Thursday, March 12, 2009
Trip to Kukup
I’m really sorry! I haven’t posted for so long! Sorry!! :C
In the early morning of Tuesday, 10 March 2009, 6.45am, a group of black-clad RGS students gathered in the RGS foyer, chattering excitedly and comparing their passport photos. The air was dewy and cool. That image is forever imprinted in my memory…
Okay, enough with the crappy attempt at the mysterious story. I’ll jump right into it. We took a Luxury® bus to the causeway, and we cleared immigrations rather smoothly (with the exception of Moira who got detained because she didn’t have a green card—she is Malaysian). We entered Malaysia (Yay! My first time overseas this year) then traveled through Johor Bahru to Kukup.
While our bus was traveling, our tour guide introduced herself as Ms. Aishah. (correct me if I’m wrong) She briefly introduced Malaysia’s history, the Japanese invasion, their agriculture and main revenue-generating industries and so on. Malaysia’s national language is Malay, and every single Malaysian has to pass the Malay language test to be a MALAYSIAN, otherwise they would only be a permanent resident. Amazing!
Melaya was part of the Malay archipelago, the most famous state being Melaka. (Yes Xiao Niang Re and history freaks! :P) The Japanese invaded Singapore by land, down Malaysia, as they knew that the Brits had prepared cannons to protect the seas. They brought their own bikes to travel. (Smart neh?) Malaysia’s agriculture consisted mainly of tropical fruits like banana and cocoa, and in the early days, rubber. The main revenue-generating business is petroleum, and fourth was palm oil. We actually saw some of these palm trees as we drove!
Kukup used to be a quaint little fishing village floating in the great blue sea :P. It was created by a Singaporean Arab businessman (can’t remember his name) and he created his own currency to pay his workers. (How cheapo. Wait. I didn’t say that. -.-”) Now, it is still a floating fishing village, but there are cars, bikes, motorbikes, trucks on a concrete paved road. There are telephone wires, electricity and fresh water supply to every house. There are mostly Chinese people there, and some Malays. We saw a Taoist temple on the island, and Ms. Aishah told us that the people were mainly Taoist, but there was also a Buddhist temple. We saw no evidence of a mosque.
We took a boat ride down to the mangrove island (the biggest in the world!). The mangroves there were aplenty and there were many species of animals and mangroves in that habitat. We first climbed the suspension bridge (I wasn’t scared. Honest.) then took a really long walk through the mangrove island via the boardwalk. We saw spiders, mudskippers, many mangrove crabs, and crabholes. However, I was disappointed that the observation tower at the end of the boardwalk was closed, so we had to turn around and walk back. However, it was necessary to rebuild it, as the wood does not last very long in salt water, and safety is priority.
Oh we also visited a floating fish farm. It was made entirely out of wood. Ms. Aishah told me it was really expensive to open a fish farm: 100k ringget. An interesting fact: The fish farmers have to sell their fish when they are 600g-1500g, because only then people will buy the fish, as the fish meat is tender and sweet. A fish farmer showed us a huge puffer fish, archer fish, a tiny seahorse, and a crab. We also petted the fish farmer’s black guard dog. (Actually a lot of us were more interested in the dog than the fish.)
Then we had lunch. One thing I was really disgusted with was the hygiene level in the restaurant. HOUSE FLIES WERE EVERYWHERE! We tried our best to get them off our food and cutlery, but gave up after a while as they were SO persistent. I suppose the local people are used to the houseflies, or they have some really cool housefly repellent device. Anyways I didn’t get a stomachache when I went back. Either I was really lucky or the Kukup houseflies were “cleaner” than the Singapore houseflies. We were served keropok, rice, tea, egg, vegetables, prawn, fishballs, fish and chicken. The fishballs and fish were fine, but I was sorely disappointed by the prawns. I had thought Kukup was a fishing village, so the seafood would be fresh. However, the prawns were stale and hard, and not worth eating at all.
After lunch, we headed off to do an interview with the local people and fill in our worksheet. After a talk with a friendly shopkeeper, we discovered that they had internet, TV, and handphones. Their technology was rather advanced. We enjoyed an ice-cream, then headed back to the bus.
By then, everyone was tired and fell asleep in the bus. Our last stopover in Malaysia was the CocoaRich™ Factory. There were interesting concoctions of chocolates, like the specialty Tomato Chocolate, Mango Chocolate (it was really good) and Lemon Chocolate (they said it was good but I didn’t get to try T.T). I hadn’t brought any ringget, so I wasn’t able to purchase anything, and anyways the products were extremely expensive.
We were lucky that there was no traffic jam in the causeway nor was it raining, so we were able to enjoy the activities fully. I enjoyed this excursion a lot, and think that it was more like a bonding and making-us-independent-in-a-foreign-country experience. I was glad that I had taken Malay, as a lot of the signs were in Malay, so I was able to understand the signs and translate to my friends (and show off! XP). If I understand correctly, are we going to Malaysia again at the end of the year for a week? Great! I can’t wait! Oh yeah and the RSPians will also be involved in the Asia Youth Games Twinning Program. That’s so cool! We’d be able to host and interact with our Malaysian counterparts. <3
Posted by Mel at 7:16 PM