Accommodation

This is the hotel or guest house that my family will book if we have friends or relatives come and couldn't occupy all in our house.

It is situated right in front of the taxi station. The hotel is apartment like. You may choose to rent the whole unit with 4 rooms at around RM 200 per night (if i am not mistaken) or just a room at around RM 50 or 60.

The apartment or room is clean, with kitchen, TV and air-con.

The receiption of the hotel is at the grocery shop beside of this beauty salon.

The owner of this grocery shop used to work in the grocery shop of the owner of hotel. Eventually he opens his own grocery shop but continues to work for his previous employer by taking care of his hotel business.

By the way, if you are looking for some inexpensive and reliable facial or others, this beauty salon is quite a good choice. The owner is a local used to work in Johor Bahru but she came back and opened her own shop when she got married. She has a diploma in beauty kind of thing (couldn't remember what is the name already).

i got this news when i went back during Chinese New Year 2007.

Avoid Tai Hoe Hotel right opposite to the bus/taxi station. The owner was caught and under bail for getting her Indonesia "maids" to provide "special service" in her hotel.

What to Buy at Pengerang (1): Local Made Pastry

If you are looking for some 'real' local products, this is the place. This pastry shop has been there since i was a kid. It is runs by a family and the bussiness been past down from one generation to the next.

This shop is situated at the row of shop houses near to taxi station. You are not likely to miss it!

You can find many kind of traditional Chinese pastry here. However, nowsaday, mostly are 'imported' from the other state or district. The only real local produced and local famous pastry is "Lao3 Po2 Bing3" (direct translation to English would be "Wife Pastry").

Making of "Lao Po Bing" on the spot.

We used to call it "tua bia" (Hokkien) or "Big Pastry" in English. The size of the pastry used to be around 15-20cm. However, it has shrinked to slightly around 10+cm now. May be that is why they called it "Lao Po Bing" now.

The pastry tastes sweet, mainly making from flour and sugar. i am not sure about the oil they used, but i assumed it to be vegetable oil (it just doesn't make much sense to use lark to make this kind of pastry).

One piece is RM 1.50.

That is how a Lao Po Bing looks like.

Remember, only this is local made!

All other kinds of 'imported' pastry and cracker.

My brother-in-law like the chestnut pastry. However you might be able to get it some where else too.

Leisure Pengerang (3): Ostrich Farm

i hadn't been home for the past two months. Partly was due to my frequent oversea trip and the other reason was i lost my passport. :( So i was trapped in Singapore for one month while waiting for my new passport to be done. Fortunately things went out smoothly and i managed to get my new passport.

This time in August, i went back with two of my friends. i am glad that i brought them with me, as they let me see the other perspective of 'going back home' and highlighted something in my hometown that i have never appreciated at much.

However it was high tide with very strong wind when we was at the shore. So we did not walk at the beach.

There is an Ostrich Farm just some where near to the town. We did not go there but a few of my ex-colleauges went there last month. They were kind enough to share some of their pictures in the farm with me.

Nursery of the baby ostrich.

Unfortunately, their ultimate path of the ostriches are being one of the source of food.

Feeding corns to the ostrich.

You can have an ostrich ride if you wanted to.

You are allowed to stand on the huge ostrich egg too. The egg has very hard and thick shell.

As far as i can remember, you need to pay either RM 5 or RM2 as entrance fees to the farm. However my friend said they paid for RM 6 or RM8 for entrance and tour. i am not very sure about this, may be they have local and tourist rate. :P

Other than Shore (2): The Guan Yin Temple

You won't miss this temple between Sungai Rengit and Sungi Buntu, if you are coming or going to Tanjung Pengelih Jetty. It is right beside of the big corner of the road. It used to be a small and 'plain' temple. But as many other temples in Pengerang, it got renovated in the good will of some devotees and now it is still small but eye catching - too colourful if you ask me.

The Guan Yin temple is built facing to the sea. Like usual, the fishermen hope the protection from the Goddess and wish for a good catch. Every 3 years, there will be celebration which devotees escort Mazhu Goddess in Sungai Rengit to this temple. It is a big celebration and festival for a small town like this. The next celebration is 23th March of lunar calender in year 2007.

Dragon is an auspicious animal in Chinese belief. Although Guan Yin is a Buddhist Boddhisattva, but this temple is a typical mixtual of Buddhist belief and Taoist. In fact, the temple is very much Taoist as you actually see many other deities and a stove to burn paper money. (Buddhist temple don't burn paper money.)

The lion symbolized lion's roar, the authorative of the teaching .

Two buddhist's dhamma guardians, Skanda Bodhisattva (looks younger) and Sangharama Boddisattva (the elder one) , are found on the left and right of Guan Yin statue.

The stove to burn paper money.

Shore Behind of Yok Poon Primary School (3)

i don't know why. Every time when i go back home and wanted to take photos at the shore, the next thing i know when i arrived at the shore is, it rains. You can see from the picture above that, the sky was cloudy and dark. It was around 5pm and just after a very heavy rain. I was already at the shore when it rained and had to took up a shelter to wait for the rain to stop. Fortunately, the rain did stop after half and hour, so i could continue to take photos.
The buildings that you see are located at the main street. A market used to be there as well, however it was relocated to the inner area few years back.

Doesn't it interesting? A hermit crab climb onto the pencil root of the mangrove.

Oop! Distrub! A love corner. Mating nerites. Nerites are hermaphodrite (have two genders) and they have external fertilization.

This nerite is even smaller than my finger tip. If you pay a little bit of attention to your surroundings, then you will see a lot of interesting things that you never even notice before.

This pool has many opened up banded bead anemone. They look like small flowers. When you go to the shore, look into the pool to see many interesting life!

Can you see the sea slug? It is a snail without a shell. It has thick skin to prevents it to dry out. It has similar color with the rock, so most of the time it will be overlooked. Camourflage (same shape or color to blend in surroundings) is the common way for animals to protect themselves.

Well, this is actually a collared kingfisher. It is blue in color. It hunts for small crabs, prawns and fishes during low tide. It is normally in pairs.

Gobbies feed on smaller animal. Some of them are toxin and some of them are staying with shrimp in a symbiosis relationship (both sides gain benefit).

A tiny little crab hide itself in the sea weed. It would grow up and many be end up on your plate.

Fruit of the nipah palm or atap chee, what we normally find in our ais-kacing. This one has obviously floated in the sea for quite a long time until it becomes black.

This is rose apple or in Malay language, jambu air. It tastes slightly sweet and juicy. It is seasonal and home grow to many of the household.

Leisure Pengerang (2): Kampung Jawa (Tou2 Wan1)

Kampung Jawa is a very small fishing village. There is only one street in the village and the street itself is the main street then. The whole village is built along the coastal line. During high tide, when the villagers open the back door of their house, they see only the sea. Most of the catch from the villagers are sell to Singapore, especially the big tiger prawns and lobsters. The smaller catch like shrimp is sell to the local fish mongers.

The backyard of a villager's house. See, the house is right connected to the sea during high tide. The fisherman will examine their catch to determine which are to sell to local and which are to sell to Singapore.

The tiger prawns need to be kept in the tank before they are transported to Singapore. Of course, the fresh one will definitely give a better price.

Lobster and mantis shrimps. The local water is still rich with big catch. The mantis shrimps are as big as the lobster. However the fishermen said, it is getting harder for them to catch big fishes due to water pollution and over-catch.

To talk about the pollution. Well, this is a toilet. Due to lack of the proper sewage and sanitary system, every waste from the villagers, including organic waste, household rubbish, dead animal body... are all throw into the sea.

A goose is kept as a pet in a villager's house.

i know this is gross and cruel. But this is a fact and part of the life for some of the villagers. The sea condition is not always suitable for the villagers to go out. So some of the villagers either hunt wildboar in the secondary forest or slaughter widlboar for the hunter.

The teeth and the tusk of the wildboar. Obviously the wildboar was a huge one.

Dried fishes for their own consumption.

Special Feature: Pulau Hantu

Recently there are talks that, some organizations in Singapore wanted to turn Pulau Hantu (an island in Singapore) into to huge aquarium (as per my understanding).
If you are interested, you can read more here:
http://www.wildsingapore.com/places/hantunoah.htm
http://reefwalk.blogspot.com/2006/03/first-step-to-create-marine-sanctuary.html
http://www.finsonline.com/forum/showthread.php?t=G79

i would like to share some of the pictures i took during my visit to Hantu. It would be a lost to all if this place is destroyed.
(err... This pictures might make our local Pengerang shores look a bit bored though :)

Coral, coral, coral. The best thing about intertidal is, you can see a lot of marine creatures without getting wet. See, you don't need to be a diver in order to see the coral.

A nobel volute (snail) was laying eggs (the white slimmy things)!

Flat worm. The way it swims was just beautiful! The flat worm is so flat that oxigen can just diffuse its entire body .

This was a real huge sea cucumber (as i remember, around 30 cm long!) Sea cucumber will vomit their innards to repel their predator. The innards will be reproduced, but they would starve until then. (So, please don't make them do it!)

Fan worm is a segmented worm with feathery fan on its head. The fan is used to gather small food particle and send it to mouth.

It is a shy animal. If you wanted to see them, just stand still and wait for a while. Eventually it will come out from its tube.

Common sea star which is not longer common now. It can liquidize its tissue to right itself if it was overturned. Their body is supported by sea water, so it will be very stressful to them if they are out of water for too long.