AN era in Kuching's urban development closed with the relocation a month ago of the traditional wet markets along the city's historic waterfront across the Sarawak River from the Brooke-period Istana and the incongruous concrete monstrosity that is the new state legislative assembly building.

The relocation sets in motion the "rehabilitation" of that stretch of the Kuching waterfront, in the old heart of town. The old markets were housed within some of the city's earliest concrete buildings, including a handsome high-ceilinged edifice with open archways that would not look out of place on a waterway in Venice.

Old Kuching will lose some of its greatest charm if such priceless architectural relics are sacrificed on the altar of commercial redevelopment in the name of urban progress. Gone too, most surely, will be the tea-shop atop an old godown that advertised itself as offering the experience of having tea as His Highness the Rajah once did, in full view of the busy waterway below.

The pungent smells of spices, the call to prayer from the mosque, well hidden along the five-foot ways of the shops by the appropriately-named Gambier Street, may be next to disappear forever.

As Main Bazaar on the other side of the old Court House complex has transformed itself into Kuching's craft bazaar, Gambier Street may yet metamorphose into something equally enticing for locals and tourists alike, but this city will never be quite the same again.
For all the effort and expense of Sarawak's push to attract tourists in the past decades, the results have been disappointing. The fancy hotels, in cities such as Kuching and Miri, would be largely empty were it not for government-related events and business visitors.

A greater inflow of tourists might have helped preserve old Kuching the way it always was, against the constant onslaught of developers always hungry to tear down the old in order to make way for developments that will yield better dividends from prime city-centre locations.

But the signs are somewhat promising. It is quite common now to see couples or small groups of Western tourists lugging backpacks along narrow and winding Carpenter Street or Green Hills in search of the mushrooming small bed-and-breakfast lodgings.

Perhaps such bottom-up tourism growth should have been the route the state took when it first decided that tourism was the way to go. In any case, it is the logical way to go now, with the top-down approach to tourism having more-or-less failed, or at least achieved nothing particularly stellar.

The humble backpacker travelling alone or in small groups and spending directly on local service providers may actually have a greater multiplier effect on the economy than tourists on pre-arranged and heavily discounted travel packages.

Individual travellers also have a much more impressive record as holiday trailblazers in the creation of new tourist destinations and the promotion of responsible and sustainable tourism. The influence such intrepid travellers have in determining new world tourist hotspots is not to be taken lightly.

Of course, I have a selfish motive in wanting to see more individual, independent travellers making a beeline to Kuching. The thought of relentless development veering ever closer to the inner and historical sanctum of my hometown fills me with rising dread.

I figure that if tourism can help keep the cultural heart of Bali in Ubud vital and vibrant, such tourism may be my best ally in securing Kuching as a modern and progressive city that nevertheless nurtures proud historical roots.

The banging of the Chinese tinsmiths in the narrow alleyway from Main Bazaar to Carpenter Street still reverberates every day, as it must have been in decades and centuries past. One must hope -- perhaps against hope -- that it continues to beat in the heart of old Kuching forever.