Pulau Ketam

Aunty May invited us for a short 2D1N trip to Pulau Ketam during 'Malaysia Day' weekend.  As I have been to Pulau Ketam before, I was not expecting too much initially.  However, I was surprised that the trip turned out to be very interesting and educational.

We arrived earlier than others at the jetty to Pulau Ketam.  The jetty is just about 8km from my in-law's house.  Guess how I know it is about 8km... hint: my hobby.

I found out later that this is also the jetty that Indonesian took their boat home.  However, we don't see many Indonesian, I believe it is due to the existence of budget airline.

From the first sight, the jetty is really under-maintained... which turned out to be a 'good news' for reasons I will tell later.

We took the following type of highspeed ferry to Pulau Ketam.

(picture from http://www.pulauketam.com/)



The interior of the highspeed ferry, looked just like an elongated express bus.

(L-R: May Ee, Bee, Ah Mei, Ah Zhen)

The air-conditioned ferry fare is RM7/adult and RM4/child.  Ah Mei, for being under-age, was free of charge.

The journey from the mainland to Pulau Ketam took about 30minutes.  I remember, during my last visit many years ago, the older fishing-boat-style wooden ferry took 1 hour for the journey.

Upon arrival at the Jetty, Jeremy, the young owner of the B&B (Bed and Breakfast homestay), already waited for us on his bicycle.  The B&B is about 15 minutes walk from the jetty.

Final 200 feet to the B&B...

We arrived at the B&B at about 3:30pm.

The following video was taken in front of the B&B.

Ah Yang was enjoying himself with Ah Mei rocking him in a hammock.

Uncle Felix was getting ready for his first fishing play at the fishing dock at the far end.

Ah Zhen was looking at the sea/swamp/mangrove creatures.

This is the view when we look back into the island (with our back facing the water) from our B&B.

On the far left, it is Jeremy and family's house.

On the far right, it is a Chinese temple with a badminton court in front.

Ah Zhen spent a long time looking at the many many sea/swamp/mangrove creatures, in this natural zoo at low tide.

At high tide, the mud is covered by seawater.

Ah Zhen just couldn't have enough of the little creatures in the mud.  What is more interesting and educational than seeing these creature in their natural habitat!

There were a lot of crabs (even in red, shiny-blue and yellow), hermit crabs, legged-fishes (Zhen said it is mudskipper), snakes (Zhen said it is python), prawns.

The many tiny holes were formed by creatures moving in and out.

I managed to take the video of salt-water snake in its natural habitat...

Ah Yang, standing on a gigantic PVC water pipe, at the fishing dock.  The stone-type thingy behind the water pipe are old-fashion stone-grinders.  All fishing boats at the background are still in service... they are real, belongs to real fishermen, certainly not for show to tourist.  Now, this is important, and to me, the main attraction of Pulau Ketam!

Bee and Ah Mei on the jetty leading to the fishing dock, with the B&B at the back.  I was standing at the fishing dock taking this photo.

Ah Yang was doing a dangerous stunt on hammock, with his new friend rocking him.  His 'botak' head was bearly few mms above the wooden ground.  I decided to let him learnt his hard lesson.

After scolding from papa, Ah Yang gave up the hammock... and it was Ah Mei and Narissa's turn.

Then, it was tea break... biscuit time for the kids.

(L-R: Zhi Ee, Wei, Zhen, Yang, Narissa, Roshni, Pauline)

After tea-break, more stunt with head-removeable Zhen...

first, on the hammock...

...then, on the bamboo chair.

The fishing dock...

Despite being at low tide, it was not long before Uncle Felix got the first catch of the day... a small catfish.  He threw the first catch back to the sea.

Shortly after that, the second catch... a small puffer fish.

Uncle Felix showed the kids how the puffer fish "puffed" on the neck/belly before throwing it back to the sea.

It was about evening, best time for a short boat trip out to the sea for the sunset scene.  The boys were fast to grab the front seat...

Inside the boat with seats labelled with number.  I guessed this might be the old ferry between mainland and Pulau Ketam as the seat are numbered... probably the passengers ticket were all numbered according to the seat, just like the express bus.

I took the following photo of the B&B.  The passage on the right was sub-merged into water at high tide.

Unfortunately, it was a cloudy evening.  We didn't see the sunset into the sea horizon, but the scene was still amazing.  There is a small fish farm at the background on the left.

During the sunset-boat-trip, I managed to take the video (with 4xOptical and 10xDigital zoom) of Kapar power station located on the mainland.  I visited the coal-based power station many years ago.  It is one of the biggest power station in Malaysia, capable of generating 25% of electrical energy for the peninsula!  A spectacular view from the sea.

The boat-trip ended at the same Jetty where we first landed on the island.  It was a short walk to a restaurant for dinner.

After dinner, it was a free-and-easy walk at the local street.  The uncle/aunties packed some 'supposedly' famous 'fried oyster' at a nearby restaurant before heading back to the B&B.  The small boys and girl had their toys.

Then, it was bedtime...

(L-R: Ah Mei, Narissa, Yang)

After a sweet uninterrupted night sleep, Yang, as usual, was the first to rise.

The view from inside of the B&B, with Yang walking bare foot to me, and Uncle Eddie enjoying the morning breeze at the far-end fishing dock.

There were speedboats, ferries, fishing boats passed by the B&B frequently.

It is highest tide now.  Fishing boat is in the water now.

The once exposed passage is now 3/4 submerged into the water.  The boys were feeling the sea water from the fishing village dock for the first time... before the papa asked them to come back to the higher ground.

Breakfast at the fishing dock... what an unusual place!  Unfortunately, we missed the sunrise again due to the cloud.

During the breakfast, I managed to take the photo of a fishing boat unloading goods.  The containers in the photo are filled with ice.

Shortly after breakfast, we took another boat trip to a fish farm.

The boat is much narrower than the one we took yesterday.

Boys were exploring the much smaller boat before departing.

The boys managed to grab even better seat this time... just next to the "driver"!

After a few minutes, we were at a fish farm.

There were many dogs at the fish farm.  According to Uncle Eddie, the dogs guarded the fish farm against fish-theft as the fishes here were very valuable.

The fishes available at the fish farm are all "costly fishes" in a typical Chinese restaurant, for e.g. "cheong yu", "tau dai cheong", "sack parn", "hong zhou".

This is William, the guide at the fish farm...

We could clearly see the fishes (3kg "sack parn" and "black cheong") rushed to the surface every time William throw some fish food (small dead fishes) into the water.

According to William, most of the fishes are sold alive to Hongkong buyers who drove their cargo boat right to the fish farm for collection.  Now I know where does the "swim water" seafood come from!

We also visited a fishing "resort" nearby.

The upper floor of the fishing "resort" are basic rooms, while the lower floor are gathering area.  Visitors could stay in this "resort" for fishing from day-night-day-night....

Another view of the fishing "resort"...

After visiting the fishing "resort", we headed back to the B&B.  It is low tide again, with the passage now apparently rose above the water surface now...

At about 11:10am, we were lucky to withness the arrival of fishing boat with their freshly catch of the day!

Ah Mei was looking at the 3 young men doing the stunt of highspeed fish-sorting.  The man-in-orange and man-in-white sorted the fishes into different basket of size and type.  The man-in-blue was doing the same for another pile.  Blue basket on the right was filled with whole big load of big yummy prawns!  I later found out that the prawn load was 37.5kg.  Red basket on the far right was filled with yummy squids!

I took a short clip of the action...

Zhen and Yang were having the first encounter of the real big catch fresh from the sea, the biggest squid from the pile...

After sorting, the young man-in-orange read out the fish-type and reading from the hanging-scale while the aunty-in-red recorded... all in my familiar "teochew", which is the main dialect spoken here.

Shortly after witnessing the arrival, sorting, packing, and delivering of seafood, it was time for seafood steamboat lunch... 

With the fresh seafood, we didn't need any other ingredient for soup... just plain water!

Then, it was group photo (with a few missing group mates) before heading home...

Trip back to the mainland was a totally different experience.  We took a highspeed boat that was twice as fast as the ferry!  The speed-boat was powered by the following monster, a Yamaha V8 4-stroke engine!

Zhen, Yang, and Aunty Annette at the front of the monterous speedboat, but not for long... not when the boat started to zoom...

The speedboat was so fast and powerful that it left a very long 'water-trail' behind...

We were back at the mainland in merely 15minute!

I found that the trip was very eye-opening in that Pulau Ketam is still left very "un-touched" and "primitive".  After the relatively recent banning of motorized-bicycle on the island, there is no more motor-vehicle at all on the island. Everyone is either walking or cycling.

The narrow raised-walkway or passage above water reminded me of the famous Venice in Italy... of course, we cannot compare an apple with an orange here.

On the island, we still could see mainly wooden structure with unlocked home all over the street.

Almost all houses at the seaside has a long wooden passage extended to the sea... with the supporting poles built in a seemingly random fashion.

According to Jeremy, the B&B owner, people are still doing piling in a primitive way without heavy machinery.  They basically held the pole in its position and a few persons would jump synchroniously on top of the pole for piling-by-gravity.

Like Jeremy said in his facebook post:

"...之前我一直埋怨政府長期忽略了吉膽島的發展和潛能，導致它的知名度不高。但現在我卻感到很慶幸，沒過多的發展，就越能保存它獨有的味道。"...

... I too hope that the "power-that-be" and the greedy so-called developer would leave the beautiful island alone... so we can continue to enjoy the simplicity and the peace of this unique fishing village for years to come.