Departing for Kapit

On New Year’s day, right after finishing my night shift at about 8 am, I took the bus to the docks in town.

I bought tickets for the 10.30 a.m express to Kapit. This one makes a stop in Song along the way. The weather was bright and sunny. The tickets cost RM20 one way so it’s RM40 return. The guy at the ticketing box said that it takes about 2 plus hours to get to Kapit so there will be enough time for me to roam around then come back on the last boat at 3.15pm. They actually allocate a seat for you because there is a maximum number of peoplethat they can actually take at any given time.

The seats are actually rather low down. Below the water line in fact. These boats are long. They take about 100 passengers each.

I find it odd that they only check for tickets when the boat was well under way. I mean what are they gonna do if they found someone with no ticket? Throw him into the Rajang? The cabins are rather modern and quite comfortable if neither you nor the person next to you are not fat. The seats are rather narrow you see. We also get a free movie – Fast and Furious 5 in this case – but without the audio as the engines are really loud.

Along the way, I saw quite a lot of lumber mills. Logging is a big thing around here apparently. The Rajang is filled with stuff floating down her. Logs, branches, plastic bottles, bags, human corpses...

Yes, there are human corpses that float down the Rajang. Over the past 2 weeks the police brought at least 2 of them to our hospital, and they always seem to be during when I am on duty. And they always seem like they have been in there for the better part of a week! The only thing that smells worse than a rotting drowned corpse is a rotting drowned corpse that has been in the water for a week.

When they brought in the corpse for me last week, one of the nurses told me “Eee!! Awak pergi tengok mayat. Kalau saya kahwin dengan awak saya sik mau (don’t want) tidor dengan awak malam ni!” apparently there is such a believe amongst the Ibans...

The ride was rather smooth. I guess rivers don’t have waves as high as the sea. There was considerable river traffic along the way. Barges, speed boats, long boats, dredges, all ply their trade along this murky river. Like many rivers in Malaysia, it won’t be Malaysian if we don’t actually pollute it. Yes, I saw many a people throw stuff into the Rajang - plastic bags, drink cartons, food wrappings. It’s a national past time I guess. Then everyone bitch about the government not doing anything to prevent floods...

(I can't seem to upload the photos properly)