James (Vanda�s dad) had organised the trip for us through his travel agent and we were picked up at 8.00am from the YMCA where we were staying. The trip to the border was fairly non-eventful and we arrived in Malaysia to stifling heat (like it was going to be anything else, seriously :oP) and a very funny tour guide. His name was something like Jin Seng (he joked that people called him Gin Sling) and he reminded me a lot of my dad who tells equally bad/punny jokes. It was interesting to see the palace of the Sultan and all the colourful flags around as it had been their national day on the Wednesday and decorations were still up. We headed to a pewter factory where we saw them making pewter vases and then I ended up buying two for 46 ringit (which is about AUD$23, not bad at all!) and getting a free keyring (with a dragon on it) to boot!

We continued down the highway towards the orchid farm and saw all the shopping centres that he said are filled with Singaporeans every day that like to hunt for bargains. We passed a lot of date palms and rubber plantations and he told us how they tap the rubber and so forth. I swear the guide knew everything that was anything. I went green with envy when I saw the newly built houses advertised for 149,500 ringit when something in Australia would cost you $450,000. The orchid farm was really coloured of course and we had a little tram ride out to a viewing platform so we could look out over the whole farm. It was at this point we were informed it was 33C and 100% humidity. Gotta love that equator!

For lunch we were driven to a fishing village on stilts and served giant platters of all manner of seafood. I was reliably informed that it all tasted great � I don�t eat seafood so I just munched on the rolls and focaccia I had packed with me. We then went on a boat ride out to one of the floating fish farms. They were pretty amazing. Some of the fish actually spit water at you. The have eyes on the top of their heads so they can see insects and little bugs flying by and they catch their prey by spitting at them with water and it makes the insect drop down to the surface of the water so they can gulp them up. Mum held some very scary crab thing that looked like a World War I army helmet with claws and a tail. After we returned from the floating fish farm we walked through the village (at this point I felt very obtrusive cause we were looking into people�s houses like they were scientific experiments or something) and met a funny old bloke mending a net out the front of the Chinese temple.

After returning back to Singapore I honestly can�t remember what we did for dinner that night. We could have gone to the shopping district and had takeaway but I�m not sure.

Feeling exhausted just remembering all the walking!

Tyd

26 September 2002 - 10:02 am

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