Bario and the Kelabit Highlands

A Highland Plateau With No Road To The Rest Of Sarawak, Where A British Officer Parachuted In During 1945 To Raise A Guerrilla Force, And Where The Rice Is Protected By Name · Bario, Sarawak

THERE IS NO ROAD TO BARIO. The Kelabit Highlands sit at around a thousand metres near the Indonesian border, and everything arrives by SMALL TWIN OTTER AIRCRAFT or by DAYS OF LOGGING TRACK - which has kept the place as it is. THE KELABIT ARE ONE OF SARAWAK'S SMALLEST ETHNIC GROUPS and the plateau is their homeland: longhouses, paddy in the valley bottom, megaliths and carved stone in the fields that nobody can now fully explain. BARIO RICE IS FINE, SMALL-GRAINED AND AROMATIC, grown at altitude and now PROTECTED BY GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION; BARIO SALT IS BOILED FROM MOUNTAIN SPRINGS. AND IN MARCH 1945 TOM HARRISSON AND A HANDFUL OF AUSTRALIAN AND BRITISH SPECIAL FORCES PARACHUTED ONTO THIS PLATEAU to raise the interior peoples against the Japanese - one of the strangest operations of the Borneo campaign, and the Kelabit have not forgotten it. Flights are cancelled for cloud constantly, there is no banking of any kind, and being weathered in for several days is a normal outcome rather than bad luck.

Bario, Kelabit Highlands, Miri Division, Sarawak, Bario, Sarawak, Malaysia

BARIO IS REACHED BY SMALL AIRCRAFT FROM MIRI, on flights that are FEW, SMALL, SUBSIDISED AND CANCELLED FOR WEATHER CONSTANTLY - cloud on the plateau stops them, and BEING WEATHERED IN FOR SEVERAL DAYS IS A NORMAL OUTCOME, so build in spare days and do not book a tight onward connection. There is also a LOGGING TRACK taking a day or more in a four-wheel-drive. ACCOMMODATION IS HOMESTAYS AND SMALL LODGES arranged through families. THERE IS NO BANKING AND CARD ACCEPTANCE IS NIL - BRING ALL YOUR CASH. ELECTRICITY AND MOBILE SIGNAL ARE LIMITED. TREKS to longhouses, to the salt springs and along the old trails toward Ba'kelalan need LOCAL GUIDES arranged on arrival. It is cool at altitude and cold at night. The Bario Food and Cultural Festival is in July.

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