Do you deserve a smile?

Teo Kiam Lam Christopher wrote a letter to Today Newspaper commenting on how he was greeted with smiles and welcomes in America, while Singapore immigration officers were silent and “grim-faced”. Its great for everyone greeted everyone else with smiles and kind words, but when someone feels enough about not receiving such kindness or courtesy to write to a newspaper, I start to get curious where that person is coming from.

Lets look at the situation, Mr. Teo just came back from a holiday, and he expects an immigration officer, who his working during this holiday season, to greet him with a smile and say welcome home? Look at this in isolation, a happy person is expecting an either ambivalent or miserable person to make him even happier.

Why would someone expect such behaviour? Is it because the immigration officer is viewed as a service person, while someone clearing customs is viewed as a customer? It naturally makes good business sense to have Service With A Smile, and its nice when everyone is kind and courteous, but when someone expects it because the other party is a service person, that smacks of classism to me. Let us not forget that the primary function of an immigration officer is security, he is not a waiter or a salesperson. Part of being a security personnel is to appear dignified, imposing and perhaps intimidating.

Three weeks ago, I returned to Singapore after a weekend trip and a Malay immigration officer was stamping my passport. Knowing that Hari Raya Haji was a day or two away, I greeted him with “Happy Hari Raya”. He smiled and I was glad to have made his day slightly better. I hope he would be able to have that day off on account of his religion, but who knows, the immigration counters do not take Public Holidays.

I wonder if Mr. Teo said or did anything to uplift the spirits of the immigration officer who was working at 4am during the holiday season. Yes, the immigration officer was being paid to do the job, but that does not mean that he is in any way obligated to courteous nor does it mean that he was not entitled to a little kindness. After all, Mr. Teo must have been full of endorphins from his holiday and it would not hurt to spread it around a bit.

Perhaps Mr. Teo cited America as an example because it was the closest one at hand, or maybe he is one of many Singaporeans who feel that everyone else is more gracious and happier than Singaporeans or ethnic Chinese. Sure enough that there are cultures around the world that are more easygoing, express their emotions easier and are just plain jollier than Singaporeans, but everyone criticizing fellow Singaporeans for being “grim-faced” should look at their own reflection and ask themselves when was the last time they genuinely brought a smile to another person’s face. No, buying them an iPhone does not count.

Scuba diving in Pulau Weh, Aceh, Indonesia

The diving in Pulau Weh would be quite typical of South East Asian diving if not for three unique things. It offers the usual clear waters, colourful and beautiful corals and a whole spectrum of tropic reef fishes large and small but if you love Moray eels, gigantic Sea Fans and unique underwater landscapes, Pulau Weh is the place for you.

For some strange reason, there are lots of Moray eels in the Pulau Weh waters, either there is a special reason why they are more prolific here, or that the locals do not have the custom of eating Moray eels is beyond me, but Moray eels are everywhere. You are very likely to see multiple eels on every dive, both large and small, and the best part of it is that they are not as shy as those in other areas. They will come out of their holes and swim around in broad daylight, including really large ones.

The size and numbers of large Sea Fans also astounded me. There was one particular dive at the Canyon where I found myself at 36m before I knew it because I was swimming from one Sea Fan to another. I took a look around and the Sea Fan field stretched beyond my visibility both to the sides and down deep, they must go down beyond 60m. The waters in this area usually has strong currents, and fishing lines tend not to go so deep as to destroy them.

Fishing lines is a problem here, I do not think that I have gone to a dive destination with as many fishing lines as there are here. The upside is that there does not seem to be signs of even more damaging fishing techniques like dynamite fishing. With lives and livelihoods destroyed by the tsunami, I cannot begrudge the locals a little line fishing.

The island of Pulau Weh, and the underwater dive landscape seems to be made by very large rocks. These rocks, rounded by weathering, vary from the size of cars to the size of houses. They pile on top of each other in such a way that leaves large gaps that one can catch glimpses of large fishes taking refuge. Perhaps the Moray eels find safety in these crevices to live and breed. Diving amongs such large rocks is indeed a unique experience. These rocks were spewed from the Earth’s core in some previous age and are what H.P. Lovecraft would have described as “Cyclopean”. It reminds me of how young and transient human beings are compared to such age old rocks. Do not miss the Canyon and Pantee Peunatueng divesites if the currents permit.

Most diving from Lumba Lumba involves two boat dives to Seulakos and Rubiah islands. They are lovely reef dives but a sharp eye and good fortune will allow one to see either the really small or the really big treats in this area. We had one or two Blacktip Reef Shark and Hawksbill Turtle sightings, a couple of Napolean Wrasse and many Barracudas, Tuna, Mackeral, Giant Trevally and the usually annoying Titan Triggerfish. The beach dive in front of the resort offers many little critters if one knows where to look. We took a guided beach dive with Sonny (Sunny? Sone?) and was shown many things we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

Perhaps the most unique dive site in Pulau is the wreck of the Sophie Rickmers. A German WW2 era cargo ship that was captured by the Dutch, but the crew decided to sink it instead. The top of the wreck is at 45m and the bottom at 70m. A single tank air dive would involve 18min of bottom time at 51m where one sees about 1/4 of the ship. I went diving with a couple from the part of Hamburg where the ship was first build, so it was a nice full circle for them.

http://www.lumbalumba.com/divesites.html#wreck_sophie_rickmers

We descended near the bridge and while making a rapid descent of 40m/min, we saw the resident Giant Grouper. I saw it at about 30m deep and it looked larger than another diver who was below me. It must be over 2m long. It swam down into the dark cargo hold and thankfully we were not going in after it.

A short dive revealed a pair of scuba tanks that some looters appeared to have left behind. The ship is largely intact and in good condition, the tsunami caused the roof of the bridge to collapse but otherwise it looks great. Our dive took us past the anchor in the front, the cargo winch and a short trip at the bridge where I saw the intact Telegraph, albeit covered in coral. Visibility was about 20m, and the dive master said that it was sometimes as good as 50m. A school of Batfish circle the wreck among other unique fish. It was here that sightings of the Megamouth Shark were seen some years back.

This was quite an impromptu trip that we decided on about a month and a half ago, usually we plan trips six months to a year in advance. This year, some of the guys have gone on long trips to South America, while the Global Economic Crisis has put the brakes on some of the other guys diving plans.

Some of us had wanted to dive in Pulau Weh, we even planned a trip for early Februry 2005. At that time, the civil war was still going on, so there was only a few interested parties. We had made initial plans and had not bought plane tickets yet, and thankfully so, for the tsumani hit on boxing day 2004. Four years on, Andrew and I decided to give Pulau Weh another go and was not disappointed.

Getting there is a pain in the arse, as we were forced to spend a night in Banda Aceh because of AirAsia’s schedule. The plane from Kuala Lumpur arrives at 1625hrs, but I think the last ferry to Sabang on Pulau Weh leaves at 1600hrs. AirAsia recently changed their flights to this time after they started daily Kuala Lumpur-Banda Aceh flights. Another thing to note, do not take the 1430hrs flight from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, you would be unlikely to catch your 1600hrs flight out. Another alternative may be to flight to Penang via Malaysian Airlines and from there fly Firefly Airlines to Banda Aceh, that arrives in time to catch the ferry.

Staying the night in Banda Aceh, we got a glimpse of some reminence of the effects of the tsunami. The supermarket we shopped at was damaged by the earthquake, locals told us that the waters reached to the roofs, we saw the barge in the middle of the town that is being left there as a monument, and the foundations of houses that have been swept away. Temporary housing with Oxfam water tanks are still around after four years.

We got a personal story from our driver, who was a tour agent that spoke excellent English. He had spent some years studying in Malaysia to avoid the instability in Aceh, he was only back in Banda Aceh for a week when the tsunami struck. He had to escape with his sister, brother-in-law and his niece on a motorcycle, until it could go no further where they had to run on foot. He climbed a tree with his baby niece in hand and they all managed to survive the waters.

They were lucky to have lived further in town, the part of town near the coast was completely flattened, and that was what we saw on our TV screens four years back. The ferry terminal was 70% done at that point and was destroyed, it only just finished reconstruction and opened two months ago.

The fast ferry to Sabang on Pulau Weh was a 45min affair, being foreigners, they automatically bought us Executive or VIP seats, which is well and good, we had big dive bags and while seating in Economy was fine, with the added luggage it would have been a squeeze. The perks of an Executive or VIP seat is the TV playing Indonesian Karaoke. We were treated to an overdose of Indonesian rockband Dewa 19. With their large internal market and different language and culture, Indonesian music videos have a pretty decent budget. Standards are quite high and they all include the obligatory pale-skinned Indonesian babes that you only see on TV but never anywhere else in Indonesia.

We stayed and dived with Lumba Lumba at Gapang Beach, owned by a European couple. The rooms were new, clean and comfortable. The only creature comforts we lacked were hot water for showers and air-conditioning. The weather was mild enough for us not to miss either, but air-conditioning would be preferable to reduce the amounts of mosquitoes. Marjan the owner would be shopping for water heaters and air-conditioners in Medan in the months ahead.

Breakfast at the Dang Dang Na eatery next to Lumba Lumba is great, they offer a variety of ways to fry bread with eggs. Spaghetti for lunch is also lovely. We tended to eat dinner at Zero Cafe, a short 5 min walk down the beach. They offer homecooked food that is suitable to the Singaporean palate. Chargoal grilled Barracuda graced our dinner table for at least three evenings, as well as ayam goreng (friend chicken) or ayam ketchup manis (chicken in sweet soya sauce). Beware of the omelettes because they hide vicious chopped chilli padi inside, those things have a strong kick.

If you have a some off-road motorcycle skills, you might want to rent a moped (Honda Wave) for 80,000 Rupiah a day to ride around the island. The roads are gravelly and full of potholes. Do not be like me and get a painful scrapped knee in an unglamourous 2km/hr spill in the soft sand.

All in all, diving in Pulau Weh is great value for money. We got a whole week of pretty good diving for less than S$1000 all in. If we can avoid the night in Banda Aceh, all the better.

Link to Jo’s photos.

A weekend in Pengarang, Johor, Malaysia

Pengarang is the most southeastern area of peninsular Malaysia, in Kota Tinggi district of Johor State. It is just on the other side of Pulau Tekong in Singapore and accessible by bumboat from Changi Village. It has always been known as a place for enjoyable cycling and good cheap seafood. Part of the beauty of this area is that it faces south, instead of east, and is largely sheltered by the monsoon waves and storms.

http://user.chollian.net/~hwayon/sing/johor.jpg

How to get there?

A bumboat ride from Changi Village will cost you S$9 or S$10 per trip. S$11 if you are crossing with a bicycle. The little bumboat terminal at Changi Village is just a little ways past the Hawker Centre and Wet Market and next to a large carpark. The small terminal only serves two locations, Pulau Ubin and Pengarang. Just show up and hand your passport to the guy at the counter, when there are enough passagers the guy will return you your passport and you would be directed through customs and into the bumboat. Each bicycle will displace a person from the boat capacity.

The bumboat ride is 45min long, and you should still have Singapore mobile network for most of the trip. There is not a lot to see, most of the trip is next to the sea wall and land reclaimation sites, and Pulau Tekong at a distance. Nice time to get a bit of food and rest. They built a nice terminal building on the Malaysian side so the landing is now quite civilised. There used to be only a tiny office and pretty gross toilets about two years ago. Just outside the terminal there is a little drink store with extremely sweet tea (tell them to put less sugar if you do not want to get diabetes before the cup is empty) and a good place to buy some drinks.

From here, any non-cyclist can get a taxi, there are always taxis waiting at the terminal. Currently it is MYR16 for the 18-20km trip to Sungai Rengit. Sungai Rengit is the main town in this area and where the seafood restaurants are. Cyclists will find the first stretch very easy as there are almost no cars, only the bumboat terminal and the naval base is along this road. Once around the corner from the terminal, there are two concrete bunkers from World War 2. I believe they sited 2 pounder or 6 pounder guns in those bunkers. There was a gun platform and did not look to be meant for machineguns.

Past the naval base, it is pretty much a straight road for the next 9km, the sides of the road has the occasional small lanes, mosque, school, residences and a few drink stores, there is also a beach resort and a Chinese temple that I have never explored. I believe somewhere in this stretch there is a place where off-road cyclists do some trashing. At about 9km look out for a large right turning road. The sign should point towards Sungai Rengit. Take the right turn and it should bring you in a crescent for another 9km after which you should see the town of Sungai Rengit. This stretch has some construction, some farms and a temple.

Sungai Rengit pretty much has two parallel main streets, quite typical of a Malaysian town layout. I like to think of it as a town where Parkson has yet to set up shop. It is a simple town where the centre is predominantly occupied by the Chinese. There is a money changer, a bank with an ATM, a shop to buy local cakes and stuff, and a Marry Brown fried chicken fastfood restaurant. But we are not here for fried chicken.

What’s for lunch?

I will talk about the seafood restaurants later, but be aware that they are open for business at lunchtime as well. If you are a normal person and left Changi Village in the morning, you should find yourself in Sungai Rengit before or during lunchtime. My number one recommendation for lunch is Bak Kut Teh. It is pretty much at the opposite end of the main road from where you would arrive from the bumboat terminal. In the coffeeshop opposite the seafood restaurants, you will find a Bak Kut Teh shop to die for. Get there early because they tend to run out by about 1pm. The Bak Kut Teh is of the dark soup variety and has extra bits like String Mushroom and Tao Ki. They also serve some awesome pork knuckles in dark soya sauce.

Alternative lunch places could be the coffeeshop next to the Taxi station. They serve hand-made Chee Cheong Fun with Char Siew and Prawn fillings. The hand-made Chee Cheong Fun skin just melts in your mouth, absolutely divine. The same coffeeshop also servers Wan Tan Mee, passable but not overwelming. Another lunch choice is the local Laksa store next door to Marry Brown, I have not tried it before but it looks promising.

Where to next?

There are several options of what you can do after this. Desaru, a place known for lovely beach resorts, is about 30km away from Sungai Rengit, so good cyclists can actually make the 100km return trip to Desaru in a single day. Although accomodations are pretty good in Desaru, the food leaves much to be desired. There is a reason why the Desaru resorts bring their customers to Sungai Rengit for seafood in their coaches. If you are a gastronomicon, you might want to spend the night nearer to Sungai Rengit in order to sample more that it can offer. There is only one hotel in the town that I know of, and it looks like a 1 to 2 star job. Pass.

9km after Sungai Rengit is a small cluster of beach resorts (lower end compared to Desaru) mostly catering to Malaysian tourists and Singaporean tourists on a bit of a budget. Look out for a right turn with the Kg. Gambut sign at about that distance after Sungai Rengit. Cyclists can use another landmark. The right turn shortly after quite a steep and curved uphill road that runs along the Ramunia Fabricators factory area. The small Kampung Gambut road will eventually lead to a few lower end beach resorts.

Between Sungai Rengit and Ramunia Fabricators is an ostrich show farm. It is overpriced and not particularly exciting unless you have never seen ostriches before. Stand on an ostrich egg and take a photo and buy a kitsch ostrich skin keychain. Pay no attention to the masturbating monkey.

We stayed at Sunrising Resort, which was the 2nd one down the road. We got a large semi-detached chalet for MYR420 a night and it had nine beds in three bedrooms. There was three seperate shower and toilets, a small kitchenette with a small refrigerator. The 14″ CRT TV was adequate but the pampered Singaporeans broke out their laptops and played their videos instead. The rooms are clean, although the toilets are basic, with only one having hot water. But we by the time you are at the resort and ready for a shower, you would be hot and sweaty so room temperature water would be good enough.

There is a lady that has a little ABC (ice kachang, or flavoured ice) store in Sunrising resort. If you are nearby, please patronise her store and help her with a little income. You can also have the chance of listening to her life story. If the store is not open, you can knock on the door of the house next to it, that is where she and her husband lives.

Sun, Sand and the Sea.

The monsoon season has brought nice metre tall waves to this area, crashing on the shore constantly and is quite therapeutic for me. While Sunrising resort was on the beach, it was quite rocky in this area. A 10minute walk further down will take you to another larger stretch of beach that is really fun. We spent a whole afternoon in the water body surfing and just enjoying the strong waves. The water is full of sediments but is not polluted. The amount of waves at this time of the year is probably quite good for beginner surfing lessons, but the resorts in this area does not really have any equipment of the sort, they are mostly quite laid back. The resorts in this stretch is of a variety of quality and price, I believe that in general there are more expensive than Sunrising.

The other food available here is in two little stores in the resort before Sunrising. One sells breakfast like Nasi Lemak, and another is a typical Warong that serves a simple dinner or supper. But you are not going to have dinner or supper here, you are headed back to Sungai Rengit for that. You can arrange for some cars to take you to Sungai Rengit from Sunrising or any of the other resorts. We had two cars for that, and it costs us MYR60 for the return trip, the drivers waited in town for us while we had our dinner and supper.

Seafood time.

Well, noone will stop you for having seafood for lunch, but lets be normal and go for it for dinner. There are four main seafood restaurants in town, all a little past the main streets. Three are on one street, while another is on a parallel next street across. Of the four, Jade is probably the highest end restaurant. There are more air-conditioned seating for the hot season. They also cater wedding dinners with the typical Malaysian Chinese Karaoke that goes with it.

Lobster is the main seafood people come to Pengarang for. Jade cooks their lobster just right, it is tender and comes off the shell very easily. They also serve quite a spicy but tasty Mee Goreng. All in all, you cannot go wrong if you’re dining at Jade. We spent MYR240 for a dish of four lobsters, and two other side dishes.

Avoid the restaurant next to Jade, my experience with it has not been good. The food was underwelming and the price overwelming. I cannot remember the name, its the one next door.

The restaurant opposite to Jade, another whose name escapes me, also has pretty good food. They tend to cook their lobster a bit more than Jade so the flesh is a bit harder and more difficult to come off the shell. Some people prefer it like this. If you go there, order their Soup Lobster, it is cooked in a herbal sauce, which is quite awesome. The venison is pretty tender as well. This restaurant is also appreciably cheaper than Jade.

On the next street across is Good Luck. This restaurant serves wonderful steamed lobsters and prawns. So if you like your lobsters and prawns steamed in egg white, this is the place to go. All in all a decent restaurant with decent prices. Also recommended.

What? More food?

Just when you thought that ending your day with cheap lobster (relative to Singapore prices) was awesome enough, you better wander towards the main roads of Sungai Rengit and sample what else is on offer.

After 7-8pm, the coffeeshop across from where Jade and the other two restaurants are will start to serve Char Kway Teow, Satay, and some cooked food. But before you can even make it there, you will be accosted by the smell of Ramli Burger. Ok, so what, Ramli Burger is all over Malaysia, big deal. Perhaps being in a town full of good food, the Ramli Burger store in that junction has pushed the envelope. The cook is zealous with his seasoning and the extremely unhealthy result is extremely tasty. Submit to your temptation and have yourself a Beef Special. Do note that the cook is quite generous with the chilli sauce and the burger is quite spicy as a result. So ask for no chilli if you need to.

Now that you have successfully crossed the road with chilli sauce stains on your fingers, you can sit yourself down and order a plate of Char Kway Teow. It is simple but tasty, with small Cockels but no Lap Cheong. A small enough plate that you can still finish despite all the seafood and burger you just had. I have never had the satay, as it has alway ran out before I got around to ordering it, so I assume that it cannot be all bad. The cooked food store in the same coffeeshop sometimes serves shark meat cooked in a similar way to how we serve sambal sting ray in Singapore.

There are more coffeeshops along the way, one of which serves quite delightful Wild Boar. It is the crowded one, there is another one which is not crowded, and for good reason. There is a bakery where you can buy some buns for breakfast, and some provision shops to top up on beer, peanuts and snacks for the night. So its off back to the resort, you should be able to find the drivers in their cars parked next to the seafood restaurants. Whether you are going to spend your night listening to the crashing waves, watching TV or playing mahjong is up to you. Have a late night.

Wakey! Wakey!

Ah, its morning again, or maybe it is already afternoon. Hopefully you have woken up early enough that you can go to the little store in the resort before Sunrising and get some breakfast. A typical Nasi Lemak and Milo breakfast is always appreciated. Of course, chances are, you have slept too late and it is nearing lunchtime, at which point you should get yourself ready to make a move towards Sungai Rengit.

The ride back is easier because the uphills are less gradient and they come at the start of the ride. Once in town, whether you decide to have another round of the awesome Bak Kut Teh or opt for more variety, it is up to you. The people here tend to lunch earlier so try to get there before 1pm.

Get to the terminal on time.

Another reason to make it to town by 1pm is that the bumboat terminal at Tg. Pengelih closes at 4pm, so to be on the safe side, try to reach the terminal by 2-3pm. Before 2pm if it is a public holiday. So time yourself and when you need to leave Sungai Rengit. So ends a nice weekend trip to Pengarang where you can lose a few pounds riding your bicycle and gain a few more pounds with all the lovely food available.