Wednesday, July 9, 2008

old cemetery with durian trees






















after reading the june 22 posting in yesterday.sg about the kwong hou sua teochew cemetery, i decided to pay another visit to the place. my previous visits did not take me beyond the temple as i seemed to sense that the caretaker was somewhat suspicious of me. this time i parked my car within the compound of the temple but took a different route to get to the cemetery.

this must be the only chinese cemetery in singapore with durian and other fruit trees grown next to some of the graves. the ripe durians actually fall onto the mounds. i know about this cemetery because my kampong neighbour's father was buried here. the burial took place more than thirty years ago.

some of the graves looked like they have undergone a facelift; they are actually quite new. access to the cemetery is either via the temple or a road - it is more a track than a road - just before it which runs next to the mandai industrial estate. the exhumation does not seem to affect the whole cemetery. according to the plan, put up by land transport authority (lta), only half of it will be affected.

as i walked alone along the track, i could hear dogs barking from somewhere within the cemetery. they could be strays or they could be indications that there are people occupying some huts or shelters in the cemetery. for fear of being attacked by the dogs, i did not attempt to check this out.

there are graves on the hilly ground as well as on the side of the track nearest to the mandai industrial estate.

5 comments:

Lam Chun See said...

Yesterday I was driving Eng Neo Ave and saw a man holding 2 durians. I think he must have plucked them from the Turf Club compounds.

yg said...

this is the time of the year to go durian picking. at bukit batok nature park i have seen joggers with smiling faces and durian/s in their hands. the other day when i was driving along mandai road, i also saw two men searching for durians under the trees.
the durians that i saw on the trees at the cemetery were big ones; each fruit should be more than a kg. also came across some big ones at the murai farmway, not far from the lim chu kang cemetery.

Anonymous said...

i found 9 durians yesterday :)
Also saw a rambutan tree. Tme to pluck rambutan.....

yg said...

how to lug 9 durians around? you carried them in your truck or car? quite a number of durian pickers i meet, they have a bicycle with a basket mounted on its rack to carry the durians. some of the dropped durians may have been damaged by squirrels.

Admin said...

I saw some durian trees at Yishun Park yesterday with a few people sitting at the park bench waiting for the fruits to drop from 3-4 storey high branches.