A Fruitsome Journey

Woke up this morning (19/11) to the sounds of crickets and birds. We left Kuching yesterday at 8.30 am and arrived Bintulu around 8.00 pm after a 12 hours journey by road. My normal duration for the Kuching- Bintulu journey has generally been 10 hours, but on this trip I let the hours drifted by for the main reason that this is the end of the year and I will not want to miss the little details that should be enjoyed along the Pan Borneo Highway. The end of the year is a moment I look forward to because if one were to drive the length of the Pan Borneo Highway, the sights and tastes of the local seasonal fruits are not to be missed. Because I made so many pit stops along the highway to see and sometimes buy many of the fruits available by the roadside the journey was a pleasant, exciting and fruitful one. Below are shots I took for the world to share. (Inset: Our pick up refuelling at Sibu with the rainbows in view, three quarters of journey covered)

The rambutans ( Nephelium lappaceum) has soft hairs and come in two main colours - yellow and red. I recall that in India , rambutans are highly priced as wedding gifts and Singaporeans export these fruits overseas and re-brand them as " Singapore Lychee". And the best part of the story is that small island of Singapore does not have land to plant rambutan trees but obtain them from Malaysian farms which are just across the channel. Does it prove that Malaysians are good producers but Singaporeans better marketers? Anyway, I price most the wild species of rambutans that still grow in my eco-farm here at Bintulu.

Most rambutans ( Note: In Malay 'rambut' means hairs ) that are grown now are hybrid species to make them more marketable and the better clones should provide the following characteristics: thin outer skin, thick flesh, fruits skin is easy to open by an effortless slight twist, glorious red colour or golden colour, sweet tasting, juicy, seed small and the flesh ( or aril) easily peeled off from seed without the seed cover stuck to the flesh and long shelf life. Well, let the scientists sort out the details. One thing is for sure , don't clone one without hairs. It will not be a called a rambutan fruit.

You can buy fresh green peppers by the roadside. Sarawak's climate is ideal for pepper growing but requires very intensive care especially from diseases and as such is appropriately grown on a family basis. At today's price, black pepper fetches RM 8,700 per tonne ( Bintulu price) and white pepper ( processed) fetches RM 15,100 per tonne. However, considering the tiny size of the pepper fruits, the amount you need to collect before you could sell them makes it obvious that you need to be a bundle of patience, have stacks of money to buy inputs especially fertilisers, weedicides and pesticides that don't come cheap, and luck against diseases, weather, world ups and downs in pepper commodity prices to get rich. No short cut! and as one friend of mine commented " What ? You are in to farming? It's just buying fertilisers and letting the rain wash them away !" Oh, yes talking about the rains, this time around the journey was met with slight rains for about one third of the journey and the rest of the way was cloudy skies.

LS of the 'mata kuching' fruit tree. The name " Kuching", the capital of Sarawak comes from this fruit according to one theory. Another theory says that the name of Kuching City derives from the local Malay word for cat i.e. Kuching. Now if the first theory is correct, Kuching is not cat, afterall.

CU of the ' mata kuching' fruit ( Euphoria malaiense)