Elopura.
The name beckoned a bygone era that enliseted the best, the most glamourous, the biggest hype, decadence and opulence of seductive qipao, exotic faces and smiles, audacious amount of money flowing into the town out from the shoots of timber, oil, palm and cocoa.
As the British remnants slowly gave way to Malaysian modernisation, I sat still in my old coffee haunt – long before Starbucks could be thought up and still could not hold a candle close – Chung Ming Hing, a small rectangular shop with small 60s’ fashioned tiles and a gaudy hand-painted mural of Mt Kinabalu on its wall, continued to serve the most delicious Chinese tarts and cakes. Hungry? Take a seat in one of its famously copied Hong Kong-styled back-to-back chairs. Thristy? Ask for a cold serve of today’s herbal tea, boiled up just early at dawn.
I grew up in the heyday of the 80s in Sandakan. Everything looked and was bigger to a little girl’s eyes. In a way, it was strange coming back to this place after the last time I was here 9 years ago. Chung Ming Hing still was as it was, only now there is a “serve no pork” sign. I think perhaps it had to move with time and not too many Chinese stayed about town nowadays as it was before. You still have the odd lady with really purple-coloured hair offering you a lucky chance to buy a lottery ticket. You just politely turned it away. It’s strange but it’s good. This made me appreciated more what the future had to bring.
When we landed two nights ago, the adventure began with our drawing the lot and ending with a cab driver named “Ah Yong”. We never really got past the introduction but he was obviuosly well trained in the fine art of commission through tourism – I asked for his name card just so he would leave us alone throughout the ride to town. Hubby got a torn out paper with Ah Yong’s number. I loved how things are heading as this was what the impromptu was! Any script couldn’t have drafted it better!
In the end we negotiated a return trip once we dumped our backpacks in the lodge so that to head out for the infamous seafood joint at Ocean King at White Sandy Beach (the sea’s black and the sand is brown but boy, the seafood is the bomb!). Expecting something ridiculous like the KL cab fares, Ah Yong could still profit from asking for a RM20 fare for his trouble that night. I was again, flabbergasted but managed to hide it well. Still couldn’t figure out how things got to be so expensive once you leave the comfortable nest of Borneo…
And it was a trip to heaven. Enough to inspire me to invent a Cantonese limerick on the spot. The bowl of shark’s fin was perfect, each spoon brimming with fin goodness. The prawns and Sabah vegetables (fried with egg, my style and only true blue Sandakan aficianados understand – the captain gave me a thumbs up) and fish were all exceptionally stunning. Dining by the sea, on a wooden platform underneath a starry roof of fans, things were simple and doing what they were supposed to do.
Now with regards to our accommodation that night, it was another funny episode. Thinking of doing something on the fly, we got to a particular “Selingan Resthouse” and our cab stopped at a dark back alley, with a few pairs of eyes bobbling at us – obviously new specimens in town, we are (yes Yoda) – but the room was quite… not really even the most Spartan amongst us would endeavour to test our limits and seriously Hotel London called us to say they had room for us after all, and all at a cheaper rate of RM55! Kawpoh and we’re out of there. Again, clean and crisp, we even got a toilet roll when we checked in – I mean, I had to buy my own when I went off to college boarding!
The night was an intimate bout of swimming on top of a mattress that had spring coils that dug deeper into my ribcage no matter how I tried to turn into a possible position in hope of mercy. The neighbourhood cat decided to let out his mating calls while my loving half snored blissfully next to me. Ah well, all in the stride of long term travel!
At around 5:30am (my half-dazed brains thinking), the long ongoing engine churn from the wall above my head (I swear it’s not my imagination) the quiet outside air broke with the loud azan call for the Muslims to conduct their morning worship. I forgot that we had a mosque right up the hill above out building. Again, long term travel mantra evoked.
In between having breakfast a few hours later on the roof deck (Lonely Planet noted that it had views of the port – did they forget about the two buildings that stood plainly in front of us?) and two hours of waiting for car rental dudes who were too afraid to tell us on the spot that they actually don’t have a car available (we learned later that many of these “rental companies” don’t have proper licenses) we found a proper company and got our car… and it even had four wheels!
Off we went to start our little Sandakan tour. It was pure magic. Hubby and I had been talking about it for ages and personally, I beamed with pride and was very touched to have my hubby getting so excited seeing all the places that were so formative in my 12 years of growing up to be… well, the woman I am today! It took more than 12 years making it to 31 but those 12 years held so much history and memories. We headed off to my old school, of course the tree that I climbed was not there anymore, only to be replaced by cemented ground but our eyes saw exactly that little 8-year old, hair wet from the midday sweat, dirtying her pinafore as she climbed up the frangipani tree while her mum drove up, looking on disapprovingly yet lovingly from inside her car. The church playground that I played with the boys while forgetting that we were forbidden to run off to that side of the school – and got back late for class. The old canteen where I acted like an adult sitting by the make-shift “bar” ordering jelly in a cup. The road down to the old “Singapore Road” where we heard old tales of POW soldiers’ spirits still haunting the place. Many again of similar places such as Mile 1, 3, 4, 5 (my old teacher who was significant in influencing my love of English wasn’t there anymore) and Taman Sibuga – many roads had changed and it took us a bit more time to get inside but we made it. Again, thanks to the tenacity of my hubby, it was a scorching day and anyone less patience would probably asked me to go – in the local lingo – “fly kite”. We even made it to my paternal grandfather’s grave to pay respect, just as we had done in Kota Kinabalu when we visited my maternal grandmather (I found out that I was the first and only person to buy her roses, sweet!).
That was Cecily Road drive – a long winding road, undulating over Sandakan’s generally hilly façade – if you are looking to train for a run, this is the place. We got to temples, old bakeries (the norm of the 4pm tucker) and in between taking some photographs of funny signboards and historical sites, our journey came close to dusk with us finding that there were a World War II Chinese Memorial and a Japanese Cemetery. Lonely Planet didn’t say anything about it, our school history lessons didn’t mention about it. What do two history-mad “mad” travellers do? We discovered that the road wasn’t that obvious but gut feel was always a good guide. We came to a small route that looked closed but in the dying light, anything goes.
I remembered asking myself “what the heck were we doing here at this hour of the day?” – mind you, there was a huge sprawling Teochew Chinese cemetery, Christian crosses dotting the only road we were on, it was a place of burial and that was the clearly marked road we’re talking about. Heading further into earthen path, we saw more Chinese cemeteries, each of different clans and our walk started turning into runs. Forget about the Borneo half marathon that I did a couple of days ago. Yes, it was a beautiful run, I love the encouraging crowd and I even rocked the finishing line, my hubby was in top 25 for his 10K race and he waited faithfully at the entrance to the stadium for me (aw… lil’ ol’ me?), faster runners who overtook me gave me a smile and thumbs-up, runners that stopped and I overtook, I patted them on the back to keep pacing with me – it was one happy family, very touching but heck, nothing like this hill up Jalan Jambatan Merah. I scored a personal best by racing to the finishing line because of one thing: bloodthirsty mozzies.
It was a good run, we had to jump over waist-high lalang (wild grass that cut) and rocky paths, plus the spook factor of trying not to offend anyone resting on both sides of our path – I had never seen so many tombstones in one shot! Needless to say, I was pleasantly happy to see my stamina was great, my muscles not feeling any sorry but my mind was going “how did we even miss out on educating ourselves on such significant sites?”. Back home after a shower, we immediately got on Wikipedia to read up about the Sandakan Death March, the May 27, 1945 massacre, and who buried these Japanese soldiers here? Who were these common civilians irrespective of race who fought for us? Who were these young lads who fought under the Rising Sun flag, thinking it was all for land, glory, and a better future? Sandakan is still pretty green today, but imagine back those days, just not too far of a 60 years ago? It was humid and harsh, and I cannot imagine how one would survive purely without fresh drinking water, proper food and medicine, infections, fatigue, mental stress, and the possibility of never seeing freedom or “normal” life again?
We went back to Ocean King and topped the night with a nice drive up Trig Hill to chill and watch the boats in the harbour. But as I sit here, waiting for our lunch before departing for the Kinabatangan River for two nights of jungle trekking and river cruise (animal spotting is a must), with the thought of getting to know and making more friends with the “Orang Sungai” the local suku or clan that had inhabited the river for many years ago before modernity took grip, I leave Sandakan perhaps with more fond memories, and more lessons, with even more questions.
