FOCUS Sunday in Dalat is quiet. Shops are closed and the people will just spend the day chilling at home. There sits a temple at the waterfront, next to the Oya River, with people resting on benches.

There are wooden houses built along the river, with several longboats tethered outside each house. As a city dweller, the floating toilet at the village houses caught my attention the most.

With no modern toilet bowl, each household makes a hole for excreta. Urine and faeces would be flushed into the river from the locally-designed water closets.

I took a two-hour boat ride from Sibu to Dalat. Rarely did I hear of this town back then. The only impression I had is when I read the book, ‘How Dalat Got Its Name’, written by Heidi Munan, when I was in Form One.

The book talks about bloodshed among three brothers as the village chief did not name a successor. Many people died in the war. Corpses lying in the village attracted flies. ‘Dalat’ means fly in the Melanau language, and therefore, the locals named the village Dalat, which is now a small town.

The trip started with my encounter with Tan, a police officer from Selangor.

“It didn’t feel right to leave the town,” Tan said. “There is a Chinese idiom that says there are so many stories in a small town. That’s what I think and how I feel.”

He was transferred to Dalat five years ago, after 20 years of service in West Malaysia...