When I reminisce, I sometimes go back a long time, half a century or more even. And when I do that I sometime wonder how time has evolved many things in our life and how, certain happenings and events influenced these evolvements. Things could be different now if that certain event did not happen then.
I am in Bintulu now. When I drive, or when I am in the car with son Shaffik driving, I would wonder at how, in the space of 20-25 years the face of the town have changed. Overall the town has grown, from a fishing town with a population of only about 6,000 people (that was how small the town was) to a bustling town of several hundred thousand people. My comparison is based on the time when I first set foot in Bintulu in the early 80s to the current. The evolvement has a lot to do with the discovery of oil and gas offshore, and the decision of the ‘powers that be’ for the oil and gas installations be located in Bintulu. What criteria was used to choose Bintulu as the right location I am not sure, but the contour of the coastline and the surrounding areas do appear ideal to start a new industrial town. Hence Bintulu has been transformed from a very small fishing village (not a town even!!) into a bustling oil and gas industrial town.
Today, while driving in town, I noticed that the street directions have been changed, overnight, to one way streets. They were two-way yesterday. Yet another evolvement for the sake of easing the traffic woes in the town. That sets me to thinking of what it was more than twenty years ago. I could lie down in the middle of the street then and I will not be run over!! One can recognize every car in town and differentiate them from newcomers arriving from out of town. There was only one gas station located near the jetty then that depended upon boats to bring in their replenishment gas supplies and these supplies came about once a week. When the boat came in to replenish supplies for the gas station, all the cars in the town will be in queue to fill up their tanks and almost all will have additional drums or ‘jerry cans’ to keep for spare. Similarly with food supplies!! Most came by boat. Seafood was ‘dirt’ cheap but agricultural produce were exorbitantly priced!! The shanty shacks that they call ‘market’ were next to the gas station sharing the same jetty!!
The town has changed so much.
There are no more wooden shops in town and not many of the wooden houses and buildings left. They have progressed into two, three and four storied concrete buildings. Roads have been widened and more parking lots built.
Certain times in the day traffic can get very bad in the town. Hopefully with the one-way street design, the chaotic traffic flow can be eased somewhat. The town too has spread from its original concentration around the so called airport and its runway
to four pockets of commercial areas each about three to five miles apart with housing estates in between. I think the town planners are doing the right job of spreading the commercial areas interspersing them with residential houses and estates while keeping the industrial area concentrated at some twenty kilometers away and that is provided for by proper port facilities. One can see very large tankers and bulk carriers, capable of carrying perhaps 200,000 tons of oil or the equivalent volume amount of gas, docking there to load, and almost equally large bulk and container carriers docking at the port to discharge their cargoes.Bintulu could have been different if oil and gas was not found off its shores, or if the ‘powers that be’ had decided to beach the oil and gas to a different town or area away from Bintulu. Bintulu can be considered a newly developed town when compared to the original oil town of Sarawak, which is Miri. Now Miri, recently declared a city, concentrates on oil and its products while Bintulu concentrates mostly on gas and its products. Spin-off industries are also coming up, adding to the industrial development of the area.
There are a lot more of Bintulu and Sarawak that I can write about but I will have to gather my thoughts and reminisce further before I can transfer them into words on my laptop screen. I am thankful though that I was allowed the opportunity to contribute to the growth of the town and its industrial development, and during the course of it learn new things, make new friends, established new family ties even, through my son. But let me have some time to write more on this. Meanwhile, I will just continue to ponder and wonder which direction Bintulu will move on to next………
MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Bintulu
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