Padawan on Wednesday; Telaga Air yesterday; and today the Matang area! We're on fire!

The Sri Maha Mariamman Temple, on the slopes of Mount Matang, is the oldest Hindu temple in Sarawak. We'd planned an expedition with a friend a while ago, but it was postponed because of my sore foot, then because of Nigel's sore knee, and then because of the intensified lockdown. Finally, we got there, just the two of us. But I'd happily return with a bigger party.

As soon as there was enough light to see where we were going (about 5.45 am), we started out up the three-kilometre track (which is in very good nick, as it now forms part of the "Beccari Discovery Trail", launched last year). Walking through the forest in the very early morning is a nicely atmospheric experience. The huge trees loom over you in the half-light. You don't quite know the origin of all the sounds you're hearing...

Bit by bit the sun penetrates the thick network of branches, and starts to light up the hillside above.


By the time you reach the trail's 11th signboard, you're in a perceptibly different landscape. Almost 650 acres of forest were cleared in this area, back in the 1860s, for coffee and tea plantations. By 1912, the estate had proved unviable, and was abandoned. But the soil was poor, and the forest didn't grow back. A kind of fern, resam, took over instead. Another example of the old deforestation story.

Anyway, during the plantation period, Indian and Sri Lankan indentured labourers were shipped in to work the estates and the coffee mill. They included Hindus and Christians, and members of both faiths built shrines. The Christian one disappeared without trace after the plantation was abandoned. But the Hindu one remained, sliding into disrepair and oblivion until it was rediscovered in 1968. The descendants of those early labourers restored it as best they could, and reopened it two years later. A little more work was done in the 1980s. And a major restoration effort was completed in 2011, culminating in a big consecration ceremony.

On the way to the temple itself, there are two other shrines (best photographed, if you're early birds like us, on your way back down).







The temple itself is reached via a flight of steps (you need to take your shoes off before you embark on these, and my soft little feet were complaining mightily by the time they'd gone up and come down...)




Totally by accident, we timed our visit just as the first rays of the sun were striking the temple. Everything glowed.






It is a certainly a beautiful place, its gorgeous little details set off by the forest setting, and the bird-filled soundscape.










From the temple you walk back down to the second shrine, where another path forks off to "Vallombroso". Here stood the bungalow that housed Odoardo Beccari (1843-1920), an Italian explorer and naturalist (whose chequered career again illustrates the way colonialism taints the scientific endeavour of the era). Rajah Charles Brooke later also built a bungalow on the site.

This path is quite rough, and if it had been wet, I think I might have quit. But if it's dry, it's definitely worth the extra little slog. It must have been idyllic to live with birdsong all around, and the sound of the waterfall just down the track.






Then you retrace your steps. The main track was by now very popular with walkers out for their morning constitutional.




Back at the carpark the folks selling drinks and snacks have set up for the day. And there are toilets here too.

All in all, a very lovely little excursion.

Whereas our first temple was a planned objective, our second happened along quite serendipitously. Nigel had unearthed on the map something called the Batu Kawa Riverbank Park, which looked worth visiting. And at the end of the pleasant garden complex is the Guang Loong Temple.


Picturesquely sited by the side of the Sarawak River, it's full of colour:








There are several stages still to come of the Batu Kawa Riverbank Park project, but what's there already is very attractive. The Pan-Borneo Highway (this bit's actually completed!) is visible and audible, but even so, the gardens are pretty, and you can never go wrong with a river really... At the opposite end from the temple, there's an arch:




In fact the old bit of Batu Kawa is an attractive kind of place generally. There's a main street festooned with lanterns. There are a couple of other temples. There are hillsides with graves. And it's the sort of town where you can get two bowls of noodles and two cups of tea for MYR 9 (GBP 1.60)...



Great day... Have I mentioned how nice it is to be out and about again? Yeah, I know -- only like a hundred times...