Date: 13 January 2010

Went for a day trip to Kuantan together with Mr. Yen, Ms. Chan and my dad just because we heard that there were a lot of Nepenthes plant (typically known as Tropical Pitcher Plant or Monkey Cups, in Chinese "猪笼草") planted there and they were blooming.

Mr. Yen is from Taiwan and is a member of one of the nature societies in Taiwan. He enjoys coming over to Malaysia and will always try to observe the habitat of the Nepenthes plants. Ms. Chan is the manager of the Japanese Garden at Bukit Tinggi Resort and she loves plants as well, in fact it was her friend who told us about the Nepenthes plant in Kuantan.

Mr. Yen, my dad and I left Kuala Lumpur at around 6.30am and arrived at Bukit Tinggi Resort at around 7.30am to pick up Ms. Chan and off our journey to Kuantan. The journey was smooth as there wasn't many cars on the Karak Highway. After around 2.5 hours of driving we exited the Gambang/Kuantan toll and head towards Kuantan town to meet up with Ms. Chan's friend, Anthony. On our way to the town, we stopped by at the road side because Mr. Yen wanted to have a closer look at the rubber trees. We were lucky that there were a few rubber tappers and collectors there and they were willing to explain and show us how latex is collected from the rubber tree.

Rubber tapper removing a thin layer of the rubber tree bark

Latex is collected in a cup

Different grades of rubber: (left to right) high to low. According to the workers, the collected latex lump is being graded based on the resilience of the latex.

Collected latex lump

Visiting the rubber plantation was never planned in our journey but it was indeed an eye opener to us. Mr. Yen has been in the rubber industry for more than 30 years but this is the first time he see the process right before his eyes. I'm in the rubber industry as well and I felt lucky and happy to be able to see this.

We continued our journey to Kuantan town and met up with Anthony for breakfast and he took us to a house and we were welcomed by Mr. and Mrs. Tang. I supposed they are in their 70's but still look strong. They have spent a lot of time in nurturing different plants in their compound and recycled a lot of waste, especially tin cans to decorate their house. There will be a few photos showing these decoration later. They also collected lots of antiques in the house, but I didn't snap any photos of those.

As mentioned earlier, our main purpose was to see the Nepenthes plant and there were really a lot of different species from different countries, though I am not an expert in this and couldn't explain more. Photos are all I can show.

"Dracula", named by Mrs. Tang for its 2 "Dracula fangs"

I asked Mrs. Tang how she started her interest in planting Nepenthes and the answer was, she saw many gardeners threw them at the road side and she felt pity about it, brought back home, planted them and started falling in love with them. She then started buying a lot of different species. The reason behind was just that simple.

Nepenthes that was as huge as my fist

I never knew Nepenthes grows on the ground until I saw it with my own eyes. They are just like a bunch of little birds waiting to be fed.

Top view

Nepenthes at its "lid-close" stage

Notice how tightly the lid is sealed? No escape for insects

It was interesting to know that Nepenthes plant has gender - male and female. Mrs. Tang showed and explained to us on how to differentiate them. In the photo below, the one on top is the male flower and the one at the bottom is the female flower.

As mentioned earlier, Mr. and Mrs. Tang collected lots of antiques and unique items. For instance, in the photo below, it is a table made of a cross section of a tree bark. It may look like it is just a ordinary table top, but with some imagination the table top actually resembles Australia.

Decoration with empty bottles

Mr. and Mrs. Tang also make use of empty tin cans to make handicraft items to decorate the house. Some examples are:

Curtain with LED...

Mrs. Tang love to travel/backpacking and always collect cans from places that she had visited. She would buy beer, let others to finish it and only want the can back.

Not to forget the pair of cute doggies in their house. I've seen these puppies before but don't know the name of the breed.

Satisfied, we left the house at around 1pm, had our lunch at Kuantan and drove our way back to Bukit Tinngi Resort and Kuala Lumpur.