jejak jejak perantau: Pesta Benak, Batang Lupar Sri Aman

A couple of weeks ago we went to Sri Aman to watch tidal bore or locally refers to as benak. Apa benda la benak tu...the simplest explanation is there's wave in the river n u can actually surf macam surfing kt laut tu. The more scientific explanation is a tidal phenomenon in which the leading edge of the incoming tide forms a wave or waves of water that travel up a river or narrow bay against the direction of the river or bay's current (credit to en.wikipedia).

Apparently only a few places in the whole world where this phenomenon occurs.... n i can proudly say Malaysia is one of the places. Other places that i know of from reading the information in a gallery at Sri Aman, are Australia, UK, Brazil, North America, Canada and few places in Asia like China, Bangladesh,Pakistan & Indonesia.

We started our journey Sunday morning...5.45am... the kids were still sleeping but once they were inside the car they woke up but luckily not for long n they resume their sleep. We reached Sri Aman at 8.15 am.... & we were lucky to get a strategic parking place.

Memang betul mcm pesta lah... In the river there were boat races going on... there were stalls selling all kinds of things, from clothes, toys, crafts to traditional medicines, also stalls selling food. when we get to the main stage... it turned out the tidal bore was only happening in the evening...dang! we have to wait for 6-7 hours... nk pusing2 kt gerai pun the most will b like 2 hours kot. we ended up lepak inside our parked car... luckily in the afternoon it was cloudy n windy so we just waited there. About 4p.m. we went to get a good spot so that we can c clearly the wave. We were lucky we got to find a nice spot on top of a hill facing the river n we can see clearly.

All in all it was a unique experience... like my hometown people will say..'kurang2 org tak buleh pekunun'....but just last weekend I chatted with an aunty who is from sri aman n she said i should go there end of the year coz that's when the tide is big... well we'll c about that...

Dari pagi sampai ptg ada lumba kayuh bot panjang ni...this is when we arrive

this is the schedule of the tidal bore... when we first see this tepuk dahi..aduss kena tunggu sampai kul 4 it was only like 8.45...

this is a pic that we took in a gallery near the river... i forgot to take the gallery's pic. But as u can see the wave was big enough to go surfing. On that day there was somebody surfing but on the other side of the river so we couldn't see it.

Another pic taken from the gallery... hehehe credits to the gallery

This is our strategic spot... puas hati

finally at 5.40pm can u see something like a line at the far end of the river.... thats the wave coming... brace yourself...

this is a close up, on the other side of the river.. below the heli i think was somebody surfing..nampak tak? x nampak? kalau x nampak maknanya x lama lagi la tu... hehehe jgn mara aaa