Ever tried to eat Guinea Fowl? Guess what, they taste just like chicken, only better. More flavourful and more nutritious. At least, that’s what I’m told.
Casey Teh, owner of Ostrich Wonderland and The Guinea Fowl Farm.
Yesterday I was invited by Mr. Caseh Teh, the owner of Ostrich Wonderland in Semenyih, Selangor, to revisit his farm and take a look at his guinea fowl and poultry business, which operates on the same site, under the official name of Mutiara Chicken.
It was nice to see the ostriches again, who were looking contented and well looked after in their spacious enclosures.
Chickaboo and friends sheltering from the hot sun.
Since my last visit in 2013 (read blog here), one of the ostriches has become a celebrity. She’s named Chickaboo, the runaway pet ostrich who became a YouTube sensation when filmed jogging down Kuala Lumpur’s Federal Highway after escaping from a moving vehicle. It must have been a scary experience for poor Chickaboo but she is now enjoying her film star status at Ostrich Wonderland.
Newly hatched ostrich chicks, just a couple of days old. They cannot stand up yet.
While ostriches are popular as a tourist attraction, Mr. Teh says they are not so profitable to farm commercially and in particular they do not like Malaysia’s rainy weather, being originally more accustomed to the arid regions of Africa. For this reason, Mr. Teh has diversified into farming guinea fowl, various popular and exotic chicken breeds, goats and other animals.
He currently has around 5,000 guinea fowls. They are mostly of the grey, helmeted variety.They are gentle and timid and you have to move slowly around them to avoid disturbing and agitating the whole flock.
A confusion of keets.
Did you know?
The correct collective for a group of guinea fowl is a confusion which sounds rather silly but is quite apt given their skittish behaviour. The cute baby guinea fowl are called keets.
Guinea fowl originate from African tropical forests. They are hardy and disease resistant which makes them easy to raise. They are an active avian producing tender, nutritious meat which is more tasty than regular chicken. The meat contains more amino acids and less fat and cholesterol.
Mr. Teh told me that an ambassador from a West African country is a good customer of his for guinea fowl meat saying that the gamey flavour is more popular with Africans than white meat chicken.
Silky Chickens – Used for soup.
Mutiara Chicken stocks a wide variety of free-range chickens including:
Kampung Chicken
San Huang Chicken
Mini Cochin Chicken
Curly Feather Chicken
Onagadori (Yokohama)
China Black Chicken
Wen Chang Chicken
Batik Chicken
Castrated Chicken – Ayam Sunat
White Silky Chicken
White Polish Chicken
Black Polish Chicken
The castrated chickens are said to be sought after for their flavour while the ingredients for Hainan Chicken and black chicken soup can be obtained here. All the birds are slaughtered onsite under hygienic conditions and frozen meat is on sale in the shop.
Ring Necked Pheasant can also be seen here as well as turkey (Ayam Belanda).Ayam Belanda translates as Dutch chicken. Malaysians like to name animals after the Dutch – the Malay word for proboscis monkey is Orang Belanda meaning Dutch Man!)
Gaggles of geese and ducks wander around the farm, giving a very tranquil, pastoral atmosphere to the place.
All the plants growing on the farm seem to have their purpose and uses. This clump of bamboo for example provides shade to the pony and chickens while dried bamboo leaves make comfortable bedding material for the hatchling enclosures.
Mulberry Bush. The fruit is sharp and tasty, like a blackberry.
Mr. Teh used to grow organic vegetables but he found that they require too much attention to prevent insect attack and, once ripe, they have a short shelf life. So instead he has given over the space to grow mulberry bushes which bear edible fruit while the leaves are used to make healthy mulberry tea.
Prize billy goat with his own collar. The farm has a thriving herd of goats producing fresh goats’ milk daily.The shop at Ostrich Wonderland sells decorative ostrich eggs, chicken eggs, meats from their various birds, essence of ostrich with ginseng and cordyceps, mulberry leaves for tea and mulberry seedlings.
Visitors are welcome to tour the farm as part of their Ostrich Wonderland admission. School excursions are also welcome by prior arrangement.
You can find details of location, opening hours and admission fee on my Malaysia Traveller website.
When we hear the words ‘Route 66’ we naturally think of the famous highway in USA, the one where you ‘get your kicks’ according to the 1946 song. That road originally ran for 2500 miles heading west from Chicago through the heart of America all the way to Santa Monica, California.
It is less well known that Malaysia has its own Route 66, in Kelantan, a much more modest affair only 96 km long, running from Jeli to Dabong and on to Kampung Bukit Tebok where it merges with the Central Spine Road.
Malaysia’s Route 66 might be less famous that its American namesake but it does boast some fine scenery and a couple of natural attractions along the way.
Here is the map (click top right corner to enlarge):
Jeli to Dabong is 51km. Route 66 continues for a further 45km after Dabong before joining up with the Central Spine Road.
The route begins at the small town of Jeli, not far from the Thai border.
Heading south you soon approach the mountainous landscape of Gunung Stong State Park. I think these are the twin peaks of Gunung Stong (1433m) and Gunung Ayam (1504m).
The State Park comprises 21,950 hectares of virgin jungle reserve and is intended to serve as a conservation area for rare creatures such as wild elephant, tiger, hornbills, serow and tapir.
Despite the State Park’s protected status, I noticed some logging activity going on in various places.
This is the Sungai Balah, a tributary of the Sungai Galas and Kelantan River which eventually flows into the sea near Kota Bharu.
The Jelawang Waterfall (or Stong Waterfall) is estimated to be 300 m high, one of Malaysia’s tallest, and easily visible from the main road at Dabong.
It is a short drive to the Gunung Stong State Park HQ where there is a ticket office, guides for hire, a cafeteria, toilets and accommodation. The resort, known as Stong Hill Resort, has seen better days but appears to offer basic accommodation for adventurous types.
Termites seem to have eaten this chalet and all that remains are the concrete stilts and a toilet.
I paid RM 2 to enter the park as far as the waterfall. If you want to climb Gunung Stong you need to pay more and hire a guide.
The waterfall is certainly spectacular although difficult to photograph in its entirety from this vantage point.
A party of local school boys had fun making the rickety suspension bridge wobble while I was walking across it.
Next I stopped briefly in the quiet town of Dabong. Looking back from Dabong you can see the waterfall with Gunung Stong above.
There is a railway station (Jungle Railway) at Dabong and most tourists wishing to visit Stong arrive by train.
A short distance outside Dabong is the Gua Ikan Recreational Park. This 150 million year old cave complex includes three caves, Gua Keris, Gua Batu Susun and Gua Pagar.
I couldn’t find a way into the caves which did not involve getting very wet. The recreational park itself was badly overgrown. If I ever go back to this area I would hire a guide to take me up Gunung Stong and show me around the caves.
Malaysia’s Route 66 is a scenic drive. Let’s hope the logging companies do not spoil the scenery. It seems the forests are losing their battle with loggers but sometimes the trees find a way of striking back!
This post records the final section of my coast to coast journey across Malaysia via Cameron Highlands, Gua Musang & Lake Kenyir.
After a Thrifty Traveller breakfast of roti canai and kopi kosong for just RM2,I left Gua Musang for the nearby village of Pulai.
Kampung Pulai is famed for its Guan Yin temple, known as the Water and Moon Temple, thought to be over 400 years old, making it perhaps the oldest in Malaysia. Hakka Chinese settled here more than 600 years ago in search of gold and they maintained their traditional Hakka culture, largely undisturbed by the outside world until the first tarmac road to the village was built in 1988.
The village has a lovely setting, alongside a small river and a lake, surrounded by rubber plantations and overlooked by spectacular limestone hills. On the opposite side of the lake, facing the village is one such outcrop called Princess Hill which contains a cave with a Guan Yin statue. To reach the cave I crossed the suspension bridge over the river and walked around the lake.
The rubber trees appeared to be well looked after with tapping still going on. There was a large buzzing hive of wild bees on one of the trees which I was careful not to disturb.
I arrived just as the elderly caretaker was unlocking the steps up to the cave.
From the top of the steps there was a good view looking back over the village in the early morning mist.
Inside the cave were a couple of large stalagmite formations, one of which has been transformed into a Guan Yin statue.
After this slight detour I returned to my trans Malaysia route, leaving Gua Musang on the Central Spine Road (highway 8) for some distance before turning onto Jalan Felda Aring (1744), a minor road serving the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA) plantations and settlements in this part of Kelantan. This was the section of the journey that I was most worried about because I was unsure what condition the road would be in and whether it would be passable. It would have been a long way back if I had to turn around. In the end my concerns were unwarranted because it was in excellent condition and with very light traffic it was a pleasure to drive.
Throughout this trip I encountered a lot of logging lorries, far more than I remember seeing on previous travels. There are newspaper reports of rampant illegal logging going on in parts of Malaysia. I don’t know where these particular trucks obtained their logs. Most of the surrounding area looked like it was deforested some time ago to make way for palm oil plantations.
Crossing over from Kelantan into Terengganu brought more lush vegetation as I approached Lake Kenyir. This massive man-made lake was created between 1978 and 1985 by damming the Kenyir River. It is the largest artificial lake in Malaysia with an area of 260,000 hectares.
A new attraction near Lake Kenyir is the Kenyir Elephant Conservation Village. I didn’t go in but I gather it is somewhat similar to Kuala Gandah Elephant Sanctuary.
At the lakeside itself, activities include the Kenyir Water Park, boating and fishing. They have some rather ugly houseboats for rent here but I feel Malaysia Tourism could do a lot more to bring in tourists. Some Kerala style houseboats for example would be a good addition. The Lake Kenyir Resort Hotel was closed for renovation.
Penarik Beach – A nice place to relax after a long drive.
From Lake Kenyir, the East Coast of Malaysia is within easy striking distance. I would have chosen to end my coast to coast journey at Penarik which has one of best stretches of beach in the area. In the end I didn’t go to Penarik this time but continued my travels up to Kota Bharu as I had other places to visit which I’ll write about in future posts.
In this post I continue my coast to coast journey across Malaysia via Cameron Highlands, Gua Musang & Lake Kenyir. See Part 1 for the map.
After a 6am breakfast at Kampar I set out for the Cameron Highlands via the old Tapah road (Route 59).
First stop was a quick look around the Kuala Woh Recreational Forest. It is tucked away in a hidden valley at the foot of the Titiwangsa mountain range. The early morning air was refreshingly cool but the camping, chalet and toilet facilities looked rather run down and there were too many mosquitos around. The river looked clean enough and the whole place smelt of tasty durians since August is the peak season for this pungent fruit.
Next stop was Lata Iskandar, one of Malaysia’s most accessible waterfalls being located right next the busy road. This place can get busy at weekends and holidays but since it was still early I had it to myself. I climbed the steps to get a good view of the upper cascade. Everywhere was clean with no litter so somebody had been doing a good job.
From here up until the Cameron Highlands there were numerous roadside stalls selling handicraft items, fresh fruit and vegetables. Most of the vendors appeared to be from the Orang Asli community.
Ringlet, Cameron Highlands
Where Perak borders Pahang the Cameron Highlands begins with the town of Ringlet, probably the least developed of the three Cameron Highlands settlements (Ringlet, Tanah Rata and Brinchang) at an altitude of around 1100 metres above sea level. My car thermometer displayed a very comfortable reading of 20°C, which is about the average daytime temperature for this high altitude district, cooling to a chilly 14°C at night.
The Lakehouse Cameron Highlands. Hotel, Restaurant, Bar & Spa
It has been a few years since I’ve been to the Cameron Highlands. The towns themselves have not changed much. For some years they have been rather ugly, sprawling places with too much traffic. Anyone expecting a quaint colonial hill station would be disappointed although there are still some nice parts such as The LakehouseHotel and the manicured tea estates. What has changed in recent years however is the explosion of land clearance for agricultural purposes, some of it illegal, which has resulted in vast swathes of the Highlands being covered in polytunnels (see this close up satellite view as an example).
The Cameron Highlands are covered with plastic greenhouses and shade netting to protect fruits and vegetables from the elements and insects.
While it is generally a good thing that Malaysia should grow more of its own flowers, vegetables and fruit, the forest clearing and hillside levelling has been done in an uncontrolled way resulting in serious flooding and landslide problems in recent years.
This old block of shophouses at Tanah Rata included a branch of the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank which opened in 1947.
Time Tunnel has a great collection of soft drink bottles and advertising material.
This mock-up of an old kedai kopi has an authentic feel to it.
There are still barber shops like this in Malaysia.
While in Brinchang I took the opportunity to visit the Time Tunnel, an interesting museum crammed with photographs, memorabilia collections and artefacts from days gone by.
Polytunnels continue for some distance beyond the Cameron Highlands.
The original forests have mostly been cleared and replaced with oil palm plantations and other forestry products.
Very little traffic on the Cameron Highlands to Gua Musang road.
Beware of the tapirs. An endangered species, the chances of meeting a tapir in the wild are close to zero.
At Blue Valley I turned onto the Gua Musang road (185) and soon found myself in Kelantan state. ‘Polytunnel-land’ continued for several more kilometres before finally turning into a more natural landscape as the road began its slow descent from the uplands. It was a good road, partly dual carriageway and elsewhere with frequent overtaking lanes, not that they were needed as there was hardly any traffic. A great road for trying out your new motorbike.
The town of Gua Musang is the administrative hub for the district of the same name which covers a large chunk of southern Kelantan. Until the Central Spine Road (Federal Route 8) was built, Gua Musang was a very isolated place and could only be reached via the Jungle Railway.
During the Emergency, its isolation made it a target for the Communist bandits who attacked the township with a 300 strong force and seized control on 17th July 1948, killing one policeman and capturing another 15. Their aim was to establish a liberated zone from which to extend their grip on the country. A relief force of army and police, supported by the RAF, successfully recaptured the town five days later.
Gua Musang means Cave of the Civet Cats (or foxes). The limestone hills here are honeycombed with holes and the main cave behind the old railway station was believed to be home to a pack of mysterious civet cats, spawning various ghostly legends such as that portrayed in the 1960s comedy thriller film Pontianak Gua Musang.
Being one of Malaysia’s more conservative states, alcohol is not so readily available in much of Kelantan. This traditional Chinese liquor shop in Gua Musang however had a surprisingly wide selection of spirits and potions.
I stayed overnight in Gua Musang at MyHome Hotel which was perfectly adequate apart from having no window. You can’t expect too much for RM 70 per night. On my receipt I noticed they had written my address as British Indian Ocean Territory. That should confuse Tourism Malaysia’s visitor statistics if they monitor such things.
I’ll continue Part 3 of my High Road Across Malaysia journey in the next blog post.
The usual way of crossing from the West Coast of Peninsular Malaysia to the East Coast, at least for people in the Klang Valley area, is via the East Coast Expressway from KL to Kuantan. It’s an excellent road with some nice scenery and the 250 km journey can be completed in about 3.5 hours.
I wanted to try an alternative route, much longer and slower and hopefully even more scenic via the Cameron Highlands and Gua Musang and from there on minor roads though palm oil plantations as far as Lake Kenyir in Terengganu. Here is a map:
Google Maps calculates the distance as 502km and the travelling time as 8.5 hours though I would not recommend attempting it all in one day. I lingered 3 days on the trip.
I started my trans-Malaysia crossing at Kampung Pasir Panjang Laut, a small village near Sitiawan, Perak on the shores of the Straits of Malacca.
This was the western-most point of the route, a small patch of unhealthy mangrove forest in front of an interesting Chinese temple called Tua Pek Gong.
One of its main attractions of Tua Pek Gong temple was a bendy tunnel in the shape of a dragon which I entered through its mouth and emerged from its tail. The interior walls of dragon were lined with murals depicting the Ten Chambers of Hell and illustrated in gory detail the gruesome tortures which await those who do not live a moral and respectable life in this world. Enlarge the bottom right photo above for an example.
Having seen enough, I drove inland on Highway 5 through Sitiawan and Ayer Tawar. My route road crossed the Perak River near Bota Kanan where I visited the Conservation Centre for River Terrapins.
There were some sizeable mature terrapins in a couple of the holding ponds but they were fairly shy and only popped their heads above water to take bites from floating cabbage leaves.
Continuing on Route A15, I passed a sign for Tanjung Tualang Tin Dredge. I visited this place five years ago (and blogged about it) but decided to drop in again because I had read somewhere that it is now possible to go inside this giant relic from Malaysia’s tin-mining era. Sadly that was not the case. Renovation work was still ongoing and visitors were only allowed to view the exterior for the time being.
Weaver birds’ nests at Tanjung Tualang.
Next stop was the small town of Malim Nawar. A quirky tourist attraction here was a brick chimney built by the Japanese during WWII for the manufacture of carbide, which is presumably the black charcoal like stuff shown below.
Next stop, still in Perak, was the town of Kampar, once a centre of tin-mining as evidenced by the large number of lakes left over from mining activity which can be seen in this Google Maps image.
Google Map showing the lakes and ponds near the town of Kampar which were the result of tin mining.
Nowadays Kampar is thriving as a university town with the campus of University Tunku Abdul Rahman located here with other universities nearby. Here are some photos of the Kampar, mostly the old part of town.
Military historians will know that Kampar was the site of a significant battle during WWII and one of the few Allied successes in the whole Malayan Campaign. Most of the fighting took place on a series of ridges on the edge of town near the Chinese Cemetery. I tried finding the Green Ridge where some shallow trenches are supposed to remain. I know I was in the right general vicinity but failed to find any battlefield remains. I should have tried to contact a knowledgeable local guide to show me around this area.
The Battle of Kampar was fought around here.
Considering the modest size of Kampar town, it has an enormous hotel, the Grand Kampar Hotel, with 155 rooms. Since they were offering the cheapest rates in town I opted to stay overnight. I asked the front desk manager if they ever managed to fill the hotel. Seldom it seems.
I’ll continue Part 2 of my High Road Across Malaysia trip in the next blog.
I was driving in Kelantan recently on the way to a north Malaysian town called Jeli when I noticed some unusual items being sold at the roadside.
On closer inspection they turned out to be eels, still alive and writhing around in plastic bags. I believe Ikan Keli translates as catfish but they looked like eels to me. Maybe the blue plastic container at the foot of the photo is for catfish.
The vendor told me that he caught the eels in the lake next to the road.
He should consider opening a Japanese grilled eel restaurant here to improve his profit margins.
Later the same day I spotted another slithery thing draped over a milestone.
Presumably this unfortunate snake (python perhaps?) had been run over while trying to cross the road.
Not something you see every day, even in Malaysia!
An optical illusion, enhanced by a touch of zoom lens, makes this bridge linking Pulau Carey and Pulau Indah seem much steeper than it is in reality. The actual gradient is 4%, which is steep enough to require runaway truck ramps to be provided at both ends of the bridge.
The bridge is known as the Selat Lumut-SKVE Bridge and it crosses one of the mouths of the Klang River just outside Klang port.
This stretch of the South Klang Valley Expressway was opened on 1 October 2013.
A couple of months ago I visited Niah Caves near Miri in Sarawak. You can read about my trip on my Malaysia Traveller website.
This cave complex is one of Malaysia’s most impressive natural wonders and it was nominated for UNESCO World Heritage status in 2010, though it has not yet achieved that honour.
The caves and some 3100 hectares of the surrounding rainforest and limestone hills were gazettedas Niah National Park in 1974, meaning they should be preserved in pristine condition in perpetuity.
The national park is managed by Sarawak Forestry Corporation which describes Niah as follows:
Niah is one of Sarawak’s smaller national parks, but it is certainly one of the most important, and has some of the most unusual visitor attractions. The park’s main claim to fame is its role as one of the birthplaces of civilisation. The oldest modern human remains discovered in Southeast Asia were found at Niah, making the park one of the most important archaeological sites in the world.
Yet there is much more to Niah than archaeology. A vast cave swarming with bats and swiftlets; the thriving local economy based on birds-nests and guano; ancient cave paintings; a majestic rainforest criss-crossed with walking trails; abundant plant and animal life – all these and more make up the geological, historical and environmental kaleidoscope that is Niah.
Given the importance of the site for tourism you would think that everything possible would be done to protect this valuable, fragile and irreplaceable asset. However, on my recent visit, it was disappointing, but sadly not surprising, to see that the area is under threat from quarrying.
Quarrying near Niah Caves
This Google Maps image shows extensive quarrying is already encroaching on the edges of the National Park and some of the limestone cliffs have been broken up and trucked away.
Is this area inside or outside the National Park borders? This map shows the approximate borders of the park:
National Park area shown in green. Compare this with the Google image below and it would appear that the quarrying is nibbling away at the edges of the park.
Since the National Park was intended to protect all the surrounding limestone hills it is possible that quarrying is already taking place inside the National Park, which would be illegal.
This street level image shows the dirt road turn-off leading towards the quarry, busy with lorries.
Niah is not the only national park in Malaysia under threat. Illegal logging is reported in and around forest reserve areas across the country. Sarawak Forestry and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks should introduce buffer zones surrounding national parks within which certain activities, such as logging and quarrying, are prohibited. Access to these areas by trucks and diggers should be controlled. Strict enforcement and heavy penalties are needed otherwise Malaysia’s natural wonders will not be around for much longer.
After spending 9 months at Simunjan (see last post), Alfred Russel Wallace made a shorter exploration of Bukit Peninjau, a small hill (1,646 feet high) some 20 km, as the bird flies, from Kuching town centre. He was initially accompanied by Sir James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak, whom he had met in Singapore and who maintained a small cottage on this hill. ‘Rajah’ was a grand job title, but Brooke had only been granted the role by the Sultan of Brunei some 14 years earlier and Sarawak was still in its rudimentary stage of development. As such, think of the cottage as more of a wooden shack than a palace. Wallace stayed at the cottage from 13–20 December 1855 and between 31 December 1855 and 19 January 1856.
White Rajahs of Sarawak. James Brooke is the one of the left. He ruled from 1841 until his death in 1868. Two of his successors and descendants were Charles Johnson Brooke (1868 – 1917), right, and Charles Vyner Brooke (1917-1946), centre.
Wallace described the hill as follows:
“On reaching Sarawak early in December, I found there would not be an opportunity of returning to Singapore until the latter end of January. I therefore accepted Sir James Brooke’s invitation to spend a week with him and Mr. St. John at his cottage on Peninjauh. This is a very steep pyramidal mountain of crystalline basaltic rock, about a thousand feet high, and covered with luxuriant forest. There are three Dyak villages upon it, and on a little platform near the summit is the rude wooden lodge where the English Rajah was accustomed to go for relaxation and cool fresh air.”
Wallace would have approached the hill by river, disembarking at the jetty where the village of Siniawan now stands.
The quaint village of Siniawan, with its single street of old wooden shophouses, holds a night market every weekend drawing tourists and locals from nearby Kuching. The wooden houses look old enough to have been around in Wallace’s time but are apparently only 60 or so years old.
Wallace continues:
“It is only twenty miles up the river, but the road up the mountain is a succession of ladders on the face of precipices, bamboo bridges over gullies and chasms, and slippery paths over rocks and tree-trunks and huge boulders as big as houses. A cool spring under an overhanging rock just below the cottage furnished us with refreshing baths and delicious drinking water, and the Dyaks brought us daily heaped-up baskets of Mangosteens and Lansats, two of the most delicious of the subacid tropical fruits.”
Langsats are tasty fruit but will make your hands very sticky as I found out once while eating them in a cinema in Hong Kong.
Local government officials announced a few years back an intention to promote Bukit Peninjau (also known as Bung Muan and Gunung Serumbu) as a tourist destination and at least the place is signposted.
Sign pointing the way to Bukit Peninjau, the hill in the background, which is considered sacred to the Bidayuh community.
My trip to the hill was unfortunately a bit of a wash-out.
The sky looked fairly bright as I approached the foot of the hill.
But as soon as I parked my rental car the heavens opened and the hill disappeared behind the clouds.
I took shelter under the eaves of the Tourist Information Centre. Here you are supposed to be able to hire a local guide for RM50 to take you up the Wallace Trail but the place was locked and there was nobody around. Visitors are advised not to go alone but having no other choice, I dropped my contribution into the donations box and set off up the hill once the rain had eased off somewhat.
There is a map with estimated climb times. According to their estimates it should take nearly 4 hours to reach the peak.
There were quite a lot of arrows pointing the way which was reassuring but the path itself was overgrown with dense foliage which I dislike (I would make a very poor Wallace being scared of snakes, spiders and other creepy crawlies!).
Bamboo Bridge. Illustration from The Malay Archipelago.
Wallace was impressed with the versatile qualities of bamboo and the ingenious ways in which the local tribesmen put it to good use. In this chapter of The Malay Archipelago he wrote about bamboo bridges and I was pleased to see this example of one at Bukit Peninjau.
The wooden hut here is similar to ones I have seen in Peninsular Malaysia used as watch houses to guard over valuable durian trees during the ripening season. It might perform the same purpose here.
He was also fascinated by ladders made by driving bamboo pegs into a tree trunk:
“I was exceedingly struck by the ingenuity of this mode of climbing, and the admirable manner in which the peculiar properties of the bamboo were made available. The ladder itself was perfectly safe, since if any one peg were loose or faulty, and gave way, the strain would be thrown on several others above and below it. I now understood the use of the line of bamboo pegs sticking in trees, which I had often seen, and wondered for what purpose they could have been put there.”
I was amazed to see a similar ladder in almost the same location 160 years after Wallace’s time, the only difference being that they now use blue plastic twine to secure the pegs instead of strips of wood bark.
By the time I reached Batu Tikopog, a rock with an unusually smooth cleft, the rain started to intensify with thunder and lightning in the air. I decided to abandon my trek to the peak since visibility would have been zero. It’s a shame I didn’t manage to see the site of Brooke’s cottage either. Nothing remains of the cottage now except an indistinct clearing in the jungle. Plans to rebuild the cottage were announced a few years ago but nothing yet seems to have happened. Perhaps I’ll revisit one day once the cottage has been rebuilt.
My faithful Malay boy Ali. Source: Wallace Autobiography 1905 Vol.1
After Christmas in Kuching, Wallace returned to Bukit Peninjau, this time accompanied by his English assistant and a Malay servant.
“A few days afterwards I returned to the mountain with Charles and a Malay boy named Ali and stayed there three weeks for the purpose of making a collection of land-shells, butterflies and moths, ferns and orchids. On the hill itself ferns were tolerably plentiful, and I made a collection of about forty species. But what occupied me most was the great abundance of moths which on certain occasions I was able to capture. …during the whole of my eight years’ wanderings in the East I never found another spot where these insects were at all plentiful,…It thus appears that on twenty-six nights I collected 1,386 moths.”
The hill is still teeming with insects. Most of Wallace’s moth collecting took place at night but even during the daytime this place has some of the noisiest bugs I’ve ever heard as this ten-second video attempts to show.
“When I returned to Singapore I took with me the Malay lad named Ali, who subsequently accompanied me all over the Archipelago. Charles Allen preferred staying at the Mission-house, and afterwards obtained employment in Sarawak and in Singapore, until he again joined me four years later at Amboyna in the Moluccas.”
Writing in his autobiography many years later, Wallace wrote about Ali:
When I was at Sarawak in 1855 I engaged a Malay boy named Ali as a personal servant, and also to help me to learn the Malay language by the necessity of constant communication with him. He was attentive and clean, and could cook very well. He soon learnt to shoot birds, to skin them properly, and latterly even to put up the skins very neatly. Of course he was a good boatman, as are all Malays, and in all the difficulties or dangers of our journeys he was quite undisturbed and ready to do anything required of him. He accompanied me through all my travels, sometimes alone, but more frequently with several others, and was then very useful in teaching them their duties, as he soon became well acquainted with my wants and habits.
He was less glowing about Charles Martin Allen who was just a teenager when Wallace took him to South East Asia as his collecting assistant. In his letters , Wallace complained about Allen’s carelessness and inability to learn.
Of all the Wallace trails I have visited so far this one is perhaps the most interesting and is fairly easy to access from Kuching. Pity about the weather though! Try to go on a dry day and see if you can get hold of a guide.
A map showing the location of Bukit Peninjau appears on my previous post about Wallace.
To read about another trip up Bukit Serumbu in Wallace’s footsteps, this one in 1912, see here.
An optical illusion, enhanced by a touch of zoom lens, makes this bridge linking Pulau Carey and Pulau Indah seem much steeper than it is in reality. The actual gradient is 4%, which is steep enough to require runaway truck ramps to be provided at both ends of the bridge.
The Thrifty Traveller 