We did our usual morning cycling on 13 May 2021, the first day of Hari Raya holidays. As usual, we stopped for a break just in front of the entrance to the Istana, the State Governor's official residence. This time, I decided to venture down the narrow and rather steep earth track after seeing two native looking women walked down the route. I was convinced the area where I spent my childhood is not "abandoned" after all and is still being occupied!
It was in 1972 that our family finally left our village house for good and moved to a new single-story semi-detached house near Likas.
The original route to the village house from the main road has been blocked off by this massive retaining wall built to hold up the roundabout in front of the entrance to the Istana.
After the initial steep steps, the route instantly looks familiar even after a lapse of almost fifty years. In fact, the "locals" who have taken over the area have upgraded it with pieces of concrete slabs to make it less hazardous to walk on. As I talked to one young woman who was on her way to collect water with a bucket, I discovered that the locals are squatters from other localities. The woman who claimed to have stayed there for more than ten years initially resided in Sepanggar. It is likely these are people of Pilipino descent.
As I walked, I tried to locate some of the key features along this rather winding hilly track of about 200m from the road entrance to the site of the village house. The open air badminton court which was on a piece of concrete slab cast on a flat ground cut out at the hill slope is now occupied by squatter houses and is hardly distinguishable. The massive magnolia tree which used to be at a short distance from the badminton court is nowhere to be seen and is unlikely to have survived after 50 years. The tamarind tree and jack fruit tree which we used to climb and look for their fruits equally could not have survived under the onslaught of thick vegetation!
The flat area cut out from hill slope for the construction of an open air badminton court is now occupied by squatter houses.
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The valley where we once tapped water and conveyed it to our house by way of bamboo still has some semblance of its original terrain feature. A well instead has been dug by the squatters to provide water for their need.
Left: Well dug at the valley. Right: Typical water conveyance via bamboo in our days at the village!
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| Existing well dug at the valley. |
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| Internal view of the existing well. |
Looking east from the water source is the plain where my simple village house once stood (Read here). Now, there is no sign of any dwelling house in the area. The original house's exact location was no longer recognizable. The banana trees grown at the left did evoke many happy memories of the kids playing around the cluster of banana trees planted just in front of the house.
The creek which was one of our favorite play sites during school breaks still channels that meagre volume of surface water during dry weather toward the eastern end.
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I completed the "exploration" with a mixed feeling - after a lapse of half a century, many parts of KK have progressed in leaps and bounds. Modern residential housing and complexes complete with state of art facilities abound around KK city centre. Yet, this area, a mere 1.5Km away from the State Capital has turned into a squatter colony where the residents survived without electricity and are still dependent on well water!
