Miri

The Baram coast was inhabited long before any town stood here: the caves at Niah, south of the modern city, have yielded human remains and tools tens of thousands of years old, making them among the most important archaeological sites in Southeast Asia. In historic times the area lay at the edge of Brunei's sultanate, and the Baram river was a route inland for the Kayan, Kenyah and Berawan peoples, brought under Brooke rule in the late 19th century after the territory was transferred from Brunei.

Miri was a fishing village until oil seepages drew prospectors. In 1910 the first well in Malaysia was drilled on the ridge behind the village, on the initiative of Charles Hose and with Shell's backing, and the Grand Old Lady, as the well became known, produced until 1972. A refinery was built at Lutong, a company town grew around it, and Miri became the headquarters of the oil business in Sarawak. Japanese forces landed here in December 1941, in one of their first moves against Borneo, because of the oil; the fields were sabotaged before they arrived and the town was bombed heavily later in the war.

Production moved offshore from the 1960s and 1970s, and the city changed from an oil camp to a service and trading centre for northern Sarawak, with timber and palm oil adding to its trade. Miri was declared a city in 2005, the tenth in Malaysia and the first that was not a state capital, and has grown steadily since, driven by cross-border traffic with Brunei, education and its role as the gateway to Mulu and the interior.

Miri's population is unusually mixed even by Sarawak's standards. Chinese communities dominate the old town's commerce, Malay and Melanau families live along the coast, and large numbers of Iban, Kayan, Kenyah, Kelabit and Lun Bawang people have moved down from the Baram and the highlands for work and schooling, keeping ties with longhouses upriver. The oil industry has brought workers from the peninsula and abroad for a century, giving the city an outward-looking, transient layer on top of that.

Festivals follow the mixture: Chinese New Year in the shophouse streets, Hari Raya open houses, Christmas in a state where Christianity is the largest religion, and Gawai Dayak on 1 June, when the city empties towards the longhouses. The Borneo Jazz Festival has been held here since 2006 and is the event that puts Miri on the regional cultural map, and the handicraft trade keeps Orang Ulu beadwork, basketry and sape playing visible in the city.

Everyday manners are relaxed and practical. Sarawak Malay and English are the common languages, with Hokkien, Hakka, Iban and Kelabit heard as well, and people identify strongly as Sarawakian. Proximity to Brunei shapes weekends in both directions: Bruneians cross to shop and eat, and Mirians cross for the beaches and the quiet.

About 357,000 people live in the city's administrative area, which makes Miri Sarawak's second city, and it sprawls over flat coastal land in low estates rather than rising upward. Oil and gas remain the largest employers, now through offshore fields, service companies and engineering firms rather than the refinery that built the place, and government offices, hospitals, colleges, timber and palm oil provide much of the rest. Retail matters more here than in most Malaysian cities of its size, because Bruneian shoppers cross the border in large numbers.

Life is car-centred. People live in Pujut, Krokop, Luak and the outer estates, drive to work and to the malls, and gather at hawker centres and the seafront in the evening. The coastal parks fill after five o'clock, the night markets move around the districts through the week, and Sunday mornings are quiet while churches are full.

The city's concerns are those of a place whose founding industry has moved offshore: what replaces oil jobs, how to keep young people from leaving for Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, coastal erosion along its beaches, and flooding after monsoon rain. Its role as the gateway to Mulu, Bario and the Baram gives it a steady stream of visitors that the tourism trade depends on.

Miri eats much as the rest of Sarawak does, with a stronger coastal accent. Breakfast is Sarawak laksa, rice vermicelli in a spiced coconut and tamarind broth with prawns, chicken and omelette, or kolo mee, egg noodles tossed dry with shallot oil and char siu. Coffee shops in the old town serve both from early morning, with kopi and kaya toast.

Seafood is the city's evening meal: prawns fried with butter and curry leaves, fish steamed with ginger or grilled with sambal, squid, and crab cooked in Sarawak pepper, the state's most famous export. Midin, the crisp jungle fern, is stir-fried with garlic or belacan on nearly every table, and umai, the Melanau salad of raw fish with lime, chilli and shallot, appears as a starter. From the interior come manok pansoh, chicken cooked in bamboo with tapioca leaves, and Bario rice, the fine fragrant grain grown in the Kelabit Highlands and flown down to the city.

The markets fill in the rest. Tamu Muhibbah sells jungle ferns, bamboo shoots, wild honey, terung Dayak and river fish brought down the Baram; night markets grill chicken wings and satay; and bakeries sell kek lapis Sarawak, the bright layered cake cut into small squares for festivals. Cendol, iced teh c peng special and fresh coconut are the usual drinks against the heat, and tuak is poured at Gawai.