Champions League Final In KL - Part 2 - Pulau Ketam

Pulau Ketam (Crab Island) is accessed from Port Klang, which is the last Kommuter stop on that particular stretch of rail.



This is also where people catch boat rides to Sumatra, Indonesia. A shot of the surrounding environs... All looks a bit 'ulu' no?



This be a picture of myself on the pier...



And some shots of the boat which would take us to Pulau Ketam...






A shot of Pulau Ketam as we approach as well as a pictures of the pier that greets us immediately after we disembark. I can't remember how long the trip lasts but I think it is around half-an-hour. Not all that long...




Pulau Ketam is a rustic settlement which started when some Chinese fisherman decided to build a house on the island so that they could stay there after fishing for crabs. The settlement grew and in its heyday, comprised more than 20,000 residents. As is the case in recent times with most communities in more far-flung areas, however, the population has now shrunk to around 4,000 as more and more residents prefer to live closer to the major cities with all their amenities. Still, as we shall see later, the island is pretty self-sufficient, with a hospital, primary and secondary schools, banks and numerous shops selling anything from basic necessities to luxuries.

But I get ahead of myself. To get a comprehensive look round the island, one would almost certainly need to rent bikes, which are readily available in the central area just past the jetty. These are pics of my friend and I on our respective rides... Notice how I have changed out from my office clothes...




Most of the houses on Pulau Ketam are built on stilts, which makes me surmise that at high tide, these abodes which would be surrounded by water. One can only imagine what a sight that would be. Notice how narrow the pathways are, however. So heaven be with you should you not be able to control your bike well or encounter an unexpected wobble...







I must say that there are quite a lot of sloping narrow bridges on the island and so cycling around, especially on a hot day, could be hard work. That is why some people later told us that the best time to tour around would be in the evening (which would mean having to stay overnight as I believe there are not night ferries... As these pictures would show, the exertions took a toll on my friend far more than on me.





There were shops all around the island so that residents would not need to go all the way to the town square to get their groceries....



And even a bakery where bread was baked fresh....






For delivery, as we would later find out, to the outlet in the town square...



There were also schools - two primary and one secondary, if I remember correctly...






This was the fire station...



The archway to a temple...



And some other random shots of sights on the island community...






This was some unused, uninhabited space... I was wondering if this presented a real estate opportunity....



Until I found that it did not come with an adjoining toilet...



Which I was quite curious about anyway... I mean, how many of us have ever seen the view looking down from one these things, so...




I was just about to give you guys a close up picture but something started splashing violently at the bottom so away I ran... Anyhow, moving on....

This was the town centre.... Sort of like the CBD.... As it was the weekend, most of the commercial buildings were understandably closed.





The marketplace was busy though, with stalls selling fresh food and various different shops selling various different things.











And these are some shots of the fishing enclave at one corner of the island, which was where we went next...







This is the Information Technology centre...



And this is the police station....



All in all, it was an eye-opener, not just for the sights which one is unlikely to find anymore in Singapore but also for the atmosphere. The locals seem less hurried and are exceedingly polite, always taking extra care to give us very precise directions and telling us places of interest. Perhaps it is because they know tourists are the lifeblood of the island's economy but more likely it is because they are less afflicted by the rigours and stresses of city life.

And it seems that this laid-back, relaxed attitude permeates the island and all that call the place home...



Cute right? I may actually have patted them but I was not so sure where they may have been lying earlier... Somewhere like there?



Maybe if I come back again, I'll spend the night at one of the several hotels found near the jetty. But on this trip, I had to get back to KL as I wanted to be at Bukit Bintang to catch the Champions League Final...

Champions League Final In KL - Part 1

In May, what now is a long time ago but what seems to me only yesterday, my friend and I decided to catch the Champions League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona at Bukit Bintang, KL.

We also made a snap decision to take a sleeper train up to KL on Friday night from Johor Bahru. The train is supposed to depart from JB some time around 11+pm but be prepared for it to arrive way past midnight (maybe it is different now that the trains leave Singapore from Woodlands but certainly, that was the norm for a long time). The slower pace coupled with the possibility of lying in a prone position means that one is able to arrive at KL Sentral in the morning rested (as opposed to some place like Bandar Tasik Selatan at around 5.00 am in the morning). That is, of course, if one is not too bothered by noisy fellow passengers, like this family with kids, two of whom squeezed together with their Dad into one compartment, making a lot of noise and asking a lot of questions.



We, of course, had the comfort of one bunk to a person, small as it was...



Breakfast At Klang
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The last time we had dropped by at Klang for Bak Kut Teh in the afternoon, all the famous stores had been closed. So this time, arriving at KL Sentral at 8.00am in the morning, I was determined to have Bak Kut Teh for breakfast at Klang.

And so it was that we arrived in Klang some time around 9-10am (taking the KL Kommuter, a rail service which spans KL's satellite towns and a little beyond, from KL Sentral is a very convenient option) and headed straight for one of the well-known outlets.

The one we went to, Seng Huat Bak Kut Teh, is just up down the road from the train station (Jalan Sultan, I think)...





And guess what, the pork ribs were already sold out by then!!! So we had mixed meat Bak Kut Teh, which was fine by me, for the broth was light yet flavourful, distinct yet smooth.



We also had tea, which my friend seemed to place a lot of emphasis on, though to me it is just something that people tend to take with Bak Kut Teh...





But I must admit the small cups which we used to consume the tea were interestingly quaint. I wonder if that is just to create a novelty value, so as to enable them to charge just that bit more...



Anyway, I suddenly remembered something about us being able to catch a boat from Port Klang to an island called Pulau Ketam and, despite, my friends protestations, decided to head for there - on an impulse, of course....

WALAA- MAAU-SSSC Track & Field Meet

It's good to finally have a pocket of time to blog... In fact, I was using this pocket to clear up my things and came across some old artefacts belonging to a bygone era in my life. Since they related to a recent trip I made to Malaysia, I thought I may as well take some pictures of them.

A few posts down, but quite a while ago now, I wrote about an escape to Malaysia to sort my thoughts out, remember? Well, it so happened that the trip coincided with the Bersih and Perkasa rallies, resulting in KL going into lockdown and I being shunted to Cititel Hotel in Mid-Valley.

While milling around in the lobby, I saw some girls wearing tracksuits bearing the word 'Singapore' on them and so asked them what they were doing in Malaysia.

"Oh we are here for a Track and Field meet. It's a junior meet for Under 15s. It's at Bukit Jalil. Why don't you come and watch us?" said the most chatty of the girls as she flashed me a disarming smile. "It's am international competition between Singapore, Malaysia and --"

"Australia", I said, finishing her sentence.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"I ran in this same competition in 1991", I explained.

"B-but, I wasn't even born then!" she said, and looking embarassed, promptly erased her smile and terminated the conversation.

Notwithstanding that she probably felt I was 9 parts dinosaur, and possibly 1 part pedophile, I thought there was no harm heading down to Bukit Jalil, since I could not get into KL anyway...

******************
It has been more than 15 years but I realised that the smell of Deep Heat and other muscle ointments which helped in race preparation still managed to set me on edge and fill me with the nervous anticipation of yet another race.

Sigh... That used to be me...





A pleasant surprise was that I managed to chat with someone I had not seen for more than 15 years. This is Patrick Zehnder, one of the legendary coaches of Singapore track and field, and to date, the only one who has coached a Singaporean Asian Games Gold Medallist (400m in the 1974 Games in Tehran. Her 400m and 800m records still stand to this day!). He was also a classmate of my father's more than 60 years ago at St. Joseph's Institution.



This is me with some of the Singapore athletes. There were a whole load of them but all the girls ran away, leaving only the guys to take a picture with me (Why? Is there a sinister look about me?)



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But back to those items I found which caused me to write this article (and to reminisce a tad too much)...

I was clearing my cupboard when I found an overloaded black bag which weighed quite a lot. I opened it and found all my track and field stuff - spikes, track suits, running gear and medals. I almost cried.

Specifically, these are my tangible memories of my time representing Singapore a long, long time ago...





All right, enough of thinking about the past and back to my life in the present. With a little bit of effort, I may yet make something of it

Into The Woods

I just watched Into The Woods, the play by Stephen Sondheim, a few hours ago at the Esplanade and I thought it was nothing short of fantastic. The songs, the plot and the execution, everything was just so impressive.

I'm not going to say more about the storyline for there are still two more performances left on Sunday and I'm hoping readers who chance upon this article in the next few hours and who have a spot of free time (and a love for musicals with intelligent dialogue and some stunning songs) may choose to make a snap decision to watch.

One line did strike me though - when the bakers wife sang wistfully, after a short romantic tryst in the woods, something to the effect that "Now my life goes back from having an "and" to just an "or", but that makes me treasure my "or" more. Indeed, there are so many occasions in our lives when being able to say "and" is a luxury we would so dearly love to have- "I want and will do/have this AND this". That is because a large, important part of life is about constraints and choices - we have to choose the path that we think best for ourselves. For so many of our important decisions - our choice of study, profession, partner - we have to choose between this OR that.

Sometimes though, by some quirk of providence, we are able to experience an "and" in some aspect of our lives that is habitually governed by an "or". While that may be bewildering and even hazardous some of the time (think girlfriends, or wives, when an "and" leads to serious moral issues, and perhaps alimony), often times these brief windows of opportunity do offer us a chance to have another perspective, a different insight on a portion of our lives, which may or may not lead to a greater clarity of mind and thought. How would this difference in perspective affect what we do when we return to being circumscribed by "or"? Do we feel confused and pine for the "and", or do we realise just why we made the decisions we made and, as the baker's wife said, understand and appreciate the "or" more?

Am I making any sense?