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 :)