Memories of Santubong during its heyday

Borneo Post

16-05-2025

A postcard view of Santubong village from the river, shown in this image taken in the 1960s.
ONCE upon a time, in the 1950s, only those who owned their own boats or were senior government servants could dream of travelling to Santubong for holiday.
The civil servants could book in advance the rental of a government launch, which was very luxurious and could take up to 20 passengers, depending on the size.
Up till 1987 when the Santubong Bridge was opened to the public, this was the only way to get there. For the first two years after the Holiday Inn Damai Beach opened in 1985, there were only ferry services from Kuching.
These took almost an hour and one must disembark at a jetty and be transported by road to the resort.
The state government had built some 'junior bungalows' and a 'senior bungalow' on undulating hillocks facing the mouth of where the Sarawak River meets the South China Sea.
These were extremely popular and always fully booked months in advance for school breaks and public holidays.
A view of the government bungalows on the hill in this 1963 photo, courtesy of Brian Houldershaw.
Kampung Santubong is rich with history. According to the 2020 census, its population was 117,751—82 per cent comprising the Malays, 10 per cent Dayaks, and 8 per cent Chinese.
It is only about 35km from Kuching, taking about a 35-minute drive on a good day.
I have many fond memories of my many holidays spent in Santubong. In the early to mid-1960s, we would lodge at the government bungalows, having travelled there by boat (private speedboats or government launches).
After 1987, we would stay at the Damai Beach Resort, under its various managements—first the Holiday Inn, then Sheraton, now the SEDC Group.
In the 1960s during school holidays, our entire family would book one whole bungalow and sometimes, even invited friends to stay with us. There was no limit to the number of guests allowed in these lodges.
I remember the old shophouses situated at the foothill of the bungalow's compound, a short walking distance and it also served as the gateway to the entrance of the rustic and beautiful Malay 'kampung' (village). The houses on wooden stilts and the sandy walkways under the swaying coconut trees are all still there.
A view in this photo of Kampung Santubong, taken in 1963 by Brian Houldershaw, shows the cows roaming freely at the Malay village.
There used to be five shophouse units in the old days. The most popular and well-stocked back then was called 'Soon Hong' (in Hokkien, this phrase means 'smooth wind' or a common greeting meaning 'bon voyage').
It was owned and operated by Chang Kuo Hong (also known as 'Ah Kun'), a Hainanese from China. His daughter Annie, and son-in-law Eric Yap have kindly provided me with some photos and information, which I share here.
I remember we used to buy our provisions and had eaten there many times. It was always very busy and the very genial pleasant old man also served the best Hainanese chicken rice, 'char kuih tiaw' and 'mee goreng'.
Chang would work 364 days a year and opened his shop daily from 7am till 10pm. He retired each night after tucking in a bottle of Guinness stout!
He only took one day off every year, and that was for Chinese New Year.
Chang had started his business in 1937 and retired in 2008 when his children took over. He passed away in November 2010, at age 84, and left the shop to his five children.
The property, 'Soon Hong' shop at Kampung Santubong, certainly deserves recognition for restoration as a Sarawak Heritage Site, for all its history and major significance to the region.
Chang's daughter Annie and her husband recalled the days before the bridge was completed in 1987, when they had to make daily trips from Kuching to help out in the shop.
A family photo taken during dinner at Soon Hong in 1980s, with Tan Sri William Tan, a close family friend (seated, third right) and Chang (seated, second left) seen at this gathering.
A normal day would start very early, around 5am or 6am, when they went to the poultry market and the 'Cheko' wet market at Gambier Street in Kuching, to buy chicken, vegetables and freshly-made noodles to bring down to the shop.
Only seafood was freshly available at Santubong.
They would then use the Chinese cargo motor-launch parked at the Old Ban Hock Wharf. This journey took between two and three hours depending on the tide and weather.
If they missed the 8am launch, they would then have to drive down to Pasir Pandak Beach to take a fishing boat across the rivermouth to Santubong, which would be more costly, and also more dangerous subject to bad weather conditions.
They both reminisced that during the colonial days and the early years of Malaysia, up till the late 1980s, those were the heydays of Santubong. Business was booming, and the village and its populace had prospered with the big influx of tourists from Kuching and elsewhere.
Weekends usually witnessed traffic congestion along the routes into the village, and the shops did a roaring business.
During my youthful holidays spent at the bungalows on the hills at Santubong, there were school excursions. We had our 'summer holidays' with classmates when we would all be up to our naughty teenage jinks and jaunts.
We did not mind that we had to walk more than a mile to get to the water as the beach at low tide would recede very far.
The beach itself was nothing much to speak of: the sand was brown and sticky, neither golden nor fluffy as the nicer ones at Pandan, Pugu or the other newer beaches now reachable by road since the 2000s.
We would bring our own food and provisions, and do our own cooking. We would play cards, sometimes 'mahjong' till the early hours—many did not even get to sleep!
For some of us, we had our very first alcoholic drink—a beer, a stout, or even a brandy or a ginger ale. In those days, whisky, gin and wine were hard to come by.
If memory serves me well, I also recall that one or two of us had also 'courted' future wives during such overnighter picnics!
In the latter years after the Damai Beach Resort became the hottest beach spot in town, and during my working years, we would often spend weekends with friends and their family members by booking entire chalets next to each other.
Faces and ages would have changed by the 1980s, but what was de rigueur in the 1960s were repeated—the fun-making, the cooking, the gambling, and of course, the drinking!
Times may have changed, but human behaviours have stayed the same.
Chang donning his straw sunhat—a portrait taken by KF Wong in the 1980s.
In 1987, I had brought film director John Milius, and Oscar-winning production designer Gil Parrondo, twice to scout Santubong and its jungles for scenes suitable for 'Farewell to the King'.
They had both loved what I showed them, but we had insurmountable logistical issues to overcome as the bridge would not open till after our planned film shoot.
So instead of building a number of film sets and bringing the major part of the shooting to Santubong, we had opted for Matang instead.
However the filmmakers were so enchanted by Santubong that they did shoot one vital scene there—among the mangroves along the side-road leading to where The Village by Singgahsana is sited today.
Nick Nolte and our film crew spent an entire day covered in mud and slime inside the large monsoon drains lined with mangrove palms and roots shooting a sequence, which eventually ended up for less than a minute of screen time in the final cut.
Nolte was virtually crawling among the mangroves and we had to throw a few sucking leeches at him to make it look authentic.
Santubong had its heydays in the 1950s-1990s period, during which time it was 'the picnic spot for the rich and famous' and later, the late night disco joint when Shamsir Askor was the general manager of the then-Holiday Inn Damai Beach Resort.
A very recent photo of the shophouse block at Santubong bazaar, taken by Eric Yap. Soon Hong is at the left-end corner.
Today, Santubong has matured and mellowed out as a destination for many to take leisurely weekend drives; a stop-by for those going to Kampung Buntal for seafood; and famous now for its annual Rainforest World Music Festival held at the Sarawak Cultural Village.
Its hotels no longer attract the crème-de-la-crème of the tourists' crowd.
Frankly, their reputation took a beating from decades of neglect and non-maintenance, and even though renovated and spruced up and aiming for the 'high end' with four-figure room rates—well, sorry, it is too little too late, folks!
Today, the local, younger generation flock to so many other more attractive picnic spots, from Lundu, Sematan, Pugu to Matang and Serian homestays and countless other places.
The memories of the golden days of Santubong will always remain for many of us, but only as that—memories.
* The opinions expressed in this article are the columnist's own and do not reflect the view of the newspaper.