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Recce in Penang & Matang
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I had a need to be in Penang to attend to some personal business. Then why not combine this long haul together with some Reece. At least the short trip will throw up some lights to assist planning for future trips. I have been collecting Staghorn plants. Of the 3 species available I planted 2 of them in my garden. Now the 3rd. I had not seen them in the wilderness. Nor anywhere else. My contacts informed me that it was seen in the Botanical Garden of Singapore. Then the likelihood of the Penang Botanical Garden having one of them should be good. So of to the Waterfall Garden
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First a look at the less common Staghorn
that must be available in the Botanical Gardens.
True enough there was this fern Garden, all enclosed in a shed. Oh! This one is a picture I borrowed from someone. |
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I would expect that such collection would have been posted up in a tree with suitable environment to promote a healthy specimen. The management had other problems, pilferage! So the Staghorn, P. coronarium and P. wallichii were hung up in mid air, no better than the way they were treated by the nursery owners. The Curator was not around and so we were not given a chance to enter the locked house.
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was in the midst of the rainy season, I took opportunity
to take a picture of this rare waterfall.
In the dry season flow along this stream was reduced to a trickle. The waterfall that gave this Botanical garden its name! |
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First assignment, not very successful I am afraid. So on to the next. It should be in the mangrove belt. From Kuala Krai onwards. But having seen the area before, the villages now were far from the forest. the only place where I know that there were houses among the forest was in Trong. Then over to Taiping and into Trong, a town in the midst of palm oil estates. From there to the cost and amidst mangrove forest. |
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Oh ! I have not said what I was looking for eh? In this region, there was a large concentration of Charcoal kilns. But specifically I was there to search "attap" maker. Then here if possible - persons producing the "Nipah Rokok". A tough wrapper for making cigarettes of Nipah leaf's foil. Good that was Pak Chik carrying home his raw materials. Young Nipah leaves to be processed into cigarettes papers. |
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driving, I could still see many hardware shop holding stocks of "Attap
leaves" as roof fillings. Good, my spirit was up. This trip I could get
some photographs. After many stops an enquiry, I eventually found the
maker. My persistent eventually led me to a house of part time "nipah Leaf" attap maker. What a surprise? It [the maker] turned out to be an individual and not an enterprise. He only enter the forest to collect his raw materials when there was an order. He was not making any that day. Again I have to return for photography at a later date. With little understandings, I must have landed myself into too small a locality. In which I was to be given an understanding of their peculiar practices. The way the day went, that those subjects I was keen on. Those associated with my term of vanishing practices were more difficult to keep track than I thought. Well, I cannot help the situation either. Attempt 2, to get a story on Attap roof and attempt 3 to see how the cigarette papers were processed drew to a dead end. I cannot walk out empty handed. There was still my old haunt, the Charcoal makers. |
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A surprise turn up, if you look into the map carefully, there were large stretches of water between the forest area and the bund on land. It turned out, it was almost like an inland sea. There were sampans acting as Taxis to ferry villagers from on point to another. More to come in future visit.
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I had in my many other previous trips been taking pictures from the kilns in Kuala Gula. this time, there were a few more kilns in Kuala Trong. |
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The
charcoal factories - there were so many of them.
having understood the processes, I would like to have a series of pictures on the various in the whole system. This was the place. If one process cannot be seen in progress with a particular, the same could be happening by the next. A view here of the canal made in the midst to serve 2 factories. |
Without expectation, it was quite a good inspection tour. However feed back from the villagers only sound out that more efforts are needed to track down all these vanishing practices.
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Khong's Travel Guide |
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This page was created on 10th January 2000
