Fruits Season in Batu Gajah

April this year, the family went on a weekend trip to Batu Gajah and Ipoh to visit the relatives and for my wife to catch up with her aunt and sisters. For me and the kids, the highlight of the trip was a visit to my wife's aunty's farm around Seputeh in Batu Gajah.

We went there at the right time. It was the start of the durian season. When we arrived at the farm, aunty had already collected 10 durians for us.

Check out some of the photos below.


Durians that ripen and dropped the night before.


The durians still on the tree waiting to ripen. During this time, it is customary to visit the orchard early in the morning to collect the fruits.


While visiting the orchard, we found some more durians that had ripen and dropped.


Serai or lemon grass.


Joel and Jordan had never seen a pineapple plant before.


Pineapples that were ready to be harvested.


A giant pineapple, that aunty kept for us.


What better way to enjoy rambutan than freshly plucked from the tree.


The rambutan fruit was really of the best quality. See how small the seed of the fruit is in comparison to the edible part.


Papayas waiting to be plucked.


Joel and Jordan with their cousin checking out the fish nursery.


These containers acted as water aeration and filtering system to keep the water fresh for the fishes.


Each of this container contain a baby fish.


The name of this fish in Malay is called, "ikan hantu", which translates to "ghost fish". I believe the English name is Marbled Goby. This fish is highly prized for it taste and can fetch a high price in the market.


The adult Marbled Goby were kept in the larger tank.


Bananas for the picking.


Freshly fell coconuts.


Took me a while to get this bunch to fall.


Using a special rod with a saw at the end to cut down the coconut fruit bunches.


Jordan complaining that he cannot carry the coconuts... LOL.


Needed a ladder to reach the coconuts.


The saw used to cut down the coconuts.


Pandan leaves (Pandanus amaryllifolius) right at the backyard of the house, ready to be used anytime for cooking.


Found a bird nest in the pandan leaves.


Uncle with his shotgun getting ready to go wild boar hunting.

It was great day for the kids and the family to be able to visit the orchard. We were told to go there to collect the durians, but ended up with all kind of fruits to bring back home.

We will be back next year when it is durian season again :-)

Fresh and Strange Longan Fruits

What? Never tried the longan fruits before? You dunno what you have been missing! The longan fruits are sweet and absolutely delicious! It is one of my favourite fruits. But the thing is... I have never seen a longan tree before.... :-) In fact I have been walking pass a longan tree day in and day out and I did not realised that it was a longan tree!

Yesterday, I was handed a bunch of longan fruits and I did not even realised what it was... LOL. The fruit's skin was green and the skin was hard and felt thick. The longans that I am used to seeing are brown in colour and the skin soft and easy to peel to get to the fruit inside.


Photo of a bunch of longan fruits I am used to seeing in the fruit market stalls (linked from Wikipedia).


The fresh longan fruits, which I did not even realised was longan.


The longan tree was very tall and the fruits was hard to reach.


A branch of longan fruits.


I packed some to let my colleagues try.

When I had finally gotten to taste the longan, it was not what I had expected. The skin of the fruit was thick and tough to peel. The meat of the fruit was fleshy, but lack the sweetness and juiciness usually associated with the longan fruit.

In any case, it was an experience to remember. Maybe the fruit had not yet ripen, hence the green skins... LOL. Maybe next year when longan is in season again, I will wait till the fruits is properly ripen :)

Is this an Apple Tree?

My wife's sister-in-law gave her this plant a while back and told her that it was an apple tree. I could not believe it. Apple trees don't grow in Malaysia right? They need a more temperate type of climate right? Anyway, it has been more than 4 months and the plant had started to fruit.

The fruits sure looked like apples. My kids were pretty excited and could not wait to eat them. The taste was a bit sweet and tangy. The texture felt like apple.

In the end, what I think gave away the "apple" was the seed. There was only a single seed and it was definitely too big when compared to the apple that we normally buy from the supermarkets.

Hmmm... hybrid "apple"?

Two Mango Trees in Batu Gajah

A couple of weeks back, I took the family back to Ipoh for the weekend. Since my wife's parents have not been staying in their house in Batu Gajah (about a half hour drive from Ipoh), she told me to go there and pluck some mangoes before they all get rotten.

Everyone in the family loves mango, whether the mangoes are sweet, sour or even unripe, my wife will find a way to make them into something really tasty. The favourite being sliced mangoes in "rojak" sauce.

I took my eight years old son, Joel and we spent the afternoon plucking mangoes from two mango trees planted by my wife's grandma. She passed away a couple of years ago and everyone really misses her, including my kids, whom till today, always refer to Batu Gajah as "Tai-po" place.


Joel plucking mangoes.


In the end, we plucked about 30 mangoes.


Joel looking for mangoes.


Finally, he spotted some mangoes and managed to pluck one.

While I was plucking the mangoes with my eldest son, I remembered thinking that, we all get to enjoy these mangoes simply because Tai-po had planted them. At that moment, I asked myself, what will I leave behind for my children when the time comes for me to go? Will it be something as simple and as enjoyable as a mango tree, where every so often they will come by and enjoy the fruits? And perhaps tell stories to one another underneath the shade of the mango tree?

I have no answer for myself now, but I think I roughly know, where the spiders are.

Related Post:

• A Fruitful Day - June 17, 2007
  

A Fruitful Day

Went to Batu Gajah for the weekend. For those who are not familiar with Batu Gajah, it is a small town in Perak about 30 minutes away from Ipoh. To be exact, me and the family went to Kampung Bemban in Batu Gajah. Stayed with my in-laws in their typical Chinese kampung house with chickens running around and fruit trees everywhere.

The wife needed to see the family and do some family stuff. I was looking forward to this trip for a personal reason; my wife's aunt make a killer "bak chang". And its that time of the year... the "Bak Chang" Festival... :-)


Home made Hakka "Bak Chang". Yum yum... they are really da best... :-)

When we reached the house, the first thing I noticed was the Mango tree. It was filled with mangoes on the verge of being ripe!!! I quickly found a mango "harvester" and went to work.


I called it the mango "harvester" for the lack of a better name. It has a hook at the tip and a sack right below it. As you hooked the mango fruit, it drops into the sack. A great invention... I must say.


The "harvester" from another angle.

Btw, the mango tree was heavily guarded by red ants. I was fighting a losing battle with these fiery ants. Each time I hooked the mangoes into the sacks, tons of ants would crawled onto the harvester's pole towards me as I held it.

I swear some of them were conducting aerial attacks... I found myself crawling with ants... and these devils are fearsomely protective of their damn tree.

Of course, being an "ant bully" that I am, I persisted and was quite fruitful in the end, pun intended... :-) The following are the fruits of my labour... LOL... really getting carried away.


These mangoes did not make in into the sack and suffered a 15 feet drop. They had to be turned into rojak asap... yum yum.


The harvested mangoes waiting to be packed into plastic bags.


The mangoes with my weapon of mass destruction, as far as the ants are concerned... :-)


Btw, this was the 3rd harvest... I had previously bagged two bags already.


The mangoes, packed and sorted into 3 bags. 1 bag is about 60 mangoes... :-)


The Mango Tree after being stripped of its fruits.

Hard to believe that I harvested more than 150 mangoes from this tree. Btw, there are still more mangoes in the tree, which I could not reach with the "harvester".

I think in another month I will be back in Batu Gajah again... this time, it will be DURIAN!!! Yeah!.