A trip to Mukah

Last week I made a trip to Mukah. It was a part of an official job, visiting the clinics in the central region of Sarawak (Sibu, Mukah , Sarekei and Kapit divisions). Due to the large coverage area, it’s just like covering 4 countries!!! Sibu to Mukah is about 160 km away, but because of the bumpy road, a land trip will take almost 3 hours. So I decided to take a flight which only takes 25 minutes. Since there is only one air trip per day , so I have to spend a night there.

The only airplane available to Mukah is the twin otter plane, the smallest aircraft in the MAS series which only accommodate 19 persons at one time. The cabin is non pressurized and there is no A/C. But there are two small fans like what cabbies will sometimes mount on their dashboards. So you can imagine how hot it is inside the cabin. There is no barrier between the passenger area and the cockpit, so you can see the pilots going through their startup procedure in the cockpit, flipping switches and pulling levers. I felt little bit scared and nauseous when the plane trembles due to turbulence.

The nice part of flying in a small plane like that was the view: I could see the Sarawak wilderness spreading out below me. Mostly, we were flowing over the vast stretches of peat swamp that cover much of the lowlands.
As we approached Mukah, I could see oil palm plantations, laid out in orderly blocks. They were a gridded network of drainage canals and roads ran between the blocks. Interspersed with these were what appeared to be palm-dominated jungle, but with narrow, shallow water ways that seemed too regular to be natural streams, but were far less orderly than the oil palm estates. I later learned those were traditional Sago plantations.

Mukah Division was newly declared as the Tenth Division of Sarawak on the 1st of March 2002 by the Chief Minister of Sarawak YAB Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr) Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud. It is an ancient trading and fishing port, situated at the mouth of the Mukah River adjacent to the South China Sea. Historically, the town was an outpost of the Sultanate of Brunei. It became part of Sarawak in 1861. Mukah used to be a trade centre and an important port during the times of the Brunei Sultanate Government in the mid 19th century. It has direct trading with China, Singapore and the neighboring areas. Time has changed and now other cities and ports such as Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu and Miri have taken over as a peaceful and developed trade center.

The majority of the Mukah population is from the Melanau tribe. They are considered by the anthropologists to be among the original settlers of Sarawak, legend has it that the name "Melanau" was given to the inhabitants of the coastal swamp flats and river banks of Central Sarawak by one of the Sultans of Brunei. The original religion of the Melanau people was Liko, meaning "people of the river". In the Liko religion, life and the environment are one. Followers worship the spiritual world, including the superior ‘tou’ spirits and the lesser ‘belum’ spirits that cause sickness. The pagan Melanau use effigies of sickness spirits when practicing healing. These healing are called berbayoh and berayun. Many Melanau today are Christian and Muslim, though they still celebrate traditional festivals especially 'Kaul'.

Melanau ethnic speaks in their own dialect which is totally different from the local Sarawak dialect. If you can make an intelligent guess from the Iban dialect, it is extremely difficult to do so from Melanau language.

One of the famous foods among Melanau is what they called ‘Umai’. It is a raw fish which is cut into small pieces. A lemon juices is added into it after which you can eat with a special spicy source. It is said that Umai was first introduced by the Japanese during the occupation era.

There are total 4 hospitals in Mukah divisions but only the one in Mukah district itself has doctors, others are run by the MAs and Nurses. Hospital Mukah is a small, old fashion building which incorporated the inward-patient and the outpatient department under one roof. There are 4 doctors (MO) working in the hospitals. In addition to the workload in the Mukah Hospital they have to visit other hospitals and join the Flying Doctors Service (FDS) when required.

After a short visit to the Mukah I went back to Sibu the next day to prepare for the next trip.