The plan to relocate some of the kampungs on the north bank of the Sarawak River has cropped up a couple of times in Purple Tern. In October 2019, for example, where I'm wondering about the whole business of change, and again in November 2020.

It's all part of what is variously known as the Darul Hana Development Project or the Darul Hana Resettlement Scheme.

Something of the official rationale is explained here (February 2020): "The Darul Hana Development project, which started in 2011, will become a state reference point for ultra-modern housing enriched with traditional values, as the government looks to solve urbanisation problems faced by old Malay villages, while protecting cultural heritage."

Over the next decade, the article explains, some 2,640 households are to be relocated to the new township of Darul Hana. The villages concerned stretch from Kampung Bintawa Hilir to Kampung Boyan, and include Gersik and Sourabaya. The first phase is to involve Kampung Semarang, Kampung Pulo Hulu, and Kampung Seman Lama (573 households).

A story just over two years later (August 2022) documents the handing over of house keys and deeds to the first group of 337 households from Kampung Seman Lama, Kampung Semarang, and Kampung Lot Tambahan.

And just last month, we learn that a total of 225 households from Kampung Semarang and Kampung Seman Lama have already moved to Darul Hana, with the remaining 92 due to move by the end of the year.

Today we walked out to Tun Salahuddin Bridge.



We crossed the river, and walked west along the north bank. This is a route we do occasionally rather than frequently, and it's quite a long time since we last went that way.

At first, we thought, oh, so not that much is happening, and it all looks as was.

Then we came to the desolation of Kampung Semarang, whose missing roofs, tumbled walls, and sad-looking odds and ends of household goods do look very forlorn indeed.





Now, the first question to ask here is whether those who have moved are happy in their new homes. And, of course, I'm utterly unequipped to answer that question.

But that IS the question.

It's easy for outsiders like us to get nostalgic about pretty, leafy kampungs, but it's one thing to walk through them, and quite another to live in them. So the verdict of the relocated -- do they feel, all things considered, that this has been a good change? -- is the first thing that's of any significance.

The second question to ask is what's going to happen to the land... I've heard stuff, but I can't find much in the way of concrete information.

Whatever it is, I hope it's appropriate...

Meanwhile, here is some more of what we have at the moment: