On My Way to Samarkand: Memoirs of a Travelling Writer (36 page)

We left Japan in a sombre and thoughtful mood after visiting the Peace Park at Hiroshima.

~

We flew to Sarawak one Easter and found this Borneo member of the Malaysian Federation one of the most fascinating countries we had been to thus far.

The capital of Sarawak is Kuching, which means ‘Pussycat’ in the Dyak language.

This obviously requires an explanation.

In late 1838 an English soldier touring the sea off Sarawak in his private yacht was summoned to the shore by a boat party of Malays, Dyaks and Chinese, the three races that inhabit the country. Their rajah was dying and he had asked to see the captain of the yacht. The Englishman’s name was Brooke and he’d recently recovered from a near fatal wound sustained during a battle in India. Brooke went with the vizier who was head of the delegation to the bedside of the dying rajah.

The rajah asked Brooke to take over the kingdom for him once he was dead. This astonishing request was followed by the explanation that, if the rajah left it to a Malay, the Dyaks and Chinese would soon depose him through revolution. Similarly with the other two. Jealousies among the three races were rife. It needed someone from another race to rule without favouring any one of the three. He asked only that Brooke impress his courtiers by clearing the sea around Sarawak of pirates, which the Englishman did, his large yacht having a cannon mounted on the bows with which to blow the Dyak pirate canoes out of the water.

It was a massive gamble on the part of the sick rajah. He had no idea what sort of man Brooke might be. He could turn out to be a tyrant. In fact James Brooke was a young man with a sound integrity, ethical character and a strong sense of justice. He ruled wisely and impartially, taking for his palace a modest three-bedroom bungalow and not exploiting the country for its wealth. Part way through his reign he offered the country to Queen Victoria, the Empress of India, but she had heard how well he was ruling Sarawak and said he should continue to do so. The Brookes, or White Rajahs as they were known, ruled Sarawak until 1946, when Sarawak became part of the Malaysian Federation. Each successive Brooke was as upright and honest as the last, all of them insisting that the Malays, Chinese and Dyaks were the equal of any Englishman and to be treated with the utmost respect, a view that was probably not universal among white men in the 1800s.

So, after this potted history, it remains to explain why Kuching translates as ‘pussycat’. When the grand vizier was leading Brooke to the bedside of the rajah they had to enter Kuching. Brooke pointed towards the city and asked, ‘What is it’s name?’ The vizier, no doubt distracted by the state of his master’s health, thought Brooke was pointing to a young cat lying asleep in a doorway. ‘Kuching,’ he said. Later, when Rajah Brooke began referring to the capital as ‘Pussycat’ his subjects did not like to correct him and so the nickname became the name.

I based a nice fat novel on the life of Rajah Brooke, entitled
Shadow-Hawk
, which is one of my best.

Sarawak has very few roads. Transport is mostly by river. Annette and I went down the river system by the usual method, high-speed enclosed launches continuously showing Kung-fu movies at full volume. One is mighty glad when the trip is over. We then went further into the interior, up a fast-flowing river by narrow canoe. There was a man on the bows of the canoe to watch for logs and other dangerous flotsam, of which there was a huge amount. The Dyak tribal long house was deep in the rainforest. There were human skulls hanging from the smoky rafters. Dyaks were once head hunters. Rajah Brooke tried to stamp the practice out, but his orders were rescinded during the Second World War when the Dyaks were told they could take Japanese heads. Some of those skulls I saw were probably on Japanese shoulders at one time.

We were on our own and as usual Annette was given a baby to hold. This is to show that the people have trust in the visitors. On this occasion the infant had on a nappy of sorts, but Annette had learned by now not to wear white trousers when visiting locals. I was taken out and shown how to blow a dart through a blowpipe and how to chuck a spear at a fish. Jolly good fun. We stayed with the long house people for the night, watching the dancing and taking part in the feasting, which was not for us but we just happened to hit on a festival day. Lucky.

The next morning we left for Bako National Park: 2,727 hectares on the tip of the Muaru Tebas peninsula, where huge bearded hogs roamed the campsite and monkeys stole all our biscuits. There was only rice and greens to be had in the park, which was quite wild, and so those monkeys ate better than we did. I really liked Sarawak a lot. Years later we visited friends who were teaching in Brunei and crossed the border into the middle country between Sarawak and Brunei, a country called Saba.

In Saba we had another taste of that beautiful rainforest when we tried to climb Mount Kinabalu. Unfortunately it was a time of torrential rain and we got no further than the base camp. Getting
there
was bad enough, since the vehicle taking us up had to negotiate a track thick with ooze and mud, and kept slipping sideways towards sheer drops of several hundred feet. Saba, and indeed Sarawak, is a land of wide deep caves and still unexplored jungle. Off the side of Mount Kinabalu, halfway up, is a deep largely unexplored valley known as Lows Gully.

In the 1990s a party of soldiers, Chinese and British, went from Hong Kong and descended into Lows Gully. Unfortunately they had only one experienced climber with them, an army corporal, and found they were unable to turn back and ascend the high cliffs down which they had abseiled. Two of the party went off into the rainforest to seek a way out of the steep-sided valley. They were lost for many days, barely survived the ordeal, but finally found a village where they got help.

Saba is also memorable to me for a game of golf. We stayed at a bed-and-breakfast on a beach there. There was a young man in the house who came in carrying a set of golf clubs. I asked him if he would care to take me for a game while I was there. ‘I’m very busy,’ said the young man, a Malay I believe, ‘but my dad would be glad to have a game.’ So his dad duly arrived in a jeep and took me to the golf course. He explained that we needed to have caddies because it gave local people jobs in a country where there was a lot of unemployment. So, accompanied by our caddies, who just happened to be young women – very progressive I thought – we went out on the course. Everyone we met greeted us with exceptional manners and bowed their heads politely. I thought this a wonderful custom and said so to my companion, who was a thick-set man of about fifty with a hell of a golf swing and drive.

‘Oh, they’re not usually this polite to
everyone
,’ he said, smiling at my naivety. ‘It’s only because I’m Chief of Police.’

In Saba we visited the orang utan sanctuary, where rescued youngsters are taken in until they’re fully grown, then released back into the rainforest. No one is very sure whether it works or not, but these gangly red-haired fellows seem to be maintaining their numbers. There are still poachers around, just like with the silverback gorillas in Africa, but control seems tighter in Borneo. One of the ‘inmates’ was an orang utan called Bullet, because he had a rifle round still lodged in his head. This poor chap had to be caged, albeit in a very large space, being subject to fits and bouts of violence due to the condition of his brain.

~

We went several times into China, once the dust of Tiananmen Square had settled. Once was with the History Society and we visited the area on the Pearl River where the 19th Century British had had a ship battle with the Chinese navy. Apparently half-way through the battle, big guns blazing, boarding parties hacking off arms and legs with cutlasses, the Chinese admiral requested a temporary halt to the fighting. He had lost the red button that crowned his velvet cap. The button that proclaimed him to be the Lord High Admiral of the Chinese fleet. The British, bless their cotton socks, agreed to a brief pause. The admiral duly found his button, replaced it, and the battle was allowed to commence again. The Brits won the fight and the admiral was no doubt taken to task by the Chinese emperor, who didn’t like the British selling his subjects the opium they grew in India.

That wasn’t what the fight was about though. The Brits were upset because the emperor had decided not to sell any more rhubarb to the British. I kid you not. Rhubarb, not then grown in UK, was highly prized for its supposed medicinal qualities and those in Britain were devastated to hear the Chinese wouldn’t sell it to them until they stopped supplying opium to their people. Sounds like a very sensible reason for a major war between two great powers, doesn’t it?

Another visit was with Christchurch Kowloon Tong. Our vicar Norman Jones arranged a meeting with the Chinese vicar of an Anglican church in Canton. We had a great time, being shown over the city by the congregation of Christchurch Canton. The vicar, Peter Fan, was a remarkable man who had been imprisoned by the Mao’s Red Guard for seventeen years, his church confiscated and used as a wood store during his incarceration. Immediately he was freed from prison and while we were resident in Hong Kong, he demanded rent from the state for misappropriating his church. I thought that showed immense courage.

Finally, when Pete and Peggy Good were staying with us, we all took a flight to Guilin. Apart from the fact that the plane was very basic and my seat was wet with urine, that the baggage room was reached through a hole that had been knocked in a brickwork wall, and that Peggy freaked out when told the meal she was eating was jellyfish, we had a terrific few days in that beautiful area which is depicted in many Chinese paintings. Usually its a fir tree clinging to a cliff edge. Guilin is limestone country and over millions of years water has turned a large plateau into wonderful blue-tinged mountains. Coming out of the hotel in the morning and looking towards these hills, they seemed to fold into one another, smooth hill upon hill, stretching out into forever. Annette, who had been taking classes in Chinese painting during her time in Hong Kong, drew inspiration from Guilin, the source of a million works of art.

~

By far our best visit was to Malaysia, where Annette and I had been several times before. This particular trek was with Sarah and Rob. They had come to stay with us in Hong Kong for several weeks. Sarah wanted to go into China but Tiananmen Square was still raw and we had been advised by the Foreign Office not to venture over the border. Sarah was disappointed so we suggested backpacking through Malaysia.

The four of us flew to Kuala Lumpur and took a rickety bus across the forested centre to the east coast. Before our journey was halfway over there was one of those huge tropical downpours, of flood proportions, which washed away a bridge over a gully. The driver of the bus acquired a set of planks from a nearby hut which he laid across the chasm. Below was a fast river which would have swallowed anyone who fell. It was getting dark by the time the planks were ready.

Indeed, we all managed the precarious walk across the planks, the young people assisting the elderly, without losing a single soul. Then came the turn of the bus itself. The driver revved the engine while another man guided his wheels onto the start of the two planks. Finally, white-faced, the driver released his brake and shot out over the ravine. We watched in horror as the planks bowed downwards in the middle, thinking that at any moment they would break or fly from under the wheels. Fortunately the planks held and the bus got to our side of the ravine. The driver jumped out, absolutely ecstatic and insisted on shaking hands with every passenger travelling on his vehicle.

That night we took lodgings at a hostel on the coast and asked Rob and Sarah where they would like to go next.

‘Tioman Island,’ they said.

There was a small aircraft that could take us to Tioman in thirty minutes or a slow fishing boat that would take four or five hours. They chose the fishing boat and Annette and I spent the whole time hanging over the gunwales throwing up. When we arrived at the island the rain was coming down like a waterfall. Sarah told me off because I had suggested leaving her anorak behind, knowing she would have been too hot in it. There was a precarious climb up to a make-shift jetty and we then went to find our accommodation – A-frame huts.

The huts let in the rain. There was little food on the island because it was Ramadan and the fishermen had not gone out. No alcohol of course, the island was Muslim. Damp beds, banana porridge and Fanta lemonade. This was to be our lot for the next few days. Rob was appalled and asked a stall holder if he had any chicken.

‘I can kill that one,’ said the man, pointing with his chopper at a skinny pullet that ran beneath the tables. ‘Make you nice curry, sir.’

It made a curry, but nice? Well, better than nothing.

On top of it all, the rain had washed the signatures off our passports and most of the print off our air tickets back to Hong Kong.

Then the sun came out.

Hurrah.

We went for a walk in an ancient forest with trees like cathedrals. Rob was now ecstatic. That man did love his trees. A four-foot monitor lizard dropped from a branch and thrashed away through the undergrowth. One lean snake slid across the path. Magnificent birds flew through the canopy and out over the seashore: hornbills, frigate birds, a sea eagle. We found a crystal clear stream and waterfall where we stripped down to our underwear and bathed. The next day we went in search of coral gardens beneath the waves. Rob learned to snorkel and was in heaven, following the multi-coloured reef fish over their coral lairs. Rob later told me it was the best holiday he had ever had.

We flew back from Tioman, much to the consternation of Sarah, who did not like the flimsy 8-seater aircraft we were in. Below us the rivers were like brown serpents weaving through the rainforest. The shallows and lagoons of the Pacific revealed every shade of green. Again, Rob was fascinated by it all, never having been to the Far East before, with its clear light and brilliantly painted waters and landscapes. He kept borrowing my video camera to capture it all for when he was back in London.