another scare in the 60s

apart from the oily man scare, there was another scare in the 60s and 70s that inadvertently kept children at home, especially after dark. this was the rumour circulating around the island that young children had been kidnapped and killed and their heads used for supporting the foundation of some bridge that was being built.

this could have been attributed to the old indian and chinese beliefs that the river-god needed appeasing when man attempted to interrupt its flow by building a bridge across it. to the indians and the chinese, securing the favour of the god could be obtained by making some human sacrifices.

not only were children scared stiff by this story of human heads being needed to ensure the successful completion of a bridge, parents of young children were equally scared. many of them accompanied their young ones to schools and some even stayed to wait until dismissal time so that they could see to their children home safely.

according to my friend, there was yet another belief, this time involving the successful completion of buildings, especially tall buildings. it seemed that during the construction they had to bury 7 types of metal in the ground. burying inanimate objects was nothing frightening as compared to taking away the lives of small children.

incidentally, talking about bridges, there are 4 colour bridges in singapore - white bridge (pek kio), red bridge (ang kio thau, keng lee road), black bridge (orr kio, balestier road) and green bridge (chey kio, ord bridge). i think white bridge was the one along kampong java road, leading to dorset road. there is also orr kio thau (havelock road/ganges road).

cable stayed bridge at kong kong in johor

today, we went back to kong kong in johor to check on the status of the cable-stayed bridge that is being constructed across the johor river. the stated completion date was the end of 2008 but when we reached kong kong today, there was still no cable bridge in sight. the main span of the bridge will be 500m and the pylon height is going to be 150m above the surface of the river.





what we saw from the yaacob's fishing jetty at kong kong were the two main towers in the middle of the river. we checked with the local people and they believed that the bridge should be ready by the end of the year (2009). the bridge forms part of the senai-desaru highway. it is expected to reduce travelling time to desaru (from johor bahru) by about 50 minutes.

yaacob's jetty seems like a popular fishing spot in this part of the johor river. we made enquiries and found out that it would cost rm$30 to hire a boat for 12 hours to go fishing along the johor river. there was a write-up in the berita harian featuring the owner of the place, with a picture of him and his prized catch.

at the kong kong and the kg sg latoh junction, there are a few eateries. some are built on stilts over the waters of the johor river. the stalls sell malay dishes like mee rebus, nasi lemak and mee soto. over in johor, especially in this part of it, it is a common practice to help yourselves to the items that you want to go with your rice. we had lunch at kong kong before making our way back.

while we were near one of the eateries, a father and son came back from the river with their catch. they had use nets and caught more than fifteen of these river cat fish. they told us the fish were for their own consumption.

this fishing village is a nice get-away. it is only 42km from johor bahru and you can get to it via the pasir gudang highway. we took a slightly different route to get there. we travelled a short stretch of the pasir gudang highway and exited near the giant hypermarket to get onto route j10 which took us past masai before reaching kong kong.

on our next visit, my friend victor samuel intends to hire a boat to take us up the johor river to johor lama. when he was a university student, he went on a trip along the same river with his lecturer and some other students.