Taman Tasik Cyberjaya

Some tropical goodness I saw in Taman Tasik Cyberjaya.
The jackfruit, largest tree borne fruit in the world.

Cotton, vegetable lambs... this must be a good full flock of them.

Lilies in a lake.

These are the songs in a land of eternal summer.

SK: Rising sun. Dogs.

Maybe there is much to be mourned when someone cease to derive pleasures from the simple things in life. When the ever-shifting colors and patterns in the sky elicit no more responds, when the back-lighted weed fluttering gently in the wind fails to warm your heart and when soft puppy tongues against your skin no longer brings delight, then perhaps you are well and truly dead while your heart still drums and your lungs shudder.

Once there was rain forest. Then plantations and orchards came. When the hands that tended the planted trees grew frail and old, nature reclaimed its ceded territories. Men in turn invaded with arms of steel and houses were built. In the midst of dust, concrete and steel, a migrant village sprang and prospered even as terraces and bungalows rose. In time, local men, perhaps whose forebear once owned lands on those verdant hills mobilized too. Steps were hewed once more with hoes and soles. wooden arches and simple huts were erected and before long, flowering plants grafted and pruned. Lanterns and altars joined the serene landscape soon after.

Now, crowds thronged the hills at dusk and dawn, seeking beauty, seeking gods.

If they truly are man's best friend, they can never be far behind where we go.

I do not believe men can be more industrious than ants, tirelessly burrowing an amphitheater in the sand.

But some are not too far off, working yesterday's grove for extra cash to feed the bulging tummy that will deflate in a few months time.

These are the testament of being alive.

May your life far exceeds your years.

Cameron Highlands - Sg Palas BOH Tea Plantation

The place where we ran into the largest group of tourists was the tea plantation. There are few pleasures that can trump sipping tea on a veranda overlooking undulating waves of tea plantations, in the cool morning breeze while the sun has not yet reach its peak.

A closer view of tea-leafs, harvested indiscriminately by machines but handpicked and filter by men.

They were like shepherds sheering rolls of docile green sheep.

The accommodations of the workers were nestled in a valley between the hills, uniformly colored teal houses elevated on white stilts, a beautifully decorated Indian public school, and an Indian temple, head and shoulders above other building there.

The setting was idyllic enough to tourists and passerby like me. But is that really so, for someone swimming in seas of pesticide every day and night?