Gryphon II - Pulau Bidong N05 36 57 E103 03 62

Pulau Bidong N05 36 57 E103 03 62

Gryphon II

Chris and Lorraine Marchant

Tue 4 Jun 2013 10:24

South of Redang is the small island of Pulau Bidong. We decided to stop there as it has a monument to the Vietnamese boat people who were quartered there from 1975 until it was closed as a refugee camp in the early 1990s. What we did not know is that this tiny island was once home to a staggering 40,000 refugees and was the most densely populated place on earth. The island is tiny, less than a mile long and much of the land is one hill. All that remains today are a new jetty leading to an old tiled communal area and some decaying remains of a Christian church and a Buddhist temple up the side of the hill.

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The modern jetty now mostly used by prawn and squid fishing boats, the men spend the day here sleeping in hammocks and leave about 1700 pm for their night of fishing.

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Remains of the church

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Ruins of the Buddhist temple

We found that there are two monuments here.

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One an emotional tower of individual plaques left by the survivors, partly in thanks to having made it to relative safety but also to those that died in the frail and overcrowded craft in which they fled Vietnam.

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And the Monument to those that died at sea, some were just a few hundred metres from land when their boats overturned in the surf.

This is a very moving place and it is well worth looking up the name of the island on You Tube as there are some excellent presentations recalling what the island was like. It is a place where you can witness all the aspects of the human condition … the inhumanity that drove people to leave Vietnam, the desperation of the people and the terrible suffering that many experienced but also the way in which, after a hesitant start, the Malaysian government and the UNHCR provided the essentials to support the people. Eventually and after some reluctance the refugees were found homes in the USA, Australia, Canada and in a very limited way the UK. Above all it is clear that the Vietnamese people quickly managed to control their own destiny and their optimism and hard work saw them through what must have been an incredibly traumatic time.

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We had an idyllic anchorage just south of the island and in the morning there were the clear tracks of a turtle that had dragged itself up the beach to lay its eggs. Already someone had marked it with a stick and soon after 2 boys from a fishing boat arrived. I went in the dinghy to persuade them not to dig up the eggs and gave them a lift back to their boat. Later we made as good a job as we could of hiding the nest site and the tracks so no one else could take the eggs. The market at Terengganu is full of stalls selling turtle eggs and the practice of raiding the nests and selling the eggs is not yet banned. The few sites where conservation work is carried out are a drop in the ocean. On this one small beach we saw 5 other nest sites that had clearly been raided.

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However, we did spot this small turtle around the corner so perhaps there is still hope.

To do our bit we wrote to the local turtle conservation group and also a local MP whom we had met at one of the rally dinners. We had invited him back to the boat to see how we lived aboard as he had never been on a yacht. He was very interested both in the boat and our travels so hopefully he will remember us and at least recall our comments about the importance of wildlife in the further development of tourism along this coast. There is a political concern here of how the economy will manage once the offshore oil reserves run out, so just maybe something will be done to preserve these wonderful creatures eventually.

A fascinating island for all the wrong reasons!