Trip to land of yellow fruit and tall mountain, Segamat, Mt Ophir

Two years have passed since I have written my last post. How time had flown. Work had been quite stressful lately and I had promised my team that I would bring them for a durian trip to share with them my annual trip to Segamat for good stuff. As usual, we would drop by Gunung Ledang for the little ones, to visit a real waterfall in malaysia. Waterfalls in Singapore are all fakes and quite far from the real thing. We had waited for this moment patiently since March 2012, and finally the time had arrived.

The turnout wasn't that bad at all and there were actually 3 cars that would be heading up for the trip. At first, logistic was pretty challenging as most were afraid to drive to JB, much less to Segamat. I wasn't too hopeful and if people were not interested, I would have done it with couple of people in 1 car anyway. But turned out that the gathering was quite decent.

Rest stop at Gelang Patah R&R

We all arrived punctually at Satinah's place around 8.30am. However, once we were passed the checkpoint, Aisah said to stop at the reststop at Gelang Patah as some had to visit the loo. Hmm, we were just out of Singapore and already people cannot hold it in! We stopped there and decided then to have some light food and drink. But unfortunately, a few tour buses arrived and the place got crowded pretty fast and it was warm and not very pleasant. Then it was to head for the proper R&R at Machap. On our drive there, the expressway suddenly became one laned due to road works, and I was trying to filter into a lane with a long convoy of Lamborghinis. For a while, I could pretend to be driving a Lamborghini. :)

At the "Ya-Kun" style coffee shop at Machap

Upon our arrival at Machap, Satinah's car was no where in sight. Aisah said that they were up at Yong Peng R&R and were waiting for us there as they not eating. We rested a bit and had a good breakfast at the coffee shop. By that time, we were already running late. Upon reaching Yong Peng R&R, we couldn't see any of the other cars. I had forgotten that my phone had turned off the automatic setting for my carrier and I did not have any Telco service. Unknowingly, Aisah had been calling me frantically. But luckily, she managed to get to Edmund phone and we were to learn that they were actually at the Yong Peng Toll itself and waiting for us. As we had already drove past the turning, it was impossible for us to "U-turn" back. For lack of a better plan, we then decided to meet together at Segamat Town itself. I had been reading about Segamat the night before I remembered that there was a famous coffee place "Nanyang Cafe" and I said to meet there. My GPS has the POI (Point of interest) and I should have no problem to route to it.

Segamat Town

Best in Segamat, and some say Batam

More Authentic than YaKun

Satinah lost no time to go for coffee break

But the detour was quite a long one, and our plan to have durians by 11-12pm was over-run. After a long drive and some busy city jam, we finally picked up the lost chickens in front of the Nanyang Cafe around 1.30pm. Since we were already here, Edmund packed some of the famous coffee for us to try it out. But Darren had to order "teh-O". Hmm. From there on, anyone running the trip on their own will be shot and deep fried. The cars now dutifully follow my route to Kampung Teratai, which was about 45 minutes away. We finally arrived at Mr Gan's place. At first, I have thought that we would be eating the durians at the temple hall, but I drove past a tentage of people feasting on durians at the farm itself. So, this year, the location was changed again. But this time round, the flies were not so abundant and it wasn't much of a problem.

Old Mac Gan, had a farm

His is a popular one

Training Shed style


It's raining durians!

Durian makes people happy

What we came 200km for

Don't wait liao. Quickly Tapao.

Edmund ordered by the car load.

Sayang...sayang...

Novia frantically counting money to buy more durians

So happy. I finally got my Hello Kitty

There already was another group and with our numbers, it was quite a fish market crowd. The sky seemed a little dark and some light drizzle came about. But it went away quickly and the weather was dry again. We quickly dug in and the helpers brought out one after another type of durians for us to try. After a while, I couldn't keep up with all the numberings and just eat to my full. One by one, we dropped out from the feasting, and then the challenge of the best durian eater was between Aisah and Edmund. Aisah turned out to be the winner and was duly crowned the Queen of Segamat. We also discovered that Darren is a connoisseur of durians as his uncles used to own a durian farm. Indeed he was very knowledgeable on what is a good durian and how to choose one. If there were to be a Durian Idol, he would be a definite judge.

Meanwhile, the 2 persons, Jason and ZhenLong that came despite not wanting to eat, were already queuing to pack durians back to Singapore for their parents and friends. I think all in all, Some thousand of RM were exchanged for fruits with thorny husk, especially of the hello-kitty type. Edmund with his CSD good bargaining skills, managed to talk some freebies from Mr Gan. After meeting our primary objective, it was then to play water at the foot of Gunung Ledang. The place itself was quite near, and we were there in about 20 minutes.

For non-swimmers, better get a rubber duckie

Orr_ye_Orrr...Tarzan no wear pants...

Scene from Pontianak III

Ooh...the water is so deep

Jason with his hairy legs, test out water

Uncle, this is my replica of NPPK

OMG, here comes the naked men in "red" underwear!

Alamak..dropped my contacts

They just came out from some bushes

Aisah and gang shooting shampoo advertisement

After parking, we walked in, and managed to find a good spot for the children to play with water. Some of the bigger ones, also came prepared to take in a dip into the icy cool water. Indeed, the water was very refreshing, after a pretty hot day. It was clear that the folks enjoyed themselves. Some even bared their bodies sportingly. Edmund, Winston and I, tried to get a good photo shot at the waterfall. But after climbing a good distance, it seems that the real foot of the waterfall is quite out of reach. But it was a good climb and I actually remembered some of the steps that I had taken previously some 20 years ago.

At Bukit Indah Jusco

Aren't you hungry?

Alamak, come here got reminded of SIP/TLS

We decided to wrap up and start to head for Jusco. Actually we were running late. I had wanted to avoid driving in the dark, but already, we were passed the proper time. Sure enough, the drive back was quite tiring, especially in the dark. It was a 180 km non-stop drive all the way marathon. We arrived at Jusco around 9pm. We quickly settled down for dinner. The guys said to try out A&W as we don't get this at Singapore now. While Satinah and her family went ahead with their shopping, we sat down to have a good A&W rootbear and coney dogs. Then, it was a quick shopping before all the shops closed. Still, when we met up again at the supermarket meeting point, most of us were already carrying bags of goodies for the folks at home. We Singaporeans are really good and fast shoppers.

From there, we parted our separate ways, and after a final petrol fillup, we were headed back to Singapore, home sweet home. All in all, a good trip, despite some detours. Now I know what good coffee awaits me at Segamat.