Cycling: Lower/Upper Pierce Reservoir

Went on a cycling trip to Lower and Upper Pierce reservoir on Sunday 15th March. We met up at K Yong's house downstairs at 7:30am. I had breakfast at a nearby coffee shop before meeting them.

We went by the Park connector route. From potong pasir along the canal beside St. Andrew secondary school we travelled upwards towards bishan. The air was fresh in the morning, joggers and other cyclist was also travelling along the track. It was quite busy, I guess its a Sunday and most people choose it to be their exercise day.

The route was quite scenic and easy to follow, we had no trouble reaching Bishan park. Hakim and me were on mountain bikes, the rest were on foldies.

Bishan park was crowded with people doing their morning exercises. There were people of all ages sharing and enjoying the park.

We crossed the road from Bishan park to Lower Pierce side and took a break at the jetty there to take some photos.

The weather was good and the sky was really clear. The moon could still be seen, which I find it weird at 8:30 in the morning.

After the break, we continued on towards Upper pierce by the connecting road. There were many cyclist along the way, there must be some competition going on somewhere because I can see number tags on their seat posts.

Its been a while since I went cycling at such an early hour so I find the air especially sweet smelling and cool. It did'nt felt tiring or straining at all.

We entered the gate of Upper Pierce and was immediately greeted with a steep downhill, GREAT!! I positioned myself in the Aero position and just let loose all the way down. SHIOK!!!

Then came the not so shiok part, The CLIMB!! Man, My thighs were burning going uphill as my gears were limited to only a certain range as I was riding Foong's Frame which I modified and could'nt access certain gears.

The girls were complaining about the climb but they still made it through. Nothing beats a good sweating early in the morning!

We took a well deserved break at the reservoir. Enjoyed the scenery and the toilet break.

An uncle came over to us and was admiring the foldies, when he enquired about the price, he was shocked to hear about the $1500 price tag.

After resting, we made our way back out with somemore groaning and cursing over the climbs. We headed up the road to the end of the track, made a U-turn just before the track joins the main road and headed for the prata shop. We went to the prata shop further down the more famous one as its less crowded. The prata there was pretty good too. It was quite sinful because we just put back double what we burnt on the way there!

After the meal, it was the same way back from where we came.

I reached home before 12pm and was quite happy that I still had a full day ahead. Looking forward to next morning ride.

Kahang, Kluang Johor 8th March 2009

Kahang, Kluang Johor 8 Mar 2009

This week I took yet another trip to our neighbouring country Malaysia.



My friend is looking for a particular crypto so I tagged along.I was looking to collect some fishes myself and hope to get some boraras maculata.

As usual we started of in the early morning, this time 4am. Friend's wife and SQ joined us on this trip. We headed straight to Mersing after some supper at JB. Breakfast was at a chinese coffee shop in Mersing.

After breakfast and a quick toilet break we headed for the targeted area. We drove towards Endau but we later realise that it was Kahang, Kluang, Johor. Within the first 5-10mins of driving we passed a bridge. My friend was looking out the window and he came to a sudden stop. He bolted from the car seat towards the bridge and I followed. He took a pass over the bridge and shouted something that I could'nt quite make out. But he was excited and it was definitely Crypto! What a great start, just had breakfast and we found crypto while passing a bridge!

The Crypto we found was C. Ciliata. This is definitely the biggest crypto I has seen so far. The flower spathe was huge!! Again the uncanny resemblance to the human female genital was really obvious. I have realised recently that the most of the species flowers that I favoured, whether it be Orchids, Crypto or bulbs seem to resemble the female genital somewhat. Could this be a sign? Could all this wild goose chasing of the elusive Cryptos, orchids, Bettas, rasboras ..... be just substitution for the absence of the opposite sex in my daily life? Daaa....... Ar bo then!!!! LOL!!!!

Along the opposite side of the C.Ciliata river was another river filled with water plants and Water Lily. The lilies were of a very strong colour and look very healthy.



Next,  we went catch some Parosphromenus. On one side was an oil palm plantation, on the other side was the forest. Inbetween was this small drainage canal with really dirty stagnant water, the last place that you think would have fish in it. To make things worse, there was this Elephant fence that was electrically wired running throughout the whole length of the canal!! Driver friend chose a spot, duck his head below the fence and within two scoops with the net was one Paro. It was a nice little fish, blend looking when shocked but later on at home the colours begin to show.

There were some Puntius pentazona johorensis among the Paros caught. They showed magnificent colours but unfortunately I did'nt take any pictures of them. As I finished my catching, driver friend was nowhere to be found so SQ and I walked along the path as he was last seen driving in that direction. It was quite scary being left alone in the forest with the car nowhere in sight, I made a failed attempt to call Driver friend as there was no signal. We finally managed to contact him and he picked us up 10mins later. While waiting for him, we saw a suspicious parang wielding Orang Asli lurking in and out of the bordering forest. When driver friend arrived, he went over to ask for crypto location. Thats when we realise what he was doing.

He was wild boar hunting with his brother, and he showed us this Big Fat Wild Boar chopped up in the trunk of his car!! When he opened the boot I thought it was some dead body!!! Scary shit!! Check out the photo!

This PIG was huge! We estimated 80-100kgs.

He told us that it's going to be sold to a Chinese restaraunt. My brain was visualizing Koo low yuk and Ter Ka!! Slurrrrp!

Next up, Crypto Purpurea location. Again, after an hour of some misleading directions by locals and off road driving, we came to a lotus pond Eco farm. They had a pretty cool toilet concept which I liked. They had individual units planted with Pandan plants in it to kill the smell and provide some natural element. Quite pleasant and something I can think about to improve the toilet at home.

We then drove behind the farm and came to a river where some of the locals were enjoying themselves in. The water was Teh Tarik colour so it did'nt look promising, we followed the road in as it splits into a stream, stopped beside a lamp post, I got out, walked 4 steps, Jackpot!!

The stream was filled with Crypto!!! it was carpet like!! You can literally roll in it!

It was beautiful, small stream, ankle deep, super clear cool water, crypto carpet, a naturalist wet dream.

We spent some time collecting and photographing the crypto and also enjoying the cool water flowing around our tired legs. The flowers of the purpurea were small, had a nice deep tone and were just barely above the water surface. Their leaves were a deep purplish red tone. I was impressed with the colours knowing that it would be extremely difficult to replicate the conditions artificially in a tank to produce such colours.

So ended our last collection of the trip. Happy and satisfied and hungry, we left for dinner at Kota Tinggi town.

Driver friend brought us to a Chinese restaraunt which was directly opposite the motel that we stayed on the previous trip.

We ordered Curry fish head, wild boar meat, vege and toufu.

I'm not a fan of curry fish head but I must say that theirs were excellent!

Highly recommended.

While waiting for the food I noticed a rainbow in the sky, what a finish to the trip, we got Fish, Crypto and Rainbow!! Woohoo!!

Pahang trip Feb 2009

Pahang, Malaysia Feb 2009

Went on a trip to Malaysia on the 28th of Feb recently with my Japanese friend . Left Singapore on Saturday morning 2am. The woodland checkpoint was all clear and quiet at this time of the night. Stop by a makan joint in JB as I was damn hungry. Had mee goreng and some fried chicken, damn sinful eating junk in the wee morning hours.

We left JB at around 3am and drove non-stop all the way to Pahang. Chatted most of the way and was quite excited about the upcoming days to explore the jungle. At around 6am my friend was quite "steam" already and we pulled over infront of some Asli's house and took a nap.About half an hour later my friend woke up and started driving again. I took a peep and went back to sleep. The next thing I knew, I was rudely woken up and we were parked beside a makan joint and the early morning sun was in my face. It was breakfast time.Bee hoon mee goreng with fried chicken and egg. If this stall was in Singapore, the queue will be 10m long because its damn good.

After our hearty breakfast, we spared no time hanging around and left for our targeted destination......The Jungle.

There were many road kill along the way. Stop to look at one of them.I think its some sort of civet cat. There were two of them on the road, the other one was too gruesome to post.We spent quite a few hours going in circle looking for the forest entrance and finally got some local residents to point us in the right direction. Once we hit the dirt track there was no stopping my friend from reaching the location. When we got there we realise it was the wrong place!!! WTF!!! One over hour of driving down the drain!! We turned around and went to the first place that we actually turned back in the morning. From there under the advise of some Asli we drove in about two hours on the dirt trail which was bumpy and dusty, luckily there was no rain.

You know you are deep inside the jungle when you step on elephant shit!
We spent another hour or so spinning around the final location and still could'nt find the damn stream we were looking for. We gave up and went to look for the Asli at his house to guide us there. We woke him up from his afternoon nap and he offered to take us there. We followed his scooter to the place and it was even more bumpy than the dirt trail in!! Naka was worried that the car will get stuck on the tracks. Then the sky began to pour! Great!

Luckily, it did'nt last long and soon it was clear again. We followed the Asli to a clearing and he stopped and pointed to the forest ahead. From here we were suppose to walk another 200m to the river. Damn, by this point I was quite beaten already but there was this urge to see the river we were looking for and I just went for it. We had already come a long way so we took our gear and dashed forward. Reaching the edge of the forest, the Asli pointed into the forest and mumbled something which I did'nt understand as my Bahasa Melayu quite limited. But my friend was having an exciting conversation with him and they went into the forest. It was actually a steep slope downhill, very tricky and dangerous I might add, not for the faint hearted. We reached the river hidden in the small valley and I was stunned. From the top it looked like the river was 2-3m deep but when the Asli stepped in, it was only up to his ankles!! Weird. The river was so murky that it was difficult to judge the depth. There in the river lay the patches of Cryptos that we were hunting high and low for! Jackpot!!

We were so relieved to find it at last, we thought we were going to go back empty handed. There river was cooling even though it was murky as hell and it provided a moment of relief from our sweaty bodies from the hot humid forest. My friend was already plucking away at this point and I can see the happiness in his face. The Crypto was fantastic I must say, really exotic and evil looking, especially the flower. It looked lewd in some contex as it resembles the clitoris of the female anatomy. Maybe that's what attracted my friend to it!!!! LOL!

We collected some specimens and took all the pictures that we wanted and left the place.
Mission accomplished. Dinner time.

We drove out and saw a hornbill along the way.
We had a quick dinner at the same joint we had breakfast this morning. I ordered from the Mak cik and changed my order halfway but I guess she could'nt understand my broken malay and servered us 3 nasi goreng! So we whacked all of it! LOL! It was really cheap & good. We then made our way to Mersing to have some seafood but by the time we reached there it was 9pm and the restaurant was already closing. So we had some seafood at another restaurant that was still open and whacked somemore food!!

Mmmmmm.....Yummy.

By the time we finished, our stomachs almost exploded because the 3 nasi goreng before was still inside our tummy!LOL! Greedy bastards!

We left in a hurry and started making our way to Kota Tinggi as my friend was feeling very sleepy already. The journey to Kota was longer than I expected and I was dozing off most of the time. I was afraid my friend would fall asleep while driving so I gave him some super lemon sweets to wake him a little. When we reached Kota, it had been raining for the last 1hour already. It was about 11pm and we managed to get the last room available, it was a suite! with two king size bed. The room was pretty big and had your usual stains all over the carpet and wall, not many people I know will be willing to stay in this type of motel.

We took a long overdue shower and repacked some of the plants. my friend was knocked out quite early and was snoring away while I watched TV till about 2am.

We woke up the next day refreshed and ready for more action. My friend wanted to explore a particular area for his crypto at the Kota Tinggi falls. We had a nice drive after breakfast and the weather was good,I requested my friend to drop by the Kota nature park for me to collect some crypto and rasboras. After that the route to Kota Tinggi falls was scenic and had a clear view of Gunung Panti where I would like to climb one day as its where the famous Paphiopedilum Johorensis occurs. We tracked about an hour and ended up in one of the waterfalls. There was no cryto to be found and my friend decided to call it a day. On the way out, I collected some pitcher plants and star plants. When we reached the car and started packing, I noticed something on my leg, near my ankle.

My blood sucking friend had paid me a visit, it was a leech happily sucking away my blood. My friend extinguished it with his cigarette and left my leg bleeding away. Nasty little sucker!

Next we drove back to Kota town and had lunch. Again, I over odered the food and my friend was worried. Halfway eating, the rain began to pour and we had to shift the table inwards. By the time the rain slowed down we had our stomachs filled and I was ready for my shopping spree at the market. Unfortunately, there was'nt much to buy so I end up with some potato chips and local produce. We then headed to the causeway to make our way home. Friend wanted to buy some durian but we did'nt manage to find any. I packed some satay and BBQ chicken and we left for JB. A short car wash at JB and we headed for the custom.

So our journey had ended and it was a pretty good trip compared to my previous ones with him because this time he drove his Toyota instead of his tiny Honda classic. Looking forward to the next trip.