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Borneo Field Trip Diaries - Part V
A Road to Nowhere

by Michael Lo
of Sarawak, Malaysia
From his website: http://www.ibanorum.netfirms.com
Aquarticles

Collection date: June 13th, 2004

A beautiful Sunday morning, and my cousin and I decided to explore the Seri Aman area. In my previous trip to Batang Ai I had passed by a few blackwater rivers near Seri Aman. When I saw those blackwater rivers, I believed I might find something if I returned to them.

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

Hair grass and Barclaya plants. Catfish hide under these plants.

CLICK ON THUMBNAILS FOR ENLARGEMENTS, THEN GO "BACK."

A catfish (Leiocassis micropogon) and a freshwater shrimp

  
Glyptothorax major, hill stream catfish

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

Crytocoryne plant....probably Cryptocoryne longicauda

In direct sunlight, cryptocoryne cordata variant zonata is still growing abundantly!

A spathe of the Cryptocoryne cordata variant zonata

Later, we moved on to a small stream where the colour of the blackwater was darker. We found a lot of Betta ibanorum. (This betta species is a new description. Before that, it was called Betta cf akarensis).

After having lunch in Seri Aman town, we decided to explore a road near the town. In my previous trip to Batang Ai, I had driven in the wrong direction when I was leaving the town centre towards Batang Ai. Just because I had made a wrong turn, I had discovered a peat swamp forest along the road. Again, when I pushed my net into this same ditch, I found the common Betta ibanorum. I decided to go further and noticed the forest getting thicker and the houses along the road fewer and fewer. 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 was too deep - I failed to "penetrate" into the swampy forest!

I continued my journey.....and realised that I was driving to nowhere! There was no such road on the map!!! Looking at the sun's direction, I saw I was driving west from Seri Aman.....and the whole area was a lowland. After driving for half an hour, I had to turn back because the road in front of me was cut off by blackwater!!! The road was flooded during the middle of the dry season!

A flooded road cut off my attempt to explore the Lingga area.

I saw a villager riding along the flooded road on a motorcycle. I asked him for directions but he refused to answer me and asked me back; "Awak nak pergi mana?" (Where are you going?). I thought it was the road to Lingga, the largest town in the western part of Seri Aman. He answered yes....and told me it would take two hours to drive to that town. I didn't continue my journey because my car's exhaust pipe was too low. It was too risky to try that road so I decided to turn back.

That doesn't mean that I will turn back forever. I shall be back!

Catch of the day!!!