Pulau Ubin

As we drive into the village of Changi at the Eastern end of Singapore, it already feels like a step back in time. Gone are the sleek buildings and fancy shops. Changi feels more laid back with older apartment buildings and eateries under large canopies along the road. Across the street is the pier where wooden “bum” boats and boatmen wait their turn to take passengers over to Pulau Ubin. We climb aboard the old wooden boat that has old tires hanging all around its sides as bumpers – hence the name bum boats. We are about 12 passengers who sit facing each other on two wooden benches.

Within 15 minutes, we’ve entered another world in one of Singapore’s 60 islands. Pulau Ubin is a throwback to Singapore in the 1960’s. The island is home to Singapore’s last villages, or “kampongs” and about a hundred villages live there. Ubin residents rely on wells for water and diesel generators for electricity. Most people store electricity in batteries in the day, and run generators in the night.

In the small main village where we dock, buildings sit on stilts in the water near the mangrove trees and homes have been converted into bicycle rental stores. Hundreds of bicycles are lined up for rent. The students who rode over with us already have bikes and are taking off along the miles of paved and dirt roads through the forest. As we drive around the island, we see many cyclists enjoying the lush vegetation, abundant flowers and butterflies as well as stopping to enjoy the blue waters of the old granite quarries that are all over the island. We see about 30 egrets perched on dead trees above one. The natural beauty of the old tropical forests, overgrown rubber and coconut palm plantations is breath taking. The roads wind among dense forest to an open wetlands area where at low time the sea anemones are abundant in pools

Our guide’s teenaged daughter has just returned from a five day outward bound adventure on Palau Ubin where the campers spent a lot of their time kayaking around the island. We see a number of teen-aged groups hiking or biking together on school break camps.

Home to both Malays and Chinese, we stop to speak with an herbalist whose roots are drying in pans along the road. This man is harvesting a root that will be dried similar to ginseng and used in Chinese medicine. His wife spends the week in Singapore and comes on the weekends to their very basic wooden home with high ceilings and open walls to allow for good ventilation. . A big room has tables for serving cold drinks to cyclists from the large freezer stocked with cold drinks. He raises and harvests his herbs on a small plot of rough land that supports papaya, banana as well as other medicinal plants that he introduces us to.

We visit Malay home where the residents are Muslim and have inscriptions for Mohamed and Allah over their door and a picture of the Hajj in Mecca on the wall. The couple invite us in and we are told their home is lush by contrast with traditional homes with upholstered chairs on the screened porch, a TV, a refrigerator and table and chairs in the kitchen. Traditionally, dining is taken in the “women’s” room on the floor. The garden has papaya, banana, tapioca and other cooking and medicinal plants. They too, have tables and chairs under an awning where they can serve cold drinks to cyclists.

There are shrines around the island to Chinese gods and goddesses, particularly Quan Yin. In fact, the weather has created her image in granite above one of the quaries. The altars are generally wooden boxes perched up on a stand and offerings of incense, fruit and water are placed there daily. We visit the largest Temple which has a number of shrines both inside and out – there is a lazy atmosphere to the place with people and stray dogs and cats cooling in the shade. The main altar is covered with statues – it seems like an entire cosmology of gods with incense, plates of oranges, water and flowers. Outside there are two cones where visitors burn their prayer papers hoping the ethers will answer them.

We’ve learned that Singaporean leaders are long-range planners and Palau Ubin was on the plan to be developed including a tunnel connecting main Singapore with businesses and homes. This development has been put on hold due to environmentalist concern witih some of the natural environments that would be disturbed with over development. So for the moment Palau Ubin remains a rustic reminder of Singapore’s past.

We top our visit off with traditional Chili Crab and Fish Head soup! (you got it - served with a big fish head floating in the serving dish!)