lingga

A road to nowhere

(collection date: June 13th, 2004)

A beautiful Sunday morning, my cousin and I decided to explore the Seri Aman area. From my previous trip to Batang Ai, I passed by a few blackwater rivers near Seri Aman. When I saw those blackwater rivers, I believed I can find something in Seri Aman area.

Our first collection point is a blackwater river near Lachau. There we found some beautiful catfish such as Pseudomystus fuscus, Silurichthys sp., Glyptothorax major, Leiocassis micropogon and others unknown species of catfish. I think I found the "catfish kingdom"!!! In my life, I never seen so many species of catfish hiding under the aquatic plants (hair grass, Cryptocoryne sp. and Barclaya sp.)

Then, we continued our journey to another blackwater river near the road to Seri Aman. This river is about 8 meter wide and Cryptocoryne plant is growing abundantly. We went down to the river and I found a spathe of the cryp. Its yellow colored and I am very certain that this is Cryptocoryne cordata variant zonata. Again, here is another habitat for different species of catfish! I found a red-eyed puffer (freshwater puffer) when I push my net into Barclaya plant near the sandbank.

Later, we moved into a small stream where the color of the blackwater getting darker. We found a lot of Betta ibanorum.(this betta species is a new description. Before that, it used to be called Betta cf akarensis)

After taking our Lunch in Seri Aman town, I decided to explore a road near the town area. In my previous trip to Batang Ai, I drove to the wrong direction when I was leaving the town center to Batang Ai. Just because I made a wrong turn, I discovered a peat swamp forest along the road. Again, when I push my net to the ditch, I found the common Betta ibanorum. I decided to go further and I saw the forest is getting thicken and the houses along the road are getting lesser and lesser. My heart was beating fast because I saw a big area of blackwater swamp.....undisturbed by human beings! What a beautiful place. Too bad the ditch near the road is too deep, I failed to "penetrate" into the swampy forest!

I continued my journey.....and I realised that I was driving to nowhere! There is no such road on the map!!! Looking at the sun direction, I was driving to the west side of Seri Aman.....and the whole area is a lowland area. After driving for half an hour, I have to turn back because the road in front of me is cut off by the blackwater!!! The road's flooded during the mid of dry season! I saw a villager was passing by that flooded road using motorcycle. I  asked him for the direction but he refused to answer me and asked me back; "Awak nak pergi mana?" (where are you going?) I believe that's the road to Lingga, the largest town in the western part of Seri Aman. He answered yes....and he told me its going to take two hours to drive to that town. I didn't continue my journey because my car's exhaust pipe is too low. It's too risky to cross that road so I decided to turn back. It doesn't mean that I will turn back forever. To people like me, I shall be back!