“Do you have a border pass, sir?” asked a Malaysian soldier at the Sarikin checkpoint on the West Kalimantan — Sarawak border. “I don’t have a pass, but I have come from Sanggau Ledo near the border to see my family and go shopping in Sarikin, here’s my ID card.”

A pass is required to visit Sarikin, Sarawak, from West Kalimantan by motorcycle with an Indonesian license plate. However, considerable leeway is allowed to people living in the border zone. You don’t really need the entry permit, despite the border guard’s warning.

A motorbike from Jagoi Babang in West Kalimantan, to Sarikin takes around 15 minutes. The route is a village path. Sarikin is about 60 kilometers from Kuching, and the capital of Sarawak can be reached in an hour by car or motorcycle.

On Saturday and Sunday, Sarikin is teeming with visitors from places like Kuala Lumpur, Kuching and Brunei Darussalam, who spend their weekend shopping there. At Sarikin Market, a vast variety of merchandise is available such as electronics, handicrafts, garments and food from Indonesia.

Nearly all of the stall and kiosk owners come from Indonesia, mainly from West Kalimantan capital Pontianak, Ngabang (Landak regency), Mempawah (Pontianak regency), Sambas regency and Bengkayang regency.

Visiting the market at the end of last year, the atmosphere was exactly like Indonesia’s traditional or bulk markets, where people buy daily necessities. Stalls on both sides of the road packed the area for as far as a kilometer from the center of town.

The first line of the market was filled with sellers of a wide variety of vegetables from Ledo, Sanggau Ledo, Seluas and Jagoi Babang in West Kalimantan. Other kiosks offered clothes, handicrafts, electronics, antiques and dried seafood.  

At the stall of Khadijah, 47, several customers were bargaining for salted fish and dried shrimp. Other stalls in the market were also extremely busy. Sunday is the busiest day of the hectic weekend.

Noris, 37, a Sarikin resident told me that the market had been there for over thirteen years. In the beginning, only a few places were rented to traders from Indonesia. With the passage of time, the market kept growing and became well known across Malaysia. Many people regularly visit Sarikin to buy goods from Indonesia. The visitors range from ordinary citizens to officials, particularly those from Kuching.

Local people, notably Sarikin residents, realize the presence of Sarikin Market as one of Sarawak’s tourist destinations most favorable to them. There’s also the widespread notion that visiting Sarawak without going to Sarikin Market near the border of Malaysia and Indonesia would be incomplete. This assumption has further strengthened the image of Sarikin as a shopping destination of the Malaysian state.

“Business transactions between nations on a small scale are thriving here. The commodities most in demand are clothing, vegetables and fruit. Garments from Indonesia are fairly cheap and their quality is quite good. In spite of their low prices, buyers can still bargain for them,” said Noris, whose wife comes from Seluas district, Bengkayang. Most Indonesian visitors buy various goods from Malaysia and resell them back home.

These social, cultural and economic interactions have taken place for a long time. These are reciprocal relationships between people of the same racial origin, only differing in citizenship.

In the past, the trade between residents of Sarawak and Kalimantan was referred to by the term semokil, a cognate for “smuggle”. Local people have always understood the term as trade relations in a positive sense, even though it might actually be smuggling.

Today, everything progresses naturally driven by the laws of the free market, trade and friendship. Various ethnic groups and nationalities combine to do business in the same marketplace.

Aci, 40, from Sambas regency tells how he has been doing business in Sarikin since the time when the town was only accessible through narrow alleyways.

“Formerly we used porters to carry goods to the market. Now with easier access and motor vehicles transport, we hire ojek or motorbike taxis,” he said. There is a popular consensus that transport of goods and passengers between Jagoi Babang and Sarikin should use local ojek drivers.

To set up his business in Sarikin, Aci first had to search for a place or kiosk. Such a place could only be obtained by renting the front yard or sidewalk of a local house. The rent was around 200 to 400 ringgit, roughly a million or so rupiah. “Today it’s very hard to find a vacant place as all stalls are already occupied,” added Aci.

The market in Sarikin has created opportunities for many people to earn a living, particularly local traders and their counterparts in West Kalimantan. Aci feels that market is so important that the government should ensure that it remains vibrant and busy.

Part of the border community is anxious over the planned inauguration of Jagoi Babang as the official border crossing. “When the border is officially opened, no more ojek will be used and everything will be carried by car, so Sarikin Market may be paralyzed. Local people are worried and watching because those who taking over the area are big capitalists,” said Geron, who coordinates 90 ojek drivers in Jagoi Babang.

— Photos by JP/Bambang Bider

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