The Pulau Ketam Village

[jhameia]

The town in itself looks like a small, packed little neighbourhood. The difference between this place and a regular suburb like mine is that the roads are very narrow, so, no cars:


A sign which I found interesting:


It has its own amenities. From left, the post office, a hair salon, and a polyclinic:


Of course, as you walk along, you can't help but notice the sides of houses and things like that:


Here's a road with a lot of restaurants. Pulau Ketam's main industry is tourism, with restaurants. They also export seafood (duh):


The roads are concrete, but I can't help but notice the sides, you know?


Another restaurant road:


This stall was called KEDAI LA LA KUIH (cockle snack shop). (Kuih can refer to cakes, too, but mostly snack food.) La la kuih is apparently la la breaded and deep-fried, eaten as snacks. However, this is only sold in the evening; during the daytime, they sold nasi lemak (coconut milk rice with sambal sauce, anchovies, peanuts, sometimes a hard-boiled egg):


This man was making coconut meat shavings. I think. He could also be squeezing the coconuts for the milk:


This is how some of our snacks sell at local kedai runcits / sundry shops:


This old woman, wielding a mini-machete, is shaving a stick of sugarcane:

(ps, sugarcane features greatly in my novel Sugar Melts and is grown all over as a source of sugar. The cane itself can be sucked and chewed on raw for juice.)

Random side street:


We got to a courtyard, and upon entering, this was to my left:


It's a shrine to Kuan Yin (Guun Nyam), the Goddess of Mercy. Over her head in LED lights was a sauvastika.

This was to my right, a temple:

I didn't recognize who the idol is, though. I still paid my respects, and then took pictures of the dragons on the pillars.



Got another shot with a dragon face-on:


Took a few steps back to show how epic our decorations get:


One of the side streets leads to the backs of the houses. This is their backyard, lol:



On a back verandah, we saw someone drying salted fish:


We also saw a man painting his boat:


The sides of houses are usually, well, devoid of anything. Residents also are not very careful of their surroundings and throw a lot of garbage into the sea. Next to this house, my dad's friend remarked, "they must be champion cockle-eaters."

Yes, all those are cockle-shells. My dad replied, "could be two generations of cockle-eaters, actually. The shells just pile up."

Animal life live under the boardwalks too. I saw stray dogs, and couldn't move fast enough to get a picture of them, so I got a rat instead:


We passed by a school. The local population is mostly Chinese, with its own Hainanese Association and Chua Association (Hainanese is a dialect, from Hainan Island; my family is Hainanese. Chua is a surname), so the school is also a Chinese school. We stopped in a courtyard next to the school to take pictures of the kids.



The little boys couldn't get enough of my dad, but they got really rude and disruptive. Part of New Year merch are these packets with sodium bicarbonate and citric acid, which they squeeze, and in a few seconds, the packets pop. These kids kept throwing these things at my dad, putting it between his feet and all, even though he was so friendly and took several pics of them. They also put garbage in the pouches of his backpack!

The girls, in contrast, were very sweet, but also camera-shy. I took an interest in this little girl, because she kinda reminded me of me, wanting to hang out with the boys and all but being ignored:

She had been looking at me and smiling, but when she saw my camera she got camera-shy.

A group of girls came by on their way to school:


I'd never seen so many little girls on bicycles before. Even in my neighbourhood, when I grew up, there had an even number of boys and girls, and yet I don't remember the girls out in full force like these, much less cycling one-handed on their way to school with umbrellas in their other hand.

Here is a bicycle modded to accommodate three people, a rider, a pillon passenger behind, and a baby in front:


More little girls:


Most of the houses have front doors right at the edge of the road. This one has a boardwalk going across quite a ways before getting to a building. It made me wonder, how do these people get their mail?


This is a house under construction. Like most houses, it's built with concrete, although we also saw a lot of houses made of wood and tin:


I finally caught a shot of a dog:


Due to bad experiences, the stray dogs are extremely shy. A while back, a whole pack of dogs on Pulau Ketam were rounded up and abandoned on a nearby island. The SPCA got pretty fucking pissed. There's a boycott going on of Pulau Ketam products, which I don't believe in - it's not the residents' fault the local council decided the most expedient way of dealing with strays is to abandon them inhumanely. These folks are just trying to live.




After this, we went back to the jetty to catch the next ferry. I took a picture of one of the first stalls you see coming in, selling all sorts of seafood crackers and products:


They also had a pinwheel which I'd seen at Toys 'R' Us a while back and was deeply amused by. I mean, Pride Pinwheel for the win:


This is my dad getting onto the boat. No FOB, he:



Hope you like the picspam =)

Comments

[mistressnaoko.livejournal.com]

It wasn't the local council who came up with the ori idea from what I know. It was the residents themselves. But there were other people on the island who gave their dogs away to the Furry Friends when they came to P.Ketam. One woman, apparently had to do so because her daughter-in-law didn't like the dog. :(

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the clarification. I just think it's sad all around. I still don't see it as a reason for the boycott, though.

[mistressnaoko.livejournal.com]

Personally I think spaying would be the best.

Now if only we could do it to humans. :P *readies to be bashed*

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I think that would be a limitation on people's reproductive rights, should they be forcibly spayed. But man, it would be nice if women who wanted to get sterilized didn't face the whole "you'll change your mind when you get older."

[mistressnaoko.livejournal.com]

It would be better if it could be reversible, in my opinion, but that wouldn't be very possible, would it?

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

Most sterilization options are reversible. Difficult, but reversible. A woman who's had her tubes tied and cut can still get preggers, from what I understand.

[mistressnaoko.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I see. But the procedures aren't easily available, are they? :S

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

Alas, no. A vasectomy is easy; reversal is a bit more delicate. But then, vasectomies are ridiculously easier to get than tubal ligations =(