KAYA looked at us and said with a mysterious smile: “It takes one and half hours to reach the viewing point.”
The track to the viewing point is just behind the beautiful cottage.
Long Bawang town where many cars with Malaysian registration plates can be found.
Starting from 6.30am, we had just taken 10 minutes to walk from the homestay on a trail along the padi field and over a bamboo bridge before climbing up a slope, watchful of every step, to avoid soft mud and buffalo dung and make sure the bamboo bridge could hold our weight.
We were not sure where to go — left or right — right was another padi field with no track in sight while to the left looking down was a small stream leading to another padi field.
Kaya pointed to the left: “See the house over there? That’s where you can walk up the hill to viewing point.”
One and half hours? On Wednesday night, homestay operator Lisa (Eliza) said the locals took half an hour while city dwellers like us would take one hour to get there.
Kaya finally said: “I saw you walk very slowly — it will take one and half hours.”
That was the moment of truth — Kaya, who owns a large part of the padi fields, was walking behind us from the beginning.
We were set to find out the track but put it off to another day as we were scheduled to travel to the Indonesian border at 9am.
The track uphill was just behind the beautiful cottage as we had discovered.
Kaya saw us wandering in the field later, and taking a step up the hill, he said: “The climb has no killer-steps, you can make it.”
Almost there — the viewing point for a panorama of Ba Kelalan. We would tarry one more hour to make it to the top or perhaps after a day or two, we could make it in half an hour like how the locals?
After an hour wandering in the open field, we did feel we were like Julie Andrews, dancing in the mountains in the ‘Sound of Music’ but instead we were singing ‘Wonderful World’ as we headed to Long Bawang, a village on the Indonesian side of the border.
After 20 minutes of rough terrain, we reached the immigration office to declare ourselves before crossing the border.
The immigration post is manned by two staff from Limbang. They told us they were on rotation of two months. So there are six teams of immigration officers manning the post.
The immigration office is a simple wooden house, a detour from the main route, and we would call it miserably furnished.
We salute those officers who volunteer (it’s a voluntary service, we were told) to work here and they sure deserve a pat on their back by our immigration chief, Datu Robert Lian.
We were told by our hosts we would not need our passports but just our identification cards which was a surprise — and also a first for us to not have to use our passports to enter a foreign country.
We then continued to the army camp just another 10 minutes away where we would also need to declare ourselves.
If the immigration post was miserable, then, the army camp was inhumane — a spartan square shelter with a counter and two empty rooms.
There were four army officers on duty — two sleeping in a room, one on the floor and another on a suspended swing. Surely, it was a nice snooze as they weren’t woken up by the noisy journalists!
On our way, we saw a man who just caught a monitor lizard, and showed off his catch as our team leader offered to buy it for between RM20 and RM50. But the man would not part with his precious quarry.
Our team leader was a little disappointed for not being able to buy the reptile as he had initially offered to personally prepare an exotic ‘lizard cuisine’ for his fellow members.
We also saw a herd of buffaloes lazing in a far-off valley. Our tour guide, also our homestay host Porait, said the herd was reared by locals for business purposes.
We finally reached the border after a long bumpy ride — thanks to Porait’s skilful negotiating of every corner.
We produced our immigration clearance letter to the Indonesia National Army (INA) housed in a “palace” if we compared their building with our own — whether immigration or army post.
We reached Long Bawang and were a little surprised by the number of cars with Malaysian registration. Notably, Sabah plates stood out.
Porait chuckled: “A 4WD such as a Toyota Hilux has a price range of RM20,000 to RM50,000 only here in this town.”
If you lost a vehicle, you could probably spot it here.
But we had no evidence and had also been warned we entered as tourists and should remain as such. Perhaps, another day, another time, we could enter as investigative journalists.
We also saw familiar green gas tanks with red handles belonging to Petronas in and around the town.
Porait said Long Bawang has a population of 10,000 and the people here are mostly Lun Bawang. Along the way, he greeted many people whom he said were his relatives.
After a brief stop and some snacks and cuppas at a coffeeshop next to the airport, we headed back to Ba Kelalan, holding in our stomachs as we once again traversed the harsh terrain.
Ba Kelalan is surely more than this — BAT4 has a date with Pak Tagal, the source of legends for Lun Bawang people, and surely we need to go village-hopping.
Remember, in our first account, we reported there are nine villages making up Ba Kelalan.