Plying between Sibu and Binatang, all three were passengers and cargo boats. However Kong Ang and Hook Ang were double storeyed (or double decker) while Hook Ang was single.
The single storeyed motor launch had a smaller horse power and when it was the time for San Lau (strong currents from the mountains in the interior) which occured during the rainy season, the motor launch could not move fast. Sometimes it had to stay put for a few days even.
In June and December every year one of the motor launches would arrive in Sibu to pick up my aunts and uncles for the term holidays. My aunts and uncles were studying in the Yuk Ing School which was a boarding school. End of the term was very exciting. It was even more exciting then than it is for today. They had no handphones , no tv, and no radio in those days.
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| My Aunt Chiew with the white handbag. Top of the fashion. |
The only communication they had was news personally brought to them when their father or mother came to see them in Sibu.
So according to my aunt Chiew, she would not be able to sleep the night before the whole group of them were to go back to Binatang to see their parents!! She remembers that she would be the first one to get up extremely early in the morning to get all her siblings together since she was the eldest among them. They would go to the Tua Pek Kong Wharf to wait for one of the boats to pick them up.
In those days, having their own family motor launch was equivalent to today's value of having a limousine to pick you up from school for the holidays.
Boarding school life was good according to her but she loved going home too, especially to see their grandmother and probably to eat a few chickens and ducks!! She would enjoy some fun and she would not be restricted by all the discipline handed down by Mrs. Hoover who was very stern and of course no nonsense.
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