Of muhibah, kampungs and the slow travelling movement

I don't normally do news round-ups - see Jeff Ooi for that - but a few things caught my eye today.

The first is Johan Jaaffar's lament on "Those long-gone days of muhibah in the kampung" in today's New Straits Times. Johan's point is not new: In the past, during more innocent times, before and just after Malaysia gained her independence in 1957, it was not unusual for families of various ethnicities to not only live cheek-by-jowl with each other, but have genuine interactions and friendship. This pining for the good old days is particularly prevalent among Malaysians of a certain vintage as well as politicians out to mask their tendency to fan ethnic chauvinism with empty rhetoric of multi-cultural harmony, or muhibah.

I highlight Johan's lament because my friend John is right now undertaking a ride across the country in search of that muhibah spirit, and is at this very moment, passing through Muar, the setting for Johan's commentary. What was remarkable about Johan's picture of an idyllic kampung was that "in 1948, the area surrounding my village was the scene of the worse racial turmoil the country had ever known."

Meanwhile, two Morrocan scouts are walking through Asia to promote "love, peace and tolerance", and has arrived in Malaysia. What is it about people taking the slow road to spread positive messages? Is it because the physically draining act of walking and cycling humbles a person and makes him or her more sensitive or self-aware? Is it that the slower pace allows one to truly appreciate the worth of every single human being one encounters? Or is one just too darned tired to argue?

Riding is of course an environmentally-friendly, low-impact way of playing tourist, as this feature on Pulau Ketam bike tours attests. My recent post on the charming island failed to include some of the nitty-gritty travel details that good, responsible bloggers are supposed to have provide. Oh well, *shrug*.

But I did have a pix of pepper crabs! :)

P.S. If any of the links to the articles become broken, leave a comment and I'll fix it!

Going crabbin'

A scene from one of the many small wooden bridges on Pulau Ketam.

One of our favourite excursions is a day trip to a fishing island just off Port Klang, about 40 km west of Kuala Lumpur. Pulau Ketam, or Crab Island, is home to a community that has lived off the sea for over a hundred years, and continues to do so. Life seems slower and one catches a glimpse of 1950s Malaysia as one strolls through the homes built on stilts.

According to an “official” website, a “long time ago” Pulau Ketam was a deserted island full of mangrove swamps, before three fishermen, who went crabbing on the island, found the day-long journey back to the mainland too taxing, and built homes on the island, sometime in the mid-19th century.

Thankfully, nowadays it only takes about 30 minutes to get there from the mainland jetty, using a speedboat (above). This is a long craft usually packed with locals bringing provisions from or catch to the mainland. The bustle inside the enclosed boat is heightened by the Mandarin or Hokkien karaoke blaring away from the front. Plonk yourself on the wrong seat – under an aircon vent – and you’ll be blasted with an Arctic chill. Both the karaoke volume and the air-conditioning seemed stuck on Maximum!

On a trip to Pulau Ketam in the 1990s, the journey to the island took well over an hour, on an open wooden boat that chugged along serenely. We could then sit on benches at the back, hang out with the pilot, or perch ourselves at the bow, feeling the breeze on our faces and taking in the picturesque sea and mangrove swamp views. This time, we were cooped inside, and could only look out through small round windows that were either frosted, scratched or dirty. The price of progress! Thankfully, once the boat slowed down and was hopping from jetty to jetty along the island, the boatmen opened the doors, and claustrophobic locals and eager tourists crammed the small openings to breathe in fresh air or to take pictures.

The houses on Pulau Ketam are built close together, and are connected by a warren of raised, narrow wooden (and, increasingly, cement) paths, on which pedestrians, bicycles and motorbikes jostle for space. The population is mainly Chinese Malaysians, although there are a growing number of Indonesians working alongside the local fishermen.

Right off the jetty is the main town, with its administrative offices, market, food stalls, homestays, tourist offices and places of worship (above, the Hock Leng Keng temple). The social life of the Chinese inhabitants revolve around the temples, and in this tightly knit community, the temples sit cheek by jowl (below) with the congregation they serve.

At the time of our visit, the temple folks were busily preparing for a big Hungry Ghost celebration. It wasn’t just the two-legged creatures who were enjoying the whole fuss – the temple’s resident tortoises were in on the act as well…

However, it is the eight-legged delicacy, which gives its name to the island, that is often the highlight of any trip to Pulau Ketam. One cannot wander by the restaurants without being drawn to a colourful pail containing freshly caught crabs.

Before...

... and after! Yummmmmm.

Our meal for the four of us that day, at the restaurant just next to the jetty, also included…

… bamboo clams (above), home-made fish ball soup (below; we had two orders!!) stir-fried kangkong (water spinach), and curried large prawns.

The ceiling fans and ice-cold beer kept us cool as we ate our lunch on the large restaurant verandah. The meal finished, we sat back and took in the panoramic vista.

Another of Ketam’s well-known products is dried shrimp, small in size but packing a wallop in flavours, and a favourite of Malaysian cooks. All the stores in the town sell them (below right)…

… but if one is more adventurous, one can walk through the village and stop by any fisherman’s home and buy it off him. However, on that particular day, there were no dried shrimp in view, and we walked a fair bit before finally spotting some laid out and baking under the sun. See the many decks below jutting out from the homes? They’re all usually filled with sun-tanning shrimp, but on that day, only one deck was golden hued.

We walked towards the deck for a closer look.

A lady came out from the nearby house and explained to us that the fishermen were not having much success catching shrimp those past few weeks. (Was it because of the Hungry Ghost month, we silently thought?)

She grumbled something about the unpredictably of depending on the sea for one’s livelihood, while giving us a quick socio-historical slice of the island community. As for the shrimp, well, her husband was having better luck than most; he and his crew had left that morning at around 2 am and had returned just after lunch. They had cleaned and cooked the shrimp and had just laid them out in the sun, so that day’s catch was not quite ready for the market yet.

Instead, she arranged to have her neighbour’s previous day’s catch brought out and, without much persuasion, we took a good chunk home. It doesn’t get fresher than this!

Jungle jive

A couple of months ago, some family and friends spent the weekend camping on the fringes of the Endau-Rompin National Park, run by the Johore state government. The camp, a collection of basic huts situated along the very picturesque Sungai Lemakoh, soothed our weary, urban souls with panoramic views of glistening pools that seemed to shimmer as the first rays of sunlight gently alighted on it. At other times, we could hear the gentle gurgling of the river as it flowed by in no particular rush to go anywhere, except when it rained.

Upstream view (view) from the campsite.
Many pools (below), large and small, can be
found along the river just a few minutes walk away.

The camp is run by Buyin and his wife Ami, with help from their children and nephews. Buyin, an Orang Asli (the indigenous people of Malaysia), is a minor celebrity, and has been featured in some press and online articles on eco-tourism. This particular one showcases Buyin’s original camp that stood before the floods of early 2007 struck Johore and damaged it. Buyin rebuilt his camp and we were one of its first visitors.

The camp itself is made up of a collection of open wooden huts – a large dining/social hall with an attached kitchen; two communal sleeping huts; a shower; three bathrooms and a useful changing room just by the river. One can spend the day following guides on treks along the river or into the jungle; making a day trip to the Orang Asli kampung; swimming in the pools; or just doing nothing…

… except lying on the long benches, contemplating the meaning of life or admiring the sun-lit patterns on the roof of the huts.

Buyin takes care of all the food, and the oohs and aahs during mealtimes is testament to his and Ami’s cooking skills. Apart from our yummy daily three meals Buyin also provided numerous tea breaks: This must be what it's like in the civil service. Elevenses, mmmmm.

One of the treats was the BBQ dinner we had one night – chicken, beef, lamb etc.

You cannot go on a diet here. It’s impossible.

Come night time, Buyin puts up the hurricane lamps. After dinner, with no Astro (satellite TV) to kill all conversation, normally tired worker bees like us actually had long conversations around the dinner table and had some low-tech fun.

No, we were not trainees for the new Singapore casinos (oops, sorry, the Singapore government would like them to be called Integrated Resorts). We were literally playing for peanuts!

On one of our days there, the heavens opened up in the afternoon and subjected us to a typical tropical thunderstorm – a dramatic downpour with appropriate audio and visual accompaniment that lasted all of 20 minutes. It turned dark-ish really quickly, and one of the seven dogs that came with us scurried under the table. We were in awe at the display of nature’s power and quite a few of us just sat quietly and watched the rain.

What better way to spend a weekend.