My weekend in Pertang

The last time I visited Pertang was during the Chinese New Year. My brother in law call during the week telling me that my durian trees are bearing flowers again. Getting excited over the news, I decided to make a trip to Pertang to view the happening. Immediately after work, arm with my Sony Camera and a pillow, I and my wife drive to Pertang through the scenic route of the Semengeh Dam and reaching Pertang at about 7pm. After cleaning our self, together with my in laws we went to the local restoran and enjoy a sumptuous dinner consist of a steam talipa fish, half portion of roast duck, pig large intestine cook with pineapple and fry eggs. The dinner cost Rm 51.00 for the 4 of us inclusive of Chinese tea.

The next morning, went for wan tan mee for breakfast then proceed straight to my durian orchard. True enough, most of the durian trees were full of the flower buds, meaning that the flowers will start to bloom in 2 weeks time. My experience is that rain is not essential during flowering as the durians will not develop. If this season with the flowering as seen and if successful, the harvest will be bountiful and pricing will not be good. Pertang durians usually landed in the KL market and also Singapore. The major supplier to Singapore is Muar in Johore.

Durian flower buds.

Part of our itinerary of this trip is to buy ducks eggs in salt water. After taking pictures of the durian flower buds, we immediately proceed to the farm that produce and sell the eggs. At the farm not only buying the eggs this time, we heard a loud cry of a bird, curious we ask the operator of the farm what that was? it was a peacock! Vow....a peacock.... in Pertang but surprisingly there were 3 peacocks. I ask permission to take pictures of the peacock and was granted to shoot whatever I like in the farm. So there I was snapping away not only on the peacocks but everything looks interesting to me.

The beautiful peacock.

The beautiful peacock showing off its tail.

The good old operator pointed out to me that there is a mulberry tree which is bearing berrys. To recap my knowledge, the silk worms is fed with mulberry leaves. Then the berrys...I went to pluck some to taste. I pluck the red ones and told my wife that the black ones are bad. Seeing me plucking only the red ones, the kind farm man shouted out to me that the black ones are the ripe ones..... shy only eh... trying to be smart!

The sweet and juicy Mulberry - the black ones.

Almost forget, the purposes here is to buy duck eggs in salt water. Bought some and say goodbye to our kind farm operator. Just before I leave this place, I saw some young coconuts and took picture for your viewing.

The duck eggs in salt water

The young coconuts.

For those of you that like to eat Petai - is season now. Pricing about Rm 30.00 for 100 stocks. Bought some on the way back to KL.

The Petai

Cheers and looking to pen my next blog soon.

The Rural and the Urban that I see

I was born in a rural area at a small district in Seremban. When I was a young lad in the 60's, everything was very slow, basic, every school has their own uniform, bicycles were common, a car cost only about Rm 6 to 7k, Nissan Cars are call "Dutsun", you travel from Seremban to Kl by bus cost about 60 cents, a bow of mee in the school canteen cost 15 cents, a curry puff cost 5 cents, a bus pass for a student for 1 month cost Rm 2.50 cents, a cinema ticket start from 40 cents, school pocket money only 10 cents , you get to eat chicken and drink carbonated drinks only during Chinese New Year and many more not to mention.

In this time, a primary school going child will have school pocket money of at least Rm 2.00 otherwise he will not be interested to attend school. A bow of mee these days cost about Rm 3.80, you have to eat chicken everyday otherwise you will not get to eat meat for a day, cinema tickets cost about Rm 10.00, if you still ride a bicycle, your chances to get kill is 80%, you don't drink carbonated drinks these days otherwise you will have a sugar factory in you body, at weekends when you are eating at a popular shop, you tend to have other customer staring at you until you have finished.

I migrated to PJ when I was 17 years old, like people say looking for greener pasture. First stop was at section 14 PJ, work in a British Company producing sweets, then on to work in the construction industry and got stuck until now. I now get very tired with PJ and KL as both this cities is so very fast and dangerous.

Every time when I have the opportunity I will to go away from PJ, I would go to Pertang and put a night there. There, you can walk the small town like the 60's. No cars, no cows..haha, the people there is simple and friendly. you can still get nostalgic food like pineapple cook with pig big intestine, hakka fry pork, wild bore meat and sometime other game meat, salted duck eggs in salt water.

The rural children are very curious about the cities like KL, PJ and Singapore. Soon after their secondary education, they will be sent to cities to attend colleges or other higher institutions. Eventually very few came back to their home town to run their parents hard earn properties like the Oil Palm estate, coco orchards, fish farming and other Agriculture Activities. They will then stay and settle in these cities and all cost incur will be from the parent's hard earn money like buying them houses, cars and even maintenance. The poor parents have to still continue to work in their 60s, 70's and even 80's to sustain them self and the ones in the cities as ever body also want to keep status mah when during discussion in the local coffee shop. Some parents that could not work them self eventually got to sell the properties and most of the buyers are from the cities.

To me, when I make the journey to Pertang, driving through Ulu Langat then by the Semengeh Dam and through about 40 minutes of good road with very green vegetation and kampongs, it is really very relaxing and you will forget PJ or KL immediately. During my stay in Pertang the 2 days one night outing, I feel like I am a different person, very informal, lazing around, drink only coconut water, eats whatever that is availabe and driving around the area is like you own the roads - very few cars with good maintained roads. I has been in Pertang on and off for about 4 years and looking forward to retired there.

Durian the King of Fruits

If you has been living long enough in Malaysia, you will definitely come to terms with this King of Fruits - either you love it or you hate it. There are many ways you may like the Durians. Some just want to eat it, some just want to buy them, some really like to smell them, some just can't resist when they see a durian. As for me I love to play with them!. Can't figure out right!!! How can or crazy meh to play with Durians?

Now I will tell how I play with the Durians. Firstly I have 5 arces of good Durian Trees. Heard of D2, D10, D24, D99 or Raja Kunit!!!. Well if you are a young flier you will not know anything about what I have just mentioned except you wll remember you have eaten good tasty Durians the last time. Now for the Uncles, unties, or I would like to address them as the "Hard Core" in Durian eating, they will tell you everything they know about Durians more that the Farmer and the Sellers... them self!!!

Coming back again how I play with the Durians. My Durian Trees is 14 years old. Every harvest the Durians looks slightly different, taste different and the quality is always changing. I don't like to eat Durians as other people does in the mouth full with the fingers digging into the Durians with the hand full. Every time when there is a harvest, I will try to be in my orchard during the week ends, putting a night at my wife's sister place. Getting up early in the morning, drove my truck into the orchard and picking up the Durians that have fallen over the night. I always has an orangasli to watch over the orchard, to collect the Durians, ward off the wild pigs and sometime humans. To share with you what I have learn over the years, the Durians usually drop the most between 2 to 5 am and also around 12 to 3 pm, strange! but is true.

During the harvest I always have a lots of friends and relatives that suddenly will call me to say hallo and subsequently the subject of Durians... ha ha ha... doesn't matter lah as I have said that like to play with Durians. So I invite them to my orchard over the week ends, how much can you eat!!!. every time when I lift up a Durian, I would make a guess on the Durian pulp's colour and predict the taste. I always have satisfied customers.

I have some guests from Australia who have never see a Durian hanging on a tree, plucking rambutans from the trees and telling me Mangosteen is for table garnishing only. OMG!!!

My first blog

I used to watch my children chatting in the computer sometime into the whole of Sundays and sometime late into the the nights. I sometime tell them "hey you flers crazy" and not seen you doing any other things better than putting the fingers on the keyboard.

Then came a day when my son was on line and he was doing something on the "frienster" thing and he went off down stair to meet with a friend for a while. Curious and having nothing to do at that time, I came to the computer and saw my sister's son was on line in the "frienster" thing.

I starter to type in to the comment thing and the other end stater to feel strange with the sudden change of language because I was train to write with proper English while they were writing the English that I could not understand. After a while, I tell the other end that I am the old man.

Then I continue to explore the "frienster" thing and getting the like of it cos it will be useful for me. I like to take pictures and pass on the pictures to other parties which is a very difficult affair. The ideal came to me, why not post them in the frienster thing and every body can go to my page, view them and even can grab the pictures if they like them.

Boring story aah!

So I started my own frienster thing and started to do all the things that I intended to do. ie loading pictures. Well I go "hit" instantly with links from my son and daughter's friend and all my nephews and cousins all around the country. All my young connections was very eager to view my page everyday to watch what this "Young Uncle" is trying to do. Strangely, all my friends is so very young - 16, 17 and 18. I started to have problem communicating. Then I started to write in the "Bulletin" column. My daughter after reading all my writing told me one day that I should write a blog. Here I am!!! started my new blog .

Why Pertang Teratai?

Pertang is a small town in the district of Jelebu in Negeri Sembilan.

My wife is born in this little place and I fall in love with it the first time I visited.

Why Teratai?

Teratai is a small, simple but a beautiful flower with many types and colour.

Again my planned retirement home which I have just bought is at Taman Teratai in Pertang which I think will be deliver to me sometime September this year.