The Southern-most Point in Asia

Our trip today took in the Southern-most point on the Asian mainland (ignoring the islands making up Indonesia). The trip provided a mass of sights, sounds and smells recorded in the many photos below. To start with, this location is just off the equator and is home to masses of exotic fruits. TKY has both bananas and sugar cane growing nearby, And down the road we saw three more: rambutans, papayas, and durien in the order. The last named are the butt of many jokes in this part of the world. The flesh is OK to eat, but their smell is terrible!

Then it was off to a resort for lunch - yet another local delicacy I won't go into. The resort jutted out into the Straits of Malacca, which were unbelievably calm for those of us used to raging surf.

Our party, apart from me, consisted of TKY's wife and daughter walking on ahead here.

As we ate, we could see the cranes of the port of Johor Bahru, which is trying to rival Singapore in the shipping stakes.

Anchored off-shore were about 50 large vessels awaiting their turn to load cargo.

And I tried to chat up these fellows, but they wouldn't monkey around with me.

This is self-explanatory - the entrance to a lovely national park.

Here's the stroll through the mangrove swamps, inundated by the high tide twice a day and home to masses of crabs and other wildlife.

And here's a quote from Julius Caesar. Note the masses of ships parked off-shore.

The island in the background is neither Singapore nor Malaysian territory, but rather it belongs to Indonesia. It's a good job all three countries get along well.

Our final destination!

However, these pictures are only part of the story. We saw some amazing sights en route. A woman dressed in full Islamic gear was seen riding her motor scooter. On the back seat was her son (possibly Max's age) and her son held a baby (maybe a few months old ) in his hands. Then we had to steer through a phalanx of crazy motorists and motor-cyclists who seemed hell-bent on committing suicide, not to mention unsteady pedestrians! Speed limits seem optional and a favourite trick of drivers is to turn left without any signals from a right-hand lane. Cars regularly over-take other drivers on the inside, and motor-bikes daringly snake between columns of cars. So driving is a lottery and, Dot please note, by Malaysian standards I'm a very conservative and cautious driver!

AS