‘Ghost boat’ haunts villager
BY TAN SIN CHOW, LOH FOON FONG, AND A. RAMAN
A villager in Kampung Spang Loi, near Segamat, Johor, said he dreamt of two large men chasing him after he and his friends pulled out the skeletal remains of a boat believed to be hundreds of years old.“In that dream, two men in white shirts and black slacks, angrily chased me because I had hauled the boat to shore,” said Sulaiman Hussain, 39.
“Coincidentally, my nine-year-old son, Mohd Irfan Adwa, also had that nightmare. He was down with high fever after that,” he told Harian Metro.
Relating the incident, Sulaiman said he and five others had gone to the river bank where he saw what was initially thought to be a big log.
When they pulled it out, they were surprised to see it was a wreckage of a boat that was believed to have been used hundreds of years ago, with the inscription BMC 1184.
“I hired a tractor to hoist the wreckage onto a lorry and brought it to my house for possible restoration,” said Sulaiman, adding that he had the bad dream that night.
An orang asli in the group, named Ijam, 29, said the boat was made from penakwood without the use of a single nail and totally hand-crafted.
Kampung Spang Loi village head Jamaludin Atan said he believed the one-tonne, 10m long and 2m wide boat was used by Chinese traders around 1914 to transport various commodities, including rubber sheets, gaharu wood, rattan and marble rocks to nearby Buloh Kasap.
“Such craft can carry between 20 to 30 people.
“It was probably left behind by the Chinese traders,” he said.
Segamat district officer Abdul Rahim Nin said the discovery of the wreckage suggested the river was a busy trading route many years ago.
“Coincidentally, my nine-year-old son, Mohd Irfan Adwa, also had that nightmare. He was down with high fever after that,” he told Harian Metro.
Relating the incident, Sulaiman said he and five others had gone to the river bank where he saw what was initially thought to be a big log.
When they pulled it out, they were surprised to see it was a wreckage of a boat that was believed to have been used hundreds of years ago, with the inscription BMC 1184.
“I hired a tractor to hoist the wreckage onto a lorry and brought it to my house for possible restoration,” said Sulaiman, adding that he had the bad dream that night.
An orang asli in the group, named Ijam, 29, said the boat was made from penakwood without the use of a single nail and totally hand-crafted.
Kampung Spang Loi village head Jamaludin Atan said he believed the one-tonne, 10m long and 2m wide boat was used by Chinese traders around 1914 to transport various commodities, including rubber sheets, gaharu wood, rattan and marble rocks to nearby Buloh Kasap.
“Such craft can carry between 20 to 30 people.
“It was probably left behind by the Chinese traders,” he said.
Segamat district officer Abdul Rahim Nin said the discovery of the wreckage suggested the river was a busy trading route many years ago.
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