Ubin’s hell guards (黑白无常). Their job is to catch ghosts and send them back to hell. Link warning. Scary pictures.

We hoped to make a spirit themed walk to Bukit Puaka area, a place considered by Ubin islanders as being haunted. Residents tell stories of being lost even in broad daylight in places they were familiar since childhood.

Despite being skeptics, we are hoping to be caught up in the same paranormal phenomenon. But this time with high tech tools to help us. My GPS is logging the location of every step we made. Its recording will show if we have been walking in circles or taken to Mars by alien probes.

We are also armed with the latest flashlights. This time with RA clicky high CRI LED lights fitted with longer lasting 17670 batteries. The lights also enable us to take better colored photographs. I also brought a Thrunite 300 lumen P60 style XP-G R5 3 mode drop-in. This drop in allows me to use Surefire 6P heads with forward clicky, fitted on Solarforce 18650 tube. They would be our high tech amulets against ghosts.

The walk was leisurely while taking nature photographs along the way.

Located 100 meters away from Malay Kampong, this bamboo clump was inhabited with interesting creatures including including a scorpion, slugs and insects that crowd and move together.

Spooky stories about banana trees have been passed from kids to another for generations. When I was little, I was told that the the banana flower is where the banana ghost hides during the day. If you tie it with string the ghost will grant you any wishes to free herself.

The village provision shop was still open late into the night. We soon found ourselves engaging in swapping ghosts stories. The one told about Noordin famous white ghost with a baby on her arms is most frightening. Another is sightings of a blue colored giant mountain spirit walking the hills of Bukit Puaka. And that was way before the movie Avatar came out.

Time passed, we decided to postpone our ghost trail after allowing ourselves to be spooked, discretion being the better part of valor.

We went to Ubin jetty. Fish were biting and this angler landed a snapper.

On the way back we heard mewling high up the trees. It turns out to be a rarely seen spotted wood-owl. It’s a juvenile bird calling for its parent. Adult wood owls emits a loud and eerie frightening sound which is commonly heard at Malay kampong area.

Pictures above are all taken illuminated with RA high CRI clicky flashlights by photographer Andy Ho using a high iso Nikon D3s camera.

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With very little rainfall there are less mosquitoes to bother us. But tension can be felt as Ubin villagers anxiously wait for rains while watching their wells dry up. Trees shed leaves on the parched earth with added dangers of bush fires, one which broke out 10 days ago, burning an area about 5 basketball courts size at Ketam cycling trail. Durians trees are vulnerable if the drought continue, their flowers fails to bloom and, as happen before in 1997 and 1981, some of these majestic trees may even die as their roots dry up.

The above concerns aside, our night at Ubin is filled with memories of the sixties as we watch the filming of Fighting Spiders 2, a local TV production. Ubin malay kampong is the only kampong left in Singapore left almost untouched by developments.

The scientific name for our local fighting spiders variety is Thiania bhamoensis. Ubin field report by adult fighting spiders enthusiasts here.

Water pollution contributed to its demise. See further story below.

From GoogleEarth, one can see its scale by its tell tale remnants.

With GoogleEarth, we manage to plot our course by connecting dots of white roofs peeking through dense trees canopy seen under satellite. The course or path is then downloaded into our handheld GPS.

It led us first to a swing.

Then a lovely kampong house

Finally a sweeping view from the remaining sluice gate, also a prime spot for bird watching.

Natural swamps are an important spawning grounds for fishes and with young fishes finding easy refuge. The sluice gates continues today as barriers. At low tide, the remaining fish are easily caught by fishermen casting fine nets.

The demise of prawn farms contd..
Other operators went in the big way into growing prawn hatchlings and using artificial feed. Their high density farming required plenty of electricity and fuel to keep the water aerated and filtered. But no man can mimic the power of God to turn deserts into fertile farmlands. The prawns could not survive to adulthood. Even fish farming did not work when holes appear on heads of the fish. Some even turn to sai kongs or taoist priests to purify their leased land.

The Government’s decision to raise price of diesel was the final nail in the coffin. In the end lease were eventually given up back to the Government and building structures demolished. There was a Japanese entrepreneur in the late eighties who failed after spending $5 million and committed suicide when he returned back to Okinawa. Many Ubinites feel Pulau Ubin is cursed but even now it have not deterred people from seeking El-Dorado or being conned into it. If you are approached with a money making idea for Ubin, remember that the real God of Pulau Ubin is not Earth God or tu-di-kong but SLA who controls the fate of Pulau Ubin and who makes sure you cannot move an inch of earth or transfer any lease or build an English manor without their expressed permission.

The last English bungalow in Ubin

Prawn Fishing at Ubin
The last lease holder at Marman river used the traditional method of harvesting prawns. A trawling net is placed where rushing water from outgoing tide flow through a narrow gate. The catch isn’t much, just one or 2 styrofoam box, enough for beers and food for a 3 men operation. The work is dangerous too as falling into the net means certain death from drowning. The method of farming is destructive as any unwanted fish or horseshoe crabs are either dead or trashed. We used to visit them at night curious to see what they have caught. But that was a few years ago when it was abandoned as catches became meagre.

You need to battle legions of mosquitoes to go prawn fishing there and if lucky get yourself a jumbo prawn after surviving the sticky heat and insect bites.

Its also a spooky place too. People have seen Na Tuks and one have seen an extra person among them. There was once a sai-kong who claimed to have cleared the area of wondering souls so they would not bother the living anymore.

Beside the peaceful sunset view, one would find a family of hornbills flying about at the majestic durian tree nearby.

This is a beautiful kampung house nestled in the forest and deeply vulnerable to demolition crews. I always take a picture of it everytime I went by worried it might be the last time. I would tell my ten year nephew the house belongs to Shrek.

Its neighboring houses (below) has already torn down. I wish our Government bureaucrats comes up with more creative ideas like turning them into rain shelters. It will be lovely for tourists to sit in there waiting out the pouring rain.