At Sekupang’s small quay, I jumped aboard a pancung and mingled with the other passengers. They sat side by side, nattering away about this and that, with seemingly no desire to even ask each others’ names. It all seemed as natural as rain. “This is a good fishing net; the nylon and line are strong,” said an old man about the tackle he was carrying. “If you need a net, I can make you one,” he continued, peddling his wares.
The old pancung carved through the water. The suns rays were pretty fierce, but they didn’t feel too hot thanks to the gusts of wind. After swinging by some small islands, the boat stopped at Belakang Padang. I visited a restaurant that served up seafood dishes. “That island is far from here. The small boats rarely choose to sail that route. There are high seas and the waves there are huge. What is it you’re after there?” The woman who ran the eatery spoke about Galang with a strong Melayu accent.
There was no pancung going to Galang. I had to return to the town. “Never mind, don’t be stubborn. Hire some transport. Or hire a taxi. It can be reached by road these days. Think about it; Habibie [the former Indonesian President] built six bridges that’ll get you there. You should see. There have been real changes,” a man explained to me.
I opted for a motorbike and I was soon speeding along the winding road. I stopped a few times along the Barelang Bridge, a long concrete structure that connects Rempang and Batam. It was as if I were in a world above the sea as I stood on this impressive suspension bridge that straddles the strait.
The motorbike howled as it negotiated slope after slope, and only the occasional car passed us. Forest stretched out on either side, thick with mostly fallow or yellowing undergrowth. My motorcycle came to a halt in front of a metal sign, painted green, which had, “Ex Camp Vietnam” written on it. The place seemed like a portal wanting to suck me back to a bygone era. On a board was written, “Galang, Memory of a Tragic Past”. All of a sudden, I was reminded of my professor’s words: “I can’t bear to look too long. Their skin has been burnt. Some have abscesses.” He was one of the volunteers who were sent to Galang.
I explored the camp on foot. It was quiet; nobody was living there anymore. There was a line of dormitories that once accommodated the refugees, a hospital, a church, a school and a prison. In the cemetery called Ngha Trang Grave, I scrutinised the names etched onto the headstones. There were many people called Nguyen. In Vietnam it is a name as common as Mary is in the US. There were more than 500 graves containing the remains of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees. According to a signboard at the cemetery, many of the deaths at that time were caused by illnesses that had been contracted while the refugees had been sailing on the open sea for months. In addition, poor mental health also exacerbated the terrible physical condition of many of the refugees.
In the late 1970s, after the communist North had won Vietnam’s civil war, many from the South who did not want to submit to communist doctrine chose to flee on small boats. This exodus brought many of these boat-people to Galang. Nguyen was one of them. Escaping from her ravaged country, this young girl’s life ended in tragedy when she was a victim of rape on the island that had given her hope. Her friends, who had shared her trials and tribulations, dedicated a simple monument to her at the camp.
Not far from her memorial, the refugee dormitories stretch out but are no longer cared for. Some are in ruins, eaten away by termites. Shrubs and weeds envelop the buildings here, right up to their rooftops. Dormitories that might have once housed more than 200 people have been swallowed up by the forest. Despite this ostensibly bucolic and charming scene, tales of the human suffering that once occurred here continue to linger in the mind.
I met Saruddin Napitupulu in the museum that stands near the dormitory complex. The museum contains many portraits of faces from that dark period. “I cannot say for sure which one is Nguyen,” said Saruddin. “They were all my friends. I knew them. They were the ones who taught me how to bake bread, make sandals, make traditional Vietnamese drinks, all for free,” he reminisced. “They were good people.” Some tourists, including a couple of Westerners, were listening seriously and nodding as Saruddin spoke.
Other tourists were busy taking pictures of the wooden boats. Two of them were still intact while another three had been reduced to mere hulls. These derelict boats, which are all less than 20 metres in length, are not in and of themselves particularly interesting. However these vessels are remembered as a means of salvation for thousands of people. A signboard explained their history. “These boats were used to sail across the South China Sea for several months and for thousands of kilometres, and headed to various places, including Galang Island, with the hope of seeking the protection of other nations. Some of them failed to reach land and their passengers perished at sea.”
I took a look at the old church whose bells no longer chimed. The sun was beating down from above onto a simple statue of Mary. To the north, a small jetty was waiting for passengers. To the east, the waves on the beach were whispering the song of the pulau kelapa (coconut islands). Elsewhere, a pile of dilapidated trucks were slowly being eaten away by rust, and the old machines that had been dumped outside the wire-fenced storerooms faced the same fate.
