Page 397 - The Guide To Sarawak

THE GUIDE TO SARAWAK 395
Kuching Sentral, the new integrated road transport hub serving the state capital.
carriageways in high
traffic areas. The cities enjoy computerized traffic management systems, flyovers at major junctions, well-managed parking systems, and orbital roads designed to keep heavy traffic out of city centres.
These roads connect
to modern and efficient container ports, domestic and international airports, and remote areas with high investment value, such as the Bakun and Murum hydropower plants.
However, there are still a lot of places they don’t
go, and this is where Sarawak’s commitment
to connectivity is so important. Take Kapit for example; this small town
is over 200km from the coast and 100km from Sibu, the nearest major town. However, Kapit is situated on the mighty Rejang River, so a fleet of fast express boats with scheduled passenger services connects the town to Sibu in only two hours.
Further upriver, the neighbouring longhouses and settlements are connected by smaller express boats, whose size and draught decrease as the rivers narrow. Beyond this, regular speedboat and longboat services connect the remotest of locations to major road heads and transport hubs.
There are also a few places where even the boats don’t go, or at least not very frequently, and
this is where MASWings comes in. A subsidiary
of Malaysian Airlines, MASWings flies turboprop aircraft of various sizes
to some of the remotest locations in Sarawak, via five regional airports and eight STOLports, all at affordable prices.
In other words, you can get to just about anywhere you want to go in Sarawak to just about anywhere else, within a single day. Take for example the Iban couple from Ulu Balleh, one of the remotest areas in Southeast Asia, who want to visit their son who is working in Singapore. They can board a boat at 6am to Kapit. By 8am they are on the express boat to Sibu, by 11.50am they are taking off from Sibu to Johor Bahru, and by 2.30pm they are enjoying a late lunch on Orchard Road. In Sarawak, it’s not just about transport infrastructure (essential though that is) – it’s about transport connectivity.
Selangau, on the Batang Mukah, is set to boom with
the recently announced upgrading of the Pan-Borneo The Simpang Tiga Intersection, just one of many recent Highway. enhancements to Kuching’s traffic management system.