Tuesday 29 April East Johor exploration

Growing pink plastic bags

The department of tourism hosted a gala dinner for us last week. Today they took us on a full day tour of the sights of the eastern part of the state.

Half of us are still staying in Danga Bay and our pick up time was 7am. That's early for us. The sun doesn't even rise until 7.30am. We made it by 7 thanks to David waking up in time and discovering I'd set the alarm for 6 this evening. In my defence, I'm out of practice in setting wake up alarms.

The drive east across the peninsula took an hour and once we had joined up with the bus coming from Sebana Cove marina it was a short drive to the Desaru Fruit Farm. I think they have approximately 200 acres of land under production of seasonal fruits; now we're in the season for Jack fruit. We enjoyed a full guided tour through the various sections; dragon fruit, passion fruit, bread fruit, bananas, mangos, too many to mention, with a knowledgeable guide. He told us there are many, many different types of banana but never eat the ones that grow hanging upwards – they are poisonous. If the stalk has the fruit pointing down they are good to eat. Or was it the other way around?

kids making friends in the pet area

After a short presentation on the honey bee cultivation on the property we were shown to the restaurant to taste a banquet of different fruits; a good opportunity to try the strange new varieties we've seen in the market without having to buy a kilo. We had deep fried tapioca chips which tasted just as good as potato chips.

The fruit banquet was the warm up to lunch at a homestay village, a community where visitors are welcomed (for a cost) to share the day-to-day life of the people. We were welcomed with drums and a display of martial arts and then shown into the community hall where we invited to participate in a mock wedding ceremony and then a real lunch. Malaysian ladies are fine and generous cooks. The cruisers were stuffed once more.

The afternoon activities were a visit to a palm oil processing plant. Palm oil plantations stretch as far as you can see for miles. It's a lucrative crop. But.There's a big but in here which we rich westerners tut tut at while for the Malaysians it is income and the difference between farming and an aspirational life with cars, washing machines and holidays. Palm oil destroys all the natural habitat. There were tigers living in this area less than thirty years ago. There were other wildlife now gone, birds and an ecosystem developed over millennia. Our guide told us Malaysia is now one of the largest producers in the world. When we reach Borneo we're going to see the same ravaging of the forests. It would be nice to see areas,

harvesting palm oil

perhaps national parks, set aside at intervals between the plantations but that would compromise the bottom line, capitalism, which allows we Westerners to be travelling here.

Now we were close to the original capital of Johor state and went to see museums and ruins of a 16^th century fort which looks over the river estuary to what is now Singapore island. It remained Malaysian until the Portuguese arrived and took it off them. It was never rebuilt. There were good views, a collection of artefacts from archaeological digs and too many mosquitoes near the toilet block.

The last stop was the most sensational – a crocodile farm. Our guide described it as conservation. I'm not sure the thousand crocs we saw saw it in quite the same way. The owner of the farm is a crazy Chinese man. He shouted, squawked, flapped and teased his crocodiles with a 10' aluminium pole with a plastic bag on the end. This has been a family business for more than a hundred years he told us as the big males, the stud crocs, were 130 years old. These are giants, at least three to four meters long and a meter wide kept in an enclosure with pool and shaded area. Mr Ho showed how high they could leap from a standing start by encouraging them to leap for the pole with plastic bag. They can go high.

The females are kept in breeding pools with grassed areas and the males are introduced at intervals. We didn't see a demonstration of how they move a 4 metre monster between pools. Certainly not when there are visitors on site. It is long term farming. The animals aren't considered mature until they are between 30 and 40 years and then they are killed for eating and for the skins. Chinese medicine uses different parts to treat various ailments and consider eating a small amount of crocodile meat will cure asthma.

lots of crocodiles

Mr Ho did give us a good show, feeding (dead) chicken meat to his herds so we could watch them run and swim.

I haven't had an opportunity to really study these creatures in such numbers before. The first thing that struck me was how prehistoric they look. The eyes which are cold and how they can lie so still with only nostrils flaring as they breathe. A dangerous thing to happen across without warning on a river or in a river. Malaysian crocodiles are (predominantly) freshwater meaning we're unlikely to see them on the coast although I'll be wary of mangroves when we visit Borneo.

What a great day, a long day out, fruit, palm oil, lunch, crocodiles and a luxury air conditioned coach to ferry us around. We might have been VIPs.....