5 a.m. at bukit timah summit



















do you know that as early as 5 a.m. you have people trudging up to the summit of bukit timah. because it is still dark, a lot of them have to carry torchlights to guide them along the road. just like at upper seletar reservoir, most of these early risers tend to be hokkien or mandarin speaking.

on the ascent, most people use the road but on the descent, some use the hiking trails. the challenge is in the very steep gradient at the early stage of the climb. quite a number of walkers on the steep road choose to walk backwards, so those who are moving upwards have to look out for such people.

some groups will gather at the base, near the ranger station, before moving up together. when you reach the top, you can hear music being played at the pavilion. there is this small group of 4 or 5 people who will be swaying and doing their workout to the music.

how do i know that there are exercise fanatics at that place at such an unearthly hour? because i have made it to the summit in the darkness before. the first time, i got lost and ended up at the singapore quarry side. it takes about 20 minutes to reach the summit using the road. the descent, although it does not require as much effort as the ascent, also takes about the same time.

both at macritchie reservoir park and bukit timah nature reserve, i have come across some men training their vocal chord - to prepare for some yam seng or karaoke competition? - by making a long-drawn out call. i often wonder if it is vocal training technique or a form of a whole-body work-out.

on a weekend, if you go to bukit timah nature reserve after 6.30 a.m. you will be very lucky if you can find a parking space.

some not so common fruit trees at the hort park




















































i missed the fruit and vegetable section during my last two visits to the horticulture park at hyderabad road.

came across some not so common fruits in this section. most of the fruit trees are pot grown and quite a number of them were already bearing fruit. there is this biriba from brazil which i mistook for a custard apple. it belongs to the same family as the soursop. like custard apples, the over-ripe fruit will become unattractively black.

one of the fruit trees laden with lots of fruit is the water apple. although the pale green water apples were not big, there were so many on the tree that it seemed the whole tree was bogged down by them.

another not so common fruit plant found in the garden is the raspberry which thrives in cooler temperate climate.

the common sun skink

the skink is a rather shy creature. it will slink away, as though it has done something wrong, the moment it encounters humans or sense the presence of humans. i was able to capture this one as it was on a leaf at kent ridge park. if it had been on the ground, it would have been very wary of my approach. the moment you move too near to one, it will disappear into the leaf litter.

skinks belong to the lizard family but they are never found indoors. a skink has a smooth, supple body with small legs and over-lapping scales covering the body, legs and tail. they are active in the day and they enjoy basking in the sun.

during my spider catching days, i often came across them, usually on the ground. i have never like them because of their slimy appearance. however, they are harmless; some species are even kept as pets. skinks feed on insects, earthworms, snails and slugs.

buying durians from roadside
stalls in m'sia







some of the best durians we have eaten were gotten from roadside stalls in west malaysia. i remember having tasted very good durians, in the early days, in melaka and on the way to ipoh, when we bought them from roadside stalls.

the durians were usually the kampong variety. the fruit was usually of average size, not the huge ones like those thai durians. we would buy either by the number of fruit or by weight, then it was in kati. i remember, quite often, we would have to help the vendors to total up the price. even when they started using the calculator, they still needed our help to work out the price.

for these roadside sellers, selling durians was more to have some side or extra income. they did not have mountains of fruit to sell, just a handful of them. they either grew their own fruit or collected them.

then after hearing and reading about singaporeans being ripped off by roadside durian sellers, usually chinese ones, we became very wary when it came to buying durians from roadside stalls. we would park our cars some distance from the stalls and avoid speaking in english in the presence of the durian sellers.

we heard of how some of these unscrupulous fly-by-night durian sellers would quote very attractive rates for their durians but when it came to weighing the fruit, they would cheat by putting some pressure on the scale so that the durians would weigh much more than their actual weight. or some would swop the durians that you have picked with 'rejects' when they packed them into the brown paper bags for you.

these days, most of the roadside durian sellers are full-time fruit sellers. they either set up a stall by the roadside or ply their ware at the back of their truck or inside a van. the one from which we bought our durians in melaka even had tables for customers to enjoy the fruit on the spot.

the durians were priced at between rm$12 and rm$15 a kilo. we bought five durians for rm$53 and 2 kg of mangosteens for rm$8. we finished the whole lot at the roadside stall.

netting for prawns at sea off ujong pasir


was at the portuguese settlement at ujong pasir when we saw three men, two of them actively, pushing a large triangular net each, parallel to the shore and scraping along the sea bed. the push net or scissors net was being used to catch prawns.

the best time to go prawn netting is at low tide or at the beginning of the incoming tide. the man who was nearest to us was in chest-deep water. each time he lifted the net, he would first discard pebbles and other unwanted stuff and keep the prawns. he had a round container with a cover, into which he would drop the prawns.

the common prawn is a species found in the mud and sand of coastal areas in the tidal zone, in lagoons and brackish waters of estuaries. the activity of the prawn is linked to daylight and the tides. at low tide it burrows into the sand near the low tide mark.

the common prawn is omnivorous; it hunts mainly at night and feeds on algae, planktonic animalcules, marine worms and other small animals and even dead animals.