Surfing in a Nissan Frontier at Nyalau, Similajau, Sarawak

I had a chance to drive through 2.5 feet of water during the Similajau/Nyalau field trip this time. Early Monday morning 9^th June, it rained torrentially and gave quite a volume of water for the Nyalau villages to absorb, especially Ulu Nyalau. I didn’t think the drainage system could handle such sudden, large volumes of water, added to the fact that it was the occurrence of king tide levels at the time. On one of our daily journeys in and out of the village roads, at the lowest point just before reaching Ulu Nyalau village, the stretch of road is very low that it was inundated for up to 2.5 feet. Flood has arrived.

Earlier we have been using Kuala Nyalau as our base camp but when this flood occurred, Dr. Lee decided we go back to Bintulu and take our boat from somewhere along the Similajau River, upstream of the flood areas. On a couple of occasions I had to drive through water in the Nissan Frontier we hired, which was an interesting experience.

The photos here show how high the water level was at the time. These photos were taken at about 5.00pm, and Dr. Andrew Alek was driving at the time.

While driving through, the water actually reached up to the headlights and covered it entirely; this we only realized in the most undesired of ways when we had to drive through the flooded road when it was already dark. And I was at the helm. That was scary.