Ba’kelalan is a group of nine villages at Maligan Highlands of Limbang Division, Sarawak, Malaysia about 3,000 feet (910 m) above sea level and 4 km from the border with Indonesian Kalimantan and 150 km from the nearest town of Lawas. There are nine villages in Ba’kelalan. The villagers here belong to the Lun Bawang tribe.
The name Ba’Kelalan is derived from the Kelalan River and Ba’ which means wet lands in the Lun Bawang language. Its population was about 1030 in 2003. In the cool mountain climate, temperate fruits such as apples, mandarin oranges, grapes and vanilla are grown. The area also produces rice, and mountain salt is obtained from the nearby hills. The people in Ba’Kelalan are Christian, members of the Sidang Injil Borneo.
Our journey begun early morning with the trip briefing, In the briefing we were inform that we had to go trough immigration check at the state border, and then we will have Lunch at a small town called Lawas. Later after lunch we started our journey to the village where most had to change transportation to a 4×4 as that was the only suitable vehicle to be used to that village.
The road was yellow, muddy, and it wasn’t dry. You could Imagine anything at that point. The only thing that made me felt like nothing was going to happen was the beautiful view of nature, glimps sighting of wildlife and the cold air up on the highlands.
The journey started at around 7am and we actually arrived Ba’kelalan around 8pm with a lunch break around an hour.
We spend 4 days in Ba’kelalan and here are the links to videos taken there.:
[Travel Vlog] Ba’kelalan – EP. 2 Our Day 2
[Travel Vlog] Ba’kelalan – Ep.3 Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture in Ba’kelalan
[Travel Vlog] Bakelalan – Ep.4 All About Ba’kelalan
[Travel Vlog] Ba’kelalan – Ep.5 Our last days (BKM, Lawas, KK, Miri & Niah)
How to get there???
You have two options:
– By flight from Miri or Lawas via MASWings Twin Otter.
– By Land (4Wheel drive) from Lawas town via an old logging road.
Hope you enjoy the videos. Don’t forget to like, subscribe and share the videos.
1 second clip recap video of the trip