(From fourth right) Lee, Abdul Karim and Henry releasing the birds during the official reopening ceremony of the Golden Hill Temple at Tasik Biru. – Photo by Chimon Upon
KUCHING (Feb 8): The 200-year-old Golden Hill Taoist Temple near Tasik Biru at Bau has officially reopened today following the completion of renovation works.
Carried out by Tecktonic & Sons Holdings Sdn Bhd, the renovation was done as part of the efforts to rejuvenate areas surrounding the iconic Tasik Biru lake into a tourism hotspot.
Speaking at the reopening ceremony today, Tecktonic & Sons Holdings Sdn Bhd managing director Lee Chin Teck, fondly known as ‘Ah Teck’, said his team visited the temple about two years ago and the place was in a shabby condition.
“I have beautified the temple now by putting up new roofing, new colours for the building, installed new tiles, and carried out some landscaping work. My architect has also designed a 30-meter glass bridge overlooking the lake for the temple,” he said today.
One major challenge faced by the company was the lack of accessibility to the temple.
He said they needed to build a road leading up to the temple to transport construction materials, piling machines and excavators for the renovation works.
“I also constructed a juggle trekking pathway for visitors to come up to visit the temple,” he said.
Since the completion of the renovation works, Lee said about 3,000 people visited the place on the second day of the Lunar New Year festival this year, including visitors from as far as Indonesia.
Meanwhile, on other development projects by Tecktonic & Sons Holdings Sdn Bhd, Lee said the much talked-about Roxy Impiana Hotel project in Kuching, known to some as the ‘ghost’ hotel, will be completed before Gawai this year, to offer 50 rooms, six apartments and a sky bar.
As for the Tasik Biru resort city project which is divided into two phases, Lee said the plan was to build 26 units of shophouses, villas around the lake, a LePaPa hypermarket, a serviced apartment building, a hotel, a chair lift, a gold museum, and a theme park.
On that note, Lee said he strongly believed that the towns of Semantan, Lundu, Bau and Siniawan can be transformed into beautiful tourism zones.
“On my part here as the developer and our ‘Ah Teck’ team, I will make sure all of the projects become a reality. There is a Chinese proverb saying live in the present. I am an action man and I don’t talk much.
“Our ‘Ah Teck’ team will bring all the development to the areas surrounding Tasik Biru in the next three years. I will make sure we turn these abandoned Tasik Biru areas into a vibrant and colourful resort city,” he said.
Lee said the plan to transform Tasik Biru into a resort city was actually a brainchild idea of Tasik Biru assemblyman Dato Henry Harry Jinep.
He added that the proposal to upgrade the road from Batu Kitang to Bau into a dual carriageway will attract more people from Kuching to come to visit, as well as creating 1,000 job opportunities from the Tasik Biru resort city project.
The opening ceremony was officiated by Sarawak Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts, Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.