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!!