the thorny affair

i'm under informal quarantine now. ok, the actual words from the doctor were for me to rest at home and recuperate, which i then translated as, to do intensive facebooking and catching up with my blog.

so let me backtrack a little bit.

i want to write about the durian farm visit a couple of weeks back.

you'd think what's so special about going to some far far away places just to eat some durians, right? well let me tell you something about durian.

durian eaters are like cult members. they could go all extreme. they could splurge their money on the expensive clones, they find ways to smuggle the pungent fruit where its forbidden and for our case, travel hundred of miles just to hunt for it.

one more thing.. it's usually worth it.

i found this particular forum in the internet discussing about good durian farm places. it's not hard, you just google 'malaysia good durian farm' and everything pops out in a list, waiting to get laid.

the most prominent one from the conversations is the one in segamat. now, that sleepy town of segamat in malaysia's southern state of johore is well known for its durians. which makes me wonder actually, because it's not like segamat has different climate than the rest of the country. still, if you sell durian and you claim they're from segamat, you could bring the price up the sky.

ok so i set up my GPS that early morning and left north. the trick is, to cross the singapore-malaysian border before 7am because that's when the traffic normally starts to get congested. picked up some friends in johore baharu and then we convoyed towards the malaysian north-south highway.

tangkak town, heard that its well known for its textile

we took the tangkak exit, about 200km north from the singapore border. after the toll, we turned right, and travel about 30km more passing through tangkak town, then some palm oil plantation and sugar cane farm until we see a signboard to kg teratai. we took the right junction right and travelled about 3km deep and voila, we were there!

the target destination, kg teratai durian farm

the place is actually a just small shelter that have lots of durians just brought over from the trees. we paid RM22 and we could eat all that we want the whole day! well, theoretically, because normally you'd stop after an hour or two because they are very filling, and you'd be burnt hot by then haha... durian will make your body hot after consuming.

there are lots of durian types. normal village durian is the common, cheaper ones with thin meat and big seeds inside. the cloned durians like the D-series, XO and the most famous Mountain Cat King, have fleshier meat and smaller seeds. That's why they are more expensive, sometimes can reach about RM20 per kg.

those that we feasted on. there are yellow, bright orange and whitish...

for our eyes they might just look the same, green and thorny but there are ways to identify them. for instance, the mountain cat durian has distinct orange star at the bottom.

mountain cat durian, the most expensive clone

we had fun there. although the mountain cat durian was not included in the eat-all-you-can durian buffet, they gave us one to sample, and that was good enough. i mean, the rest of them tasted divine too. as the durians just fall off the trees the night before, the fleshy meat inside has not turn mushy.

opening the durian, and me fooling around haha


i plan to go there again next year.



...ed