FIVE

Name: Mohd Nabil Naim

Occupational: High school student

Age: 16 years old

Information given:  according to him, everyday from 6:30am to 8am. The fisherman will collect snails from the fish net that they already set up the day before. The reason why they collect the snails at that particular time because that is the time when the tide is low. They also catch crabs at this time using net that specifically for crab, the local call it ‘bubu’. He also said that the fisherman usually go to catch fish at the middle of sea on 12pm or on 1pm because at this time the tide are high. When they catch fish, they sell it to the local there or tourists who visit the restaurant next to jetty. They catch fishes using gillnet (jaring insang). The gillnet are made by the local. Usually one boat that occupied by 2 fisherman will go to collect fish that trapped in the gillnet. 

Name: Azman

Occupational: Fisherman

Age: 41 years old

Information given: according to him, the island doesn't have many fish like before, the only that still big in amount is snails and crabs. That why they have fish livestock that located at the middle of sea. Type of fish that bred there is Siakap, Dina and Kerapu. As the food for the fish, he said that they just buy it from store. 

Name: Ishak Firman

Age: 47 years old

Occupational: School guard (former fisherman)

Information given: According to him, villagers of Pulau Aman originally consists of three races which is Chinese, Malay and Indian but the Chinese believe that one day Pulau Aman and Pulau Gedung will join that why the move to Pulau Gedung. From him, I know that:

• primary school there are built in 1987 and started took students on 1988
• usually when tourists from outside Malaysia for example the Japanese, they stay at homestay instead of chalets because they want to learn the culture
• if you want to identify which one is chalets just see whether the house have air conditioner tank hanging outside.
• activities that the tourist do when they come to Pulau Aman:

-explore the sea with fisherman

- hiking

Originally this aunty are on her way to throw rubbish then we helped her lifted the rubbish while interview her.

Name: Salmah

Occupational: housewife

Age: 65 years old

Information given: according to Mrs. Salmah, the locals no longer use Telaga Emas as their source of clean water as they now have supplies from the mainland but often children after finish playing in the beach, they will clean their self at there. I ask her comment on abandon chalets located near Telaga Emas and she said she doesn't know anything as the chalets is under koperasi, she also told us about how waste is handle in Pulau Aman. Mrs. Salmah said usually they just put their rubbish in front of the house and someone that hire to pick up the trash will come every once in a week. If you still remember, once I mention about a hard-working aunty that I found right.. well this is her! the pictures below is the living proof 

actually Mrs. Salmah have 2 deer but I managed to snap one of them only as the other run away because she scared of me, Mrs. Salmah said that the deer are afraid with people that they not familiar with. 

We walk back to school in hoping we could get some food, we only eat bread in bus at morning. Turn out there’s no one at school but there are few of my course mate at school library 

(khe sin, jingyee and shadaad). After they finish interview the librarian, we interview him again. He not local. We have to abrupt stop because he have to answer a call from tv3

Name: Muhammad Nur Yusof

Occupational: librarian

Umur: 25 years old

Information given:  We ask Mr. Yusof opinion on abandon chalets located near Telaga Emas, he said maybe because of factor of seawater. When the tide is high, the water will flow until the sidewalk thus the pole of the chalet will completely submerge. From him I know that:

• the school have 13 teachers which consists of 10 male and 3 female, mostly the teacher are in their 30 and they lived at Batu Kawan
• the school teachers consist of malay teacher only because other races are not willing to sacrifice, this is because they have to follow the tides in order to exit and enter the island.
• every year, there’s Pulau Aman fiesta which promote traditional games, this is to ensure the sustainability of the local culture. They just start this fiesta last year which also been promote by Media Urusan, Era fm, Mutiara fm and P Mai fm.
• locals get their vegetables from the mainland
• traditional food of Pulau Aman is Kway Teow Pulau Aman, the special thing is they made the noodles by their self

at the closing ceremony we having a Q&A session with Mrs. Zarina, below are information that I get from her

Perbezaan antara homestay dengan chalet?

Chalet duduk berasingan dengan tuan rumah manakala homestay tinggal bersama dengan pemilik rumah (makanan disediakan). Kebanyakannya pelancong luar negara akan menggunakan homestay. Tapi kebanyakan yang melawat Pulau Aman duduk chalet sahaja kerana kebanyakan pelancong yang datang merupakan orang tempatan juga.  Tujuan pelancong luar negara datang ke Pulau Aman adalah untuk makan sukun dan mee udang sahaja.

•  Pulau Aman dibawah kuasa 2 organisasi iaitu JKKP dan JKKN. JKKP (jawatankuasa kemajuan persekutuan ) JKKN (jawantankuasa kemajuan negeri)
• Jawatankuasa Kemajuan Negeri; pengerusinya: Encik Abdul Halim bin Ayob
• Jawatankuasa Kemajuan Persekutuan; Encik Sanusi bin Ismail
• Tiada wujud ketegangan antara dua jawatankuasa kerana setiap masalah akan dibincang bersama

Terdapat masih ada pembakaran secara terbuka di pinggir-pinggir pantai. Kenapa ini masih terjadi?

Mungkin Majlis Perbandaran Seberang Perai tidak bekerja hari tersebut dan penduduk kampung kebiasaannya membersihkan halaman rumah pada setiap sabtu dan ahad.

Di pulau aman, penduduk akan meletak plastik sampah di depan rumah mereka, ada orang yang akan datang mengambil sampah tersebut. Orang tersebut merupakan penduduk tempatan juga. Setiap 2 minggu atau seminggu mereka akan hantar sampah tersebut ke Bukit Tambun . Setiap hari tidak boleh disebabkan harga petrol dan diesel semakin mahal

Tanah di Pulau Aman tidak sesuai untuk tanaman. Apakah inisiatif yang dilakukan untuk menyuburkan tanah?

Tanah terhad. Tanah Pulau Aman bukan untuk tanaman, Pulau Gedung sesuai untuk tanaman. tanah Pulau Aman hanya sesuai untuk pokok buah sukun. Tapi pulau gedung juga mempunyai masalah daripada segi tanah. Hal ini kerana tanah tersebut kebanyakkannya merupakan tanah milik orang lain. Ini bermakna mereka tidak dapat menanam sesuka hati. Penduduk Pulau Aman membuat inisiatif dengan menanam hanya di sebelah rumah sahaja atau menggunakan polisterin. Jabatan Pertanian sudah ke pulau aman untuk membuat kajian terhadap tanah di Pulau Aman tapi tiada apa yang boleh dilakukan.

1. Bekalan air di Pulau Aman diperolehi daripada mainland. Dalam dasar laut, ada 2 jenis paip. Satu untuk bekalan elektrik dan satu lagi untuk bekalan air bersih.  Risikonya kalau paip tersebut pecah maka penduduk kampung Pulau Aman akan mendapat bekalan air masin. Langkah berjaga-jaga; wujudnya tangki air yang cukup untuk menampung penduduk selama 3 hari dan selama 2 hari jika terdapat banyak pelancong.
2. Dahulunya Telaga Emas tidak mempunyai kemudahan seperti hari ini tetapi disebabkan jika air pasang, air akan masuk ke dalam telaga tetapi keajaibannya adalah walaupun air masin sudah masuk ke dalam air telaga. Air telaga masih mempunyai rasa tawar. 

After Zohor prayer, we assembled for short briefing about beach cleaning. We are divided according our group and we have to explain what is degradable and non-degradable to kids. Lucky us we manage to gather 2 little girls to listen to us.

One uncle treat all of us drinks because he felt thankful for us, we clean the beach. I think he is the owner of restoren terapung. I didn’t manage to interview him because he was nowhere to be found.

We have our evening tea break. We have karipap and fried noodles and hot tea

We have  our closing ceremony with the management team

Before I end my travelogue, I want to give a round of applause to management team despite the constant changing date of visiting Pulau Aman, we still success go there and toast to Dr. Widad for being super cool and supportive lecturer escort. I didn't forget Dr. Hakimi :) , thank you for guiding us in what to see and what to do in Pulau Aman. To make sure I didn't left anyone, I want to thank anyone that help me in completing this travelogue. Till we meet again.. 

 

FOUR

In this blog post, I will share my opinion from these side of view. I know it sounds so boring but bear with me, KEEP CALM AND CONTINUE SCROLLING DOWN

Disclaimer: this blog post is entirely written by me based on how I saw situations there, information that I got as result of interviewed the locals and my suggestion in making Pulau Aman even better than today.

From what I saw, the island has basic amenities such as:

public toilet

What I saw?

The public toilet have no water on, this might bring trouble to the visitors that have the urge doing their ‘business’. When we asked Mrs. Zarina regarding this problem, she said that they close the main pipe because usually visitors like to waste the water and this affecting local people because they got small quantities of water only. Later at interview session, I will explain further on this matter.

Sidewalk along the beach 

What I felt?

Truth to be told, I didn’t enjoyed the walk. Maybe because the heat and lacked of chairs (the one that usually use for garden) that I could sit on to rest, but I think it would be a pleasant walk if I do the activity in the evening. I THINK LHA.. 

Accommodations such as homestays and chalets

What I saw?

Most of the chalets have air conditioner on, Mr. Ishak Firman said that if we want to identified which one are chalets, just look if the house have air conditioner tank hanging outside. On my way to Telaga Emas, I saw an abandon chalet. I ask the locals why the chalet is abandon, according to them:

Mrs. Salmah: “it’s under Koperasi, I don’t know what the story because no meeting, no meet up. Basically nothing”

Mr. Muhammad Nur Yusof: “I’m not sure about that because it’s under committee but in my opinion maybe because the chalet are made up of woods and it located so close to the beach. When the tide is high, the water will went up till flow to the sidewalk thus the the pole of chalet will submerged. We know cost of repairing the chalet are expensive”

abandon chalet

you could see the fences are gone

A mosque

primary school

klinik kesihatan

football field

It have football field (a bit small than the usual size, maybe about size of soccer field only), it also have library inside.

MR MUHAMMAD NUR YUSOF

He said all the books are provided by national library

grocery stores

restoren terapung

I had my lunch here, I ate mee udang special and it soo delicious (I’d lick the plate clean if there’s no one watching me.. okay I admit it sounds disgusting even to me)

cost me RM 10

restoren ikan bakar at the end of this jetty

I bought my souvenirs at this shop

belacan and the rose only

the rose one, I bought it at RM 3 (you could write whatever you like on them and it’s FREE)

that is homemade belacan, I bought it at RM 5 (in case you wondering why on earth I buy this, let me tell you. It’s for my mum..)

kindergarden

playground

They also have women development committee (Kumpulan Pengembangan Wanita) that responsible in junk foods production, by the word junk foods what I mean is tradisional junk food such as kuih cepit, kuih padi and etc.

inside the office

inside the office

The island also has office (kind of) that use for committee to have meetings or to welcome any visitors that would like to have direct conversation with committee there, we use that office for our closing ceremony with Mrs. Zarina  (secretary of JKKP) and Mr. Sanusi (head of JKKP).

inside the office

Here’s the organization chart for Pulau Aman:

The main income of this island is fishing, most of the locals are fisherman. They also make their own fish net..

fish nets

On the way to telaga emas, we (meiling and I ) bump into local tourist that mostly elders. They said to us to be careful because there’s monkey that might disturb us. We want to interview them but they look like in rush and we didn’t want to disturb them.  Upon arrived at telaga emas, we saw a fisherman that catching something at the side of the beach. Initially Meiling want to interview him but I prevent her because my father always say that when people are fishing do not disturb them or make noise because the fishes might scared and run away then the fisherman will get nothing. 

ketam ??

the locals call it bayam, from what I saw its look like snails

actually there's many boats but me being a total camera noob only managed to snap this :'(

west side

east side

west side shop

That picture is two different shops, if you stand facing the school. One located at the west side while the other one located at the east side, I didn't visit the east side shop because I think they may have the same things as west side shop, so I just took the picture of east side shop from outside. According to Mr. Muhammad Nur Yusof when Pulau Aman Festival is around the corner, ladies there will start making homemade noodles to use in Mee Udang. Usually if not in festival season they just buy the noodles from grocery store but at the festival they make everything including the noodles itself, I never eat them in my life but from what I heard its taste amazing. I quite look forward to taste it in the future…

If the men do the fishing, the ladies there do the crafts and foods and most of the snacks there is traditional.

of course this is not the only souvenir shop available in the island, so far i managed to find two of them. One you could find at the entrance of Pulau Aman jetty while the other one you could find at the west side (if you facing the school) 

 I'm not sure whether this is a renting service for safety jackets as there's no one around that I can ask but I just assume it as renting service

 well this for sure is a renting service for boats :) 

chalets

chalets

actually there's so many chalets available in this island but I didn't snap all of them because I started to wear down, blame the super hot weather! anyway, according to Mrs. Salmah and Mrs. Zarina, chalets in Pulau Aman own by the locals, units and committee. They provide two types of accommodation; one is chalets and the other one is homestays. Once again according to Mrs. Zarina, most of visitors choose to stay in chalets instead of homestays because mostly the visitor are Malaysian also. She said usually only tourist from outside country choose to stay in homestay as they want to learn the culture, I will explain more on the next blog post so you should keep reading me :)

restoren terapung

warung kak timah

the island have restoren ikan bakar which located at the end of west side (again if you facing the school) and warung kak timah which located at the east side (again and again if you facing the school),  at first juction that you encounter.

Surely every place that you go, be it city, island, country or anything. It must have attraction that pull your attention to visit them. Well for this island, attractions that you could see is:

Telaga Emas

even though this telaga emas no longer use for daily purpose, it still use for anyone who want to clean up their body after playing in the beach. 

Sukun Pulut

I never eat them but I heard it taste good, the locals say that maybe on fasting month the tree will start producing it fruits

Seafood

do you know that udang lipan here cost RM30 for each? is it expensive? I ask the locals how they set the price for seafood, here's the answer :

" depend on season, if they catch many, they will sell it at cheap price if not, it will be otherwise", said Ilah (yeah its me.. :) )

pokok buah sukun pulut

pokok terung

pokok buah sukun 

From what I saw there, the locals which mainly consists of elders is so hard-working. Even at golden age where they should be resting in the house and watching televisyen, they still have crops to water on and livestock to take care of. I met this one old lady, she is soo active.. she have chickens, birds, deer and plants which I can't named of . Really, I admire her so much!

The locals also use polystyrene and plastic bottles that they no longer use to plant their crops, you could see 3R concept is implement here. 

But the sad thing is as we cleaned the beach, I saw not one but many dead fishes. I don't know whether the fish die because of pollution or restaurant near the beach throw dead fishes to there.

I could only name one; the one at left side is sand dollar.. am I correct?

I found this at restoren terapung, when I saw this food waste instantly I think of compose. I could use this waste as nitrogen source in my compose material

as I exploring the island, I could see the potential of composing organic fertilizers there because:

1. they have many abandon tongs which I could use as medium to do my composing. This island have limited space so with the usage of tongs, I could save the space as tongs could be placed anywhere
2. they have restaurant that have many customers, this mean they got many food waste. I could use that as nitrogen source in my composing :)
3. they have problem in terms of fertility of soil, maybe I success in producing fertilizers I could hep them to improve the fertility of soil by giving the crops organic fertilizers. At least I could contribute something to this wonderful island

CONCLUSION

In my opinion, Pulau Aman have many potential that we could improve such as:

1. be a destination for people to relax. It is because this island are so quite and peaceful, suite for someone who want to take a break from the hustle and bustle of city
2. be a destination for seafood hunters. It is because they have fresh supplies of seafood which they catch just in the morning and you know seafood price in city are ridiculously expensive. People from the mainland come here mostly because of seafood that they offer
3. make a space special for composing as this island have everything that needed for composing
4. keep the rules where this island cannot have vehicles, at least we have one place that doesn't use vehicles at all. this mean less air pollution occur..
5. encourage the locals to keep using plastic bottle in change of using vase to plant flower trees or crops, enforce the 3R concept

I will shall stop now, until we meet in the next blog post. Adios :)