Durian mania

I love durians. I especially loves the feeling of finding and picking up durians that had just fallen from the durian trees...

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When I was a small kid, I always love to follow my dad to his jossticks' factory which is located in some very ulu kampong area in the mist of the cemetery area near to Thomson area. To get to the factory, we need to take a bus and walk in from the main road of PIE (near to Mount Pleasant). The walk normally takes about an hour and seriously, we got to pass many obstacles.

As kids, we would fear the sight of Chinese tombstones all around the places. Then there would be commandos mosqitos! Then there would also be stray dogs running all around. My dad taught us this trick if we should come face to face with a fierce dog ready to attack you. Firstly, of course, we should NOT try to outrun the dog. You run, the siao gao will 100% go after you. So, when you are face with the dog, just kneel down and pretend to pick up a rock (of course if there is a rock, pick up the rock) and pretend to throw it towards the dog. The siao gao thinking that you had thrown a rock at it, should back off. Well, we tried before and it seems to work. However, do not try this at home because it just apply to kampong dogs. Maybe the dogs there did not know about the theory of Pavlov's dogs of Classical Conditioning.

So, why do I love to go to such ulu places when I could enjoy my TV at home? There are many reasons. One of the reasons is that there are lots of fruit trees in this kampong area. There will be fruits like bananas, coconuts, starfruits, jackfruits, papaya, rambutans, mangos and of course my favourite durians trees!!

It is especially exciting comes durian season. Kids from other kampong houses will all come together. Mind you, we are not the best of friends. In fact, we are enemies!! We will fight for durians! Of course, we did not exactly fight, but fight to be the one to find a fallen durian. Once we heard the sound of a dropped durians, you can see all kids searching fanatically for the thorny fruit. The one who found the fruit would hold up the durian as if he is lifting a World Cup trophy, short of kissing it. I seldom managed to retrive any durians as I was too young then. I was like a 5-6 years old boy running around without my underwear! However, the fun of searching for a fallen durian always makes me wanting to follow my dad to his ulu factory.

Life then was really so carefree. We played with dogs, catch fishes in the river and played with big grasshoppers which dad would catch for us deep into the forest. My childhood seems to be so fun......

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Opps.. I have diverted so much. Well, back to today. Somehow, we found ourselves in a forested area with lots of durian trees! My childhood memories all come back at once! Since we are there, we walk around the area and discovered that the place had already been searched by durians pickers. There is not a single durian in sight. However, I was lucky to find one BIG one later. Was also lucky to retrieve another 2 small ones. Brought the fruits back for my parents and sis. Well, the fruit is heavenly. Freshy fresh with thin durian skin. Haha local kampong durians hand picked by me.. of course must be nice lah..

Few kampong durians can bring me back so much of my childhood memories...........