Pengerang Lobsters and Ostriches

Just the week before, we were all gearing up to make a day trip to Pengerang. But A had forgotten L's passport and we had to cancel the trip. This week, D had her piano lesson cancelled with her student and it was timely opportunity to make the trip again. Also, Sunday was father’s day, and what better way to celebrate.

Quite empty custom at Changi Ferry Terminal. Only a group of 7 waiting.

Boat fare to Pengerang.

Finally cleared custom. We are on the way!

It was a fairly easy trip to arrange. Just bus to Changi Village, hop on the ferry heading there with your passport. But the ferry timing was a tricky business. The ferry would only go if you have 12 passengers. When we arrived, there were 6 of us. (R was counted despite only being 2 years old). Free baby travel was for 1 year and below. There was another group of 7, so we missed adding to 12 squarely, being 13 in number. We had to wait for another group while the first group went ahead. However, it wasn’t too long a wait. My guess was around 15 minutes.

Tracks from my Strava.  As can be seen, Pengerang is pretty near. 

All excited!

Excitedly, we all headed towards the boats. D started taking pictures, even though we were all still in Changi Village, with all the usual landmarks that we had seen a hundred times. Ferry trip was estimated to be half an hour. Pretty fast as were were on speedboat. The cost for that was $14 per pax. Usual was $13 but we had to top up for another missing pax as our total count was only 11. In total, the one way trip was $84 for me.

Reaching the Pengerang Ferry Terminal

We are here!

Taxi driver told me that they are catching yellow tail fishes.

Hey, nobody at the custom? This is a first.

Dark and creepy, like from a horror movie.

We arrived around 12pm, and to our surprise, not a soul was in sight at the custom. We could easily have wandered into malaysia “illegally”. I went around to look for anyone official and finally found a guy wearing uniform. He went to get the checkpoint staff to attend to us.

First thing after that to do was to get a taxi. The terminal was far from any village and pretty much just an isolated building. There was a group of taxi drivers waiting for passengers, probably waiting to fleece us. After some enquiries, we were informed that the trip to the Ostrich farm was RM40, and gosh, we need 2 cabs as there were 6 of us. I said ok, as there was nothing much to do, being at their mercy. But later, the driver came back and said, oh he made a mistake, it was RM45 instead. The trip was just a mere 26km away, but we had no choice. We were later to find out that it was quite a high price. (should be only around 35RM-40RM).

Queueing for tickets. Quite a sizeable group ahead.

Can't miss the sign.

Got our tickets.

Uncle teaching us all we wanted to know about Ostriches.

Wah, this egg-egg is huge!

This Ostrich quite friendly.

Uncle showing that Ostrich eggs are one tough nut.  Need a drill to punch open.

Finally got the delicious yummy egg yolk out. 

We got our order of Ostrich Omelette.

This is really to be made into a Gucci. 

Arriving at the Ostrich farm, it was starting to be familiar to me again. I had been here like some 7-8 years ago by driving. Now, it looked a bit old and broken down. Nevertheless, there was a big crowd of Singaporeans tourist crowding round the ticketing. They were pretty annoying and were lathering themselves with the insect repellant, so much so that I worry if the Ostriches would get poisoned. These things contain DEET and were quite harmful to humans as well. They could spray until the can was dripping with the liquid.

Raiden having fun feeding the birds. RM2 per handful of veggies.

All the curious birds behind me. 

These looked like zombie chickens. 

Mummy, I "tat tat".

When I grow up, I want to be a garbage collector..

I love sweeping floors..

At one time, this was a popular attraction. 

Group pic at the exit.

Ostrich Omelette! Quite tasty.

All sort of food from Ostrich meat.

Ostrich Satay.

To our surprise, R wasn’t too frightened of the Ostriches and in fact, he had a good time. Must be an eye opener for him. He was chuckling away when we bought some vegetables to feed the Ostriches (2RM per handful), who would peck at it hungrily with their long slender necks. D and L (and our maid) all had a good time. I forced D and L to touch the smaller Ostriches to experience the feel of it. L was scared that they would peck off her hand but at some encouragement, managed to do some petting. To top it up, we ordered a plate of Ostrich Omelette (RM10) and some Ostrich satay (RM3 per stick) to try it out. D was squeamish about it and said that how could we eat it when we were just petting it. The egg was pretty tasty. The guide was saying that 1 egg was equal to 10 chicken eggs, and had the lowest cholesterol of them all.

Daddi...I scared they bite me...

Next stop was then to the lobster shop. I spoke to the Ostrich farm boss who kindly helped to arrange for a cab. Since it was nearby, (2km) he said we could all squeeze into the taxi. It only cost us RM20 to get there. I talked to the driver and he seemed an honest chap. I asked if he could pick us at 3.15pm to bring us back to the ferry terminal. He agreed and said it only cost 35RM, and yes, we need 2 cab as the trip was quite a drive away. I said ok, no problem.

I overheard the Ostrich Farm owner saying that the locals here prefer this shop. So I came here. (There are quite a number of shops selling lobster meal. )

Nice and clean. Not crowded, considering that today is a Saturday.

Mummy, what is a lobster? (He didn't like it)

Finally, the mun tohs are here. (L is starving)

A strange looking truck went by...

Yummy! Picher, Picher...

Each of us got half a lobster.

Found the tau sar piah place..

Total bill for lunch.

Reaching our lunch destination at Super Lobster, we were all quite hungry by then. I was a bit worried that I may not have enough to pay for such an expensive spread. A suddenly swiped out a bunch of RM400 and said that she would pay for father’s day treat. Well, we went ahead to order 3 lobsters, 1 veggie, 1 3-style egg, and 10 buns (mun tao). It was a nice meal. I hadn’t eaten much of lobsters before and it was a nice change. A friend was asking for me to get him the tau sar piah that is famous here. I asked the shop lady and she told me it was a 5 minutes walk away. I finished my food quickly and while the rest were still eating, I went in search of the tsp.

I finally found the shop around the corner, selling all sorts of pastry. I bough some chewing gum for the kids too. ON the way back, I saw that the taxi had arrived and I hurried the still-eating D and L to hurry up to finish their meal. Lobster meal came to RM320 and was reasonable. The driver said that he couldn’t find another cab, and we could all squeeze into his cab to the terminal. For his kindness, I paid him RM50 at the end of the drive for his trouble.

No boat! Not sure how long we have to wait.

Yay, can go back liao.

So fun to sit speedboat.

D dozing off, unglamorously.

TSP (Tau Sar Piah) from overseas.

Hmm....quite nice!

At the terminal, an uncle in uniform came over and collected our passports and disappeared somewhere. Apparently, this was a normal thing here. I think we had watched too many horrors stories of tourist who had their passport taken away and then killed later. We were a bit worried. But the uncle was quite nice actually. He came later to tell me that the last ferry had left and he had arranged for a ferry to come from Singapore to pick us and another group up to return. There would be some extra cost and I had to settle with the boatman. At first I was worried that I had to pay double. But it turned up ok, just had to top up for another missing pax. The return trip was $85 this round. Still within budget.

So we arrived back at Changi Village around 5.30pm. On the way through the custom, L was caught for possession of 2 bottles of chewing gums. I had bought 1 each for D and L, but L had another bottle from a friend in her bag. The custom police said that 1 bottle is fine, but more than that, they would confiscate. L had to sign some papers and had her chewing gums taken away.

All in all, an enjoyable trip and it had been a while that the family was having fun together. However, Pengerang had been undergoing a lot of economic changes and most likely, it would cease to be attractive to Singaporeans with so many constructions works going on, especially via the ferry way. I heard from the taxi driver that it was to be changed int a petrol processing area. First to go is the fishing for sure.