The End

Raymond packed a Mango for me and I'm pleased to report it made it back into the US.  

And then I ate it.

It was a fantastic trip and one that I would do again without hesitation.  It wasn't what I expected, it was better.  I do feel that there is a lot more to be seen and done in Singapore and especially Malaysia.  I think for AQUARAMA 2013 I'll be better prepared!

The Longest Day Ever

39 hours.  I'm not kidding.  Wednesday the 1st of June lasted 39 hours.  It' just isn't right.  This post is just a catch all of that last day.

THe trusty water bottles.  All of these were filled and refilled countless times throughout the week.
Why four, you ask?  notice how 3 and a half are empty?

3:00am and Raymond had breakfast for us.  A roll with "Chicken Frost".  Yup.  Chicken Frost.  I asked twice.

A Green Tea cake with Red Bean.

6:00am and we had time to kill at Changi airport.  I mentioned in the beginning how huge the place was.  Turns out is has several areas like this Butterfly Garden.  IN THE AIRPORT.

At 6:00am, all the butterflies are sleeping.  Tim got a couple good photos.  I didn't.

The Koi Pond AT THE AIRPORT.

The free movie theater AT THE AIRPORT.
(For those who would ask, they were playing the new "Robin Hood".)

Took this one for Brenda.  Just an example of the shoe stores that are everywhere in Singapore.
This one of course was AT THE AIRPORT.

The end of a very good 2 days....

Very tired.  Very satified.

I miss the patio.

Dinner with Farmers

Our last major meal in Malaysia was in Layang Layang.  I think is was the only one we had in air conditioning.  Raymond had invited some of the fish farmers from the area.  It was a treat talking with them about what and how they do things, and why.  Aquaculture, like agriculture is all about production.  The highlight had to have been the snakehead (Channa sp.) that one of the farmers brought and had prepared at the restaurant.  (The mango was a close second) Very cool.

They rolled in a bigger disk for our table as it wasn't just the 8 of us this time....

Sanakehead, banned in the US as an amazingly aggressive and adaptive invasive species.  Here prepared in the traditional style. 

Another spread of family style yumminess.

Snakehead, prepared another way...

The 3 farmers who joined us.  I believe the snakehead was from the second one on the left.  I don't remember their names.

Wild Fish

Our next stop was in Layang Layang at a facility that bought wild collected fish from collectors all over the region and sent them on to exporters.  It was little more then a covered area attached to a house in a residential area.

I think Tim was slowing down at this point.  Raymond was already inside and had locked the car doors before Tim had opened his.  

Narrow aisles are an understatement.

Wild Betta imbellis.

The facility was especially hard to photograph as everything was so close together.  The eight of us made it worse.

Tapioca???

We only know about the pudding.  I bet most Americans don't know that it's also a root and makes a pretty tasty chip! We had asked Raymond about some crops we hadn't recognized (Hey!  Those aren't Oil Palms!) Raymond then stopped at Layang Food Trading to give us yet another fantastic experience.

A giant bag of yumminess!

Little bags of yumminess.

I huge pile of fresh tapioca root, awaiting process.

Processing.

The cookers and the loaders.

All done, right here.

The long road

Many of the places we visited we a bit off of the main road.  Some were pretty rough.  This one was by far the longest.  We were on it for a half an hour, maybe more.

And what were we driving through mostly?  Oil palm farms.

A good stretch of road.

One of many really big trucks on a really little road.

A new swallow house.  Layang means "Swallow".  There used to be a lot of swallows in the area.    There are still some, enough to set up houses like this one to harvest nests.  Why you ask?  Bird Nest Soup.

We finally arrived.  There was a fair amount of construction going on around here, but this is one of Raymond's Colisa (Dwarf Gourami) suppliers.

Tubs of baby plecos.  The same tubs are used to breed the gouramis.

A palm frond stuck into the bank of a plecostomus pond.  Every morning, they carefully harvest the babies that have congregated on the fronds.

One problem, the pleco burrows in the side of the pond can be nearly 3 feet long.  when you have plecos on both sides, eventually you have one big pond with connecting tunnels.

Fortunately...

Across the street were a few other choices.  Tim and I thought we were stopping for coffee, but we soon discovered that food was appearing so we ate again.  After all, how can you pass up a chance to play "What's this?"

Our end of the table at the coffee shop.

Layang Layang's train station on the back side of our coffee shop.  Malaysia uses a very narrow rail gauge of 1.2 meters.  Apparently it makes for an uncomfortable ride.

I still don't know what it is.
Tim and I liked it, but we were informed they were not very good representatives of their ilk.

I'm pretty sure neither of us had been hungry since leaving Singapore 2 days earlier.

Eating Our way across Malaysia

We drove through Layang Layang a few times and Raymond almost seemed lost.  Turns out, his favorite coffee shop that he was taking us to was no longer there....

Molly Farm #2

Our next stop was another molly farm.  It didn't pan out as intended as our daily rainstorm hit as we arrived.  We waited it out and poked around in the packing area for a little while before moving on.

Racks of packed mollies, ready to go...  wherever.

We were also treated to several varieties of banana while we were in Malaysia.  This was one of the smallest.

Red sailfin mollies.

I'm guessing the humidity wouldn't be so bad if it didn't do this every day.

Molly Farm

Well, the molly farm is actually part of the guppy farm, it's just a short walk away.

Raymond inspecting a bag of Balloon Mollies.

Even the dogs are hot.  And bags of mollies.  Did I mention the heat?

Another of the beverages offered. 

Rearing pens.

Guess what this farm feeds it's mollies?

Bread crusts.  No kidding.  They get them from a local bakery.  The fish do well on it, and the higher fiber and lower protein is great of mollies.

Our host and guide of his farm.

This little pepper is maybe an inch long.  I was warned to leave this one alone.  I listened.