Finally made it through the customs half dead. Malaysia came up with a brilliant idea to slow everyone down so that we can admire the custom’s infrastructure by having us scan our fingerprints… Well, it does not sound that bad. I mean it’s just scanning your fingerprint in addition to the tai-chi movements from the immigrations department all so that we can slow things down by a huge notch. The best part is, some of us do not even need to get our fingerprints scanned! So if you look like a criminal, you need to get your fingerprints scanned. If you are gorgeous and beautiful, they would probably skip you.
9.30ish am
Breakfast. Street/ hawker stalls, Malaysia style.
I didn’t take much because I was still horribly sleepy from the night before. Note to self, do not drink till 3 am when you have to travel the next day.
1ish pm.
Lunch. I love love lunch because they served fish and at this point of time, my mind was already wandering to my email inbox and I really wondered how many emails I would have received. So I had to force myself to start shooting and that’s where I spotted the image above(:
They are actually transporting water to the kelongs or they call it fish farms nearby. So it was pretty interesting to see them throw buckets of water up and down the boat. Then again, after looking at the way they transport the water… never mind…
Love the retro phones!
2ish pm
After lunch, we took a boat which was overloaded with bodies to the kelongs/ dead fish farm.
I was chanting my magical incantations as the boat looked like it was going to tip over any time.
Sea Dog!
Horseshoe crab! Now that is something you don’t see every day! Unless you live in Ubin or something.
Feeding the Archerfish. It is really interesting minus the insect part.
kelongs<333
fugu!
I absolutely love staying at the kelongs. I probably spent a quarter of my 14-year-old life living and breathing seawater! But the kelongs in Kukup are a little different in that there are no fishes… Well technically there are fishes but most are dead and floating around… They probably harvested their last batch of live fish or something but its still pretty freaky stepping into a fish farm and they are dead fish floating around you…
Well, the ‘liveliest’ fish I saw was the fugu aka pufferfish. And by the time the group was done with it, it was half dead…
In other words, death by suffocation so that the humans have a fantastic Facebook photo.
Our ‘hotel’ on the sea with tiles
Honestly speaking, I was rather disappointed at the place I was gonna spend the night in. Kukup sounds like a place in the middle of the sea, perfect for roughing things out but I get air-cons and karaoke sets… This is fantastic for the kids armed with their fancy iPhones/ iPads/ NSDL (mine is for sale here) but I was really looking for something out of my comfort zone but I guess air-cons were what I needed as the fiery sunburned under the sapphire sky.
Old VS New
4 pm -Heatstroke.
I decided not to sleep the day as I suffer from SMWS (Social media withdrawal symptoms) so I went out and explored the village under the unforgiving sun that wants to burn every single human alive.
Two things that struck me about this little village by the sea are the colours and how there is this old vs new contrast everywhere you go. The absolutely enchanting shades of blue and purple undertones all around the village and solid bold colours everywhere!
Deep blue
More blue and purple!
And there was an old vs new thing all around me. I mean you have houses that look like they are about to collapse and huge gorgeous new looking ones right next to them. The funny part is, apparently it is really cheap to build a house there as technically you just need to buy like air/water space for very little amount of money… No land involved! So there are constructions going everywhere!
Building, building
And there was even a lovely little market with really gorgeous light! But I left my lens hood back in the house and the flare from the light killed a good number of my images…
I love markets!
Of course, who can forget the obligatory kid portrait?
(:
All throughout my walk, it was calm and peaceful. For once, I felt like I had finally slowed down from my insane schedule when I spotted a local using an iPhone…
Which brings me to the point that you will never escape technology…
I want an iPhone too T_T
9ish pm.
Majong competition night.
Yes, Mahjong. There is really nothing much that can distract me from a good game of mahjong except this:
Fireworks! In Kukup!
To top it off, there was even a ‘kong ming teng’ Or lanterns like what you would see in those Taiwanese brochures to make you so jealous that the government in Singapore would probably fine you if you play with those lanterns in Singapore…
Basically, you write your wishes on the lanterns and the wind will carry your wishes with it and from what I can understand according to my half-ass Mandarin, the gods will see the wishes and grant it for you! So stuff like: ‘I will join Magnum/ VII photo agency’ should be written in bold and really big letters in case the gods can’t see them.
In any case, the night was absolutely magical and watching the lights in the lantern flicker to the far ends of the sea really gives you a scale of how small you are as compared to the vast world out there.
Note: I did not write the ‘I want to be slim wish!’ (:
Its really magical to see the lantern fly away with your wishes…
It’s hard to show as they are so tiny, but the sky had about 10 lanterns at one point of time!
Day 2
7 am. CRANKY
Yes, I am always cranky at 7 am but that is also because some moron decided to hog the karaoke set and screamed her lungs away till some 2 am in the morning. It was that bad…
Not too bad for a 3s handheld shot:3
At 9ish, I bid my farewells to the old yet new village and was glad I got to experience such a magical night(:
Love love this! It’s like she was modelling or something 8D
Next, we had a horrendous bus ride to a durian plantation. It was probably a 3ish hours ride that drove me nuts. Thank god I had Zack Arias on my iPod Touch and I finally caught up with some of the CreativeLive lessons.
Super games! How nostalgic.
They grow on trees!
When we finally bumped our way into the durian plantation, I was so exhausted. Long bus rides just suck the living soul out of you…
It’s not exactly the highlight of the trip but its a durian tree! I had the strangest feeling that durian grew underground… Never mind that(:
So durians, Smell, Sun, People, Me? dying…
The busload of people are like a pack of wolves tearing the durians apart and wolfing them down as fast as possible. It was like they just came from a weight watchers program and they have to eat as fast and as many as possible or not they will have nothing to eat for the next 3 months…
Look at the durian on his mouth! Epic!
It was a durian massacre as shells after shells were cracked open… The gluttony of human will never be satisfied!
In any case, this brings me to the end of my trip. Unless you want to hear me rant about the bloody fingerprint scans I had to do in the customs.
I had fun. Had a lot of sleep and a good rest which was completely destroyed by NAPFA (a fitness test) some three days later.
Hope you guys enjoyed the images(:
Drop me an email if you want me to blog about certain stuff! am running out of good ideas>.<
