ Kelalan as they have formal accommodation, but the real point of being here is to get out into the countryside, doing day-walks or longer treks through the jungle, on which you can be hosted in little settlements or longhouses en route. It’s also possible to do more challenging treks up to the peaks of the Pulong Tau National Park (which has no facilities and no one to collect the entrance fee), notably Gunung Murud. There are no banks, so bring enough cash to cover board and lodging plus guiding/trekking fees.
Gunung Murud
Barring the way between Bario to the south and Ba’ Kelalan to the northeast, Gunung Murud is the highest peak in Sarawak at 2423m, and is part of the Pulong Tau National Park. It presents a challenging but rewarding trek, with spectacular views across the Highlands to Batu Lawi and even Mulu. From Ba’ Kelalan, it takes six days there and back; from Bario, allow one day extra.
Leaving Ba’ Kelalan, trekkers generally head to Lepo Bunga (8hr) on the first night, traversing some steep hills. In the past, people saved a day by using a 4WD on this leg, but the logging road has fallen into disrepair; check whether it’s once again usable. On day 2 the target is Church Camp (4–5hr) – a wooden shelter built by local Lun Bawang evangelical groups for a three-day Christian meeting held once a year, and otherwise deserted. The next morning sees the haul up to the summit (3hr) via the Rock Garden, an exposed area of stunted trees and sharpish boulders. After another night back at Church Camp, you retrace your steps back to Ba’ Kelalan.
If you’re starting from Bario, the first day is spent reaching Pa’ Lungan, where you stay the night. The next day brings a trek to a simple wooden shelter at Long Rapung (7hr), with about half an hour’s worth of climbing en route. On day 3 some guides head to Church Camp (7hr), others to the slightly nearer Camp 2 at Long Belaban, with hammocks to sleep in (5–6hr), though you have to ford a few streams en route and climb for a couple of hours at the end of the day. If you start from Camp 2, day 4 is gruelling, the climb up to the summit beginning at dawn (6hr); the descent usually means heading to the Rock Garden and Church Camp (4hr). On day 5 you head back to Camp 2 for the night; it’s then possible, with some effort, to get all the way back to Pa’ Lungan on day 6.
Loagan Bunut National Park
Loagan Bunut National Park, best visited on an overnight trip, is a good spot for the dedicated birdwatcher, boasting stork-billed kingfishers and hornbills among many other species. Many live around the park’s lake, Tasik Bunut, tucked away on the upper reaches of the Teru River, a tributary of the Tinjar, which in turn flows into the Baram. During prolonged dry spells, when the lake level drops drastically, a peculiar form of fishing, which the local Berawan people call selambau, is carried out. Just before the lake dries out, fishermen use giant spoon-shaped wooden frames to scoop up any fish that haven’t escaped down the lake’s two watercourses.
For birds, these dry times are a perfect time to feed too, and in May and June the surrounding peat-swamp forest supports breeding colonies of such species as darters, egrets and bitterns. Initially the lake can appear huge, its edges hard to detect as the sunlight is often hazy; however, it’s only around 500m wide and 1km long. Small cabins built on rafts house Berawan fishermen, while around them lies an intricate network of fishing plots, with underwater nets and lines tied to stakes pushed into the lake bed. The best times to drift by boat across the lake are early morning and dusk, when the birds are at their most active.
Twin Otters
One entertaining aspect of travel in the northern interior is the chance to fly on Twin Otters, 19-seater propeller planes. More formally known as the de Havilland DHC-6, the Twin Otter can turn on the proverbial dime and take off from a standing start in around ten seconds, making it ideally suited to the tiny airfields hereabouts. As such, the plane forms the backbone of the Rural Air Services operated by Malaysia Airlines subsidiary MASwings, mostly out of Miri (though it’s not used for Mulu, where the airport can take larger aircraft).
As the Twin Otter isn’t pressurized – you can see daylight around the door rim – it doesn’t fly above 3000m, and affords great views of the north’s mountain ranges. That MASwings’ Twin Otters are 30 years old and slightly shabby (though perfectly serviceable) only adds to the experience; the cabin will be fan-cooled and the cockpit door may well be open, letting you see what the pilots are up to.
On a practical note, passengers sit where they like, and luggage is limited to ten kilos per person (you may well have to weigh yourself at check-in so staff know the laden weight of the plane). At some airfields, departing passengers are slapped with a “service fee” of RM10–15 atop the taxes included in ticket prices. Levied by the small private concerns that run the airfields, these fees appear to be condoned by the authorities. Finally, while flights are seldom cancelled except in very gusty or stormy weather, note that the planes get booked solid during public and school holidays and over Christmas and New Year, when you may have to reserve weeks in advance.
The Ulu Baram
The Baram river system so dominates northern Sarawak that you could consider virtually all the interior here, excepting Limbang division, to be the Ulu Baram – practically every river, including the Melinau and Tutoh at Mulu, the Tinjar at Loagan Bunut and the Dapur and Kelapang at Bario, ends up flowing into the Baram. The Batang Baram itself, however, wends its way more or less constantly southeast from the town of Marudi, 80km from Miri, occasionally passing little confluence towns such as Long Lama and Long San, before approaching the border with Kalimantan. Here it swings east to peter out beyond Lio Matoh, 200km southeast of Miri. This Ulu Baram, due south of Mulu and southwest of the Kelabit Highlands, is definitely outback territory, rugged and lushly forested, though not spared the attention of the logging companies, whose roads penetrate even here. There are, of course, no specific sights; the reason you might venture here is to trek through virgin rainforest and stay in remote settlements as part of a homestay programme.
The Penan
For some travellers, the Penan have a mystique beyond that of any of Sarawak’s many Orang Ulu groups, as a kind of poster child for the ongoing struggle for native peoples’ rights. That status is largely thanks to the high-profile campaign waged on their behalf by the Swiss activist Bruno Manser in the 1980s and 1990s. Manser lived with the Penan for many years and became a thorn in the side of the Sarawak government, successfully drawing the world’s attention to the destruction of their traditional forest habitat, though his PR successes had little impact on the juggernaut that is Sarawak’s logging industry. The Penan lost their champion when Manser disappeared in 2000, having trekked alone from Bario to meet the Penan in the jungle; he was never seen again, but the campaign he founded soldiers on (wbmf.ch).
Most of Sarawak’s twelve thousand Penan live in the upper reaches of the Baram and Belaga rivers. Their language is of the same family as Iban and Malay. Traditionally they were nomadic hunter-gatherers, but these days the vast majority live in tiny villages – thanks not simply to habitat loss but also to the inescapable embrace of the outside world and the cash economy. Their old staple of sago has often been supplanted by rice, which the Penan grow like the Iban, in jungle clearings using shifting cultivation. Many Penan still struggle to make ends meet, both in towns where they may be in poorly paid work, and in their villages, where food is in reasonable supply but cash hard to come by. Another perennial problem is the lack of formal identity documents, without which many Penan cannot access services, education and jobs.
Penan homestays
It’s possible to visit Penan settlements near Lio Matoh (see map), such as Long Kerong close to the Selungo River, and Long Lamai on the Balong, as part of a scheme calling itself Picnic with the Penan (picnicwiththepenan.org). The experience is similar to visiting tiny villages in the Kelabit Highlands, but much more cut off from the wider world. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come cheap. As this area has, to an extent, resisted the blandishments of the logging industry, logging roads and bridges are fewer and further between, and expensive boat charter is required to reach the villages. Furthermore, while MASwings flies to Long Banga near Lio Matoh, until (and if) the logging roads there are repaired, you will have to fly into Long Akah or Long Lellang, 50km away, and then head in by 4WD – another major expense. For more information on flights, see Arrival By plane. For these reasons a group of three is ideal, the most the longboats can carry with luggage.
When you finally arrive, however, the rewards can be considerable. There are ample chances to trek through dense, unspoiled jungle, using “trails” hacked out by your guide with a machete, spending the night perhaps in a simple hut of the type the Penan erect near their fields, or in a makeshift shelter that your guide might build using branches and leaves. From the Selungo River it’s also possible to climb Gunung Murud Kecil (“Little Murud”; 2112m), at the opposite end of the Tama Abu Range from its larger and more famous sibling. Bring similar gear to what you’d need in the Kelabit Highlands.
Village life can itself be a highlight. Local people can teach crafts such as basket-making, and then there’s the simple pleasure of bathing in the river with the villagers, or the spectacle of being at the simple village church on Sunday (many Penan belong to the evangelical Sidang Injil Borneo or SIB movement, which has churches throughout Sarawak); it’s great to witness hymns sung in Penan with the village youths showing off their self-taught skills on guitar, keyboards and drums. After the rice is planted (June) or harvested (February), you can even accompany the men as they hunt wild pig, aided by dogs, blowpipes and the odd antique rifle.
On the downside, the usual caveats about Malaysia homestays are especially valid here. One key point is that villagers take turns to put up guests, so quite how adept your hosts will be is a matter of luck. You may have your own room or space, or sleep alongside everyone and their screaming babies; meals can be meagre and there may be little to drink other than tepid, weak and sickly sweet coffee. Communication is another problem as few villagers speak good English.