Another morning walk into the unknown. Lost in the wild.
The late Prof Dr Ang Kok Jee assigned us to do a water budget survey in the state of Perlis for a commercial scale freshwater aquaculture project in 1980. We were all over the smallest state of Malaysia tracking, dipping, recording into all rivers, lakes, wells and other water source areas known to us. Unfortunately, the study results concluded that there was not enough freshwater for the aquaculture project. In Perlis, bordering Thailand, you can purchase fresh mangoes from RM2 for 10 pieces to RM3 for a basket of mangoes! Unexpectedly, during that survey period, we were staying in the same hotel with the once famous local band..”Quinary M” and had chance to meet Marzuin the lead singer.
Dr Philip Arumugam made us worked from sunrise to sunset and moonrise to moonset for the lake 24-hour survey on the water quality fluctuations and plankton migration. Dr. Hishamuddin was with me through out the survey period. We started in the evening making our way to the middle of the lake on a small boat with our equipments and repeated the whole process every 2 hours. By 3 – 4 am in the morning, we couldn’t really tell the digital figure on our water quality meter screen either its number 8 or 3. Truly a few doses of black coffee didn’t really helped. We were lucky enough to be able to paddle back the boat to the lake edge! The survey continued to the next day and we almost killed our own spirits when we were, again, right in the middle of the lake at 1 pm under the brightest and the hottest sun. Our red-swollen eyes (from the lack of sleep) didn’t helped much either. But in the end it was all done for the sake of plankton migration and water quality fluctuations.
In 1997 I was invited to join the team from USM to explore the riverine communities in the newly opened forest reserved in northern Perak. “Nobody has ever surveyed this area before,” said Dr Mahsur, the leader of the exploration team. “We will leave at 7 am and should be back to our station before 5 pm.” he continued.
So, true to Dr Mahsur words, we left at 7 am after one small packet of nasi lemak for breakfast and we were still in the jungle the same day at 12 midnight! We were lost ! No direction back to our camps and too tired for anything else that we just squatted by the river banks allowing any leeches to stroll pass or tax a bit of blood for free. It rained the whole night when we were wondering about with no lights till we decided to stay put in the middle of no where. We were found by a small team of soldiers the next morning at 7am and gave us a packet of nasi lemak each!
If only Dr. Mahsur could have said, “We will leave at 7 am and should be back to our station the next day at 7 am with a packet of nasi lemak!”, then probably he should have qualify to be the real Merlin of all time.
Never missed any invitations to explore and survey the unknown and once I came to believe and actually joined a group of fools to explore a jungle looking for the lost gold hidden by the famous Japanese General Yamashita, The Tiger of Malaya. Why not?
Filed under: Miscellaneous, Pond Management, Site Trips, Stories from the Past | Tagged: ayer matahari, Ayermatahari, eco design, Kok Hong, Mangrove trees, old stories
