Various Faces of Pink Pigs

These pigs lay lazily with various expressions in the cages on a lorry, oblivious of their tragic fates. By evening, they will be slaughtered and by the next day, most of their parts will be stored and consumed by the humans.
But do not underestimate their feelings, when they sense that they are going to die, they cry. 
My grandfather told me when I was a teen, that he once killed a pig. The pig was moaning and crying loudly before the knife pierced through his heart, with tears coming out from both eyes. I was so disgusted for a while, and did not take pork for a few months.

Impatiens Balsamia, Natural Finger Nail Dye

If you do not want to spend money to polish your nails, just plant more of these plants, they will give you various beautiful and colourful dyes. It is simple to grow with their abundant seeds.

Hippeastrum (Red Lily)

This plant also flowers at my Sarikei old home but with slightly different colour compared to the flowers in Kuching, 350km away.
The colour is light orange to orange while at Kuching, the petals have reddish lines with white colour towards the funnel centre.
Commonly, this plant produces four large trumpet flowers in symmetry, but this group is not symmetrical probably due to the sun's direction.

Hipperstrum at Kuching

Promotion of Haze Tourism

Our country needs more income to finance next year budget following the sharp drop of petroleum income. We have to support many people who work little but get very high pay (Of course compared to those developed countries, the high pay is insignificant). Best of all, some received kantow money, having money going secretly into their accounts beside receiving high salaries. Our government now encourages all foreign tourists especially those from rich countries, to come to enjoy the beautiful scenes in this part of the world. I am sure most of the foreign people have not seen such beautiful haze scenes which had lasted for almost two months. It is expected to be around until next year as the Governments concerned do not know how to stop the forest burning except talking hazily in the air.
Welcome to all the tourists who are not worried about the lungs being flooded with harmful pollutants or life being shortened, to have a look. 
You may be able to see how the orang utans and monkeys behave in the haze!
Don't forget to bring in plenty of CASH, multi-coloured CASH !  

Leopard Lacewing Butterfly (Cethosia Cyane)

It has been quite a while to see many butterflies flying around my farm. Suddenly, these butterflies start to appear despite the haze. Towards the end of the year, they must have migrated from somewhere.
Wait a minute, there are some differences of this butterfly. Lacewing butterfly is very outstanding due to its bright deep yellow patch at its back, narrow white patches towards the edge of the wings and the multi-colour pattern beneath the wings. But, this butterfly seems to have smaller yellow patch and thicker white patch, black seems to dominate. It is no more as attractive.

What has caused these variations, environment, haze?

Orange Marigold Flowers

There are plenty of these beautiful flowers at Malacca and Penang but it is not often encountered in Kuching. I used to plant a lot, but they just died off after a while. These flowers were seen near the Kuching River Front.

White Moth

Now and then, I met this beautiful creature hanging around the grass on the ground. It refused to move away even I disturbed its body. Perhaps it knew that its life was coming to end. Fear and escape are no more its choices.
When we know we are going to die tomorrow, everything in this world today is no more matter.

Liana Plants

These criss-cross plants still dominate some part of my farm. They grew up from the ground and climbed up along the trees, anchored into the trees and grew above the top of the trees to compete for sunlight. It is not easy to cut and clear them completely in short time. It may take a few months for them to rot and crumble down to the forest floor automatically.

Multi-Colour Balsam Flowers

When different coloured balsam plants are planted together, they can provide a very attractive view.
How many colours are there in the bush?

Fruit Season Is Coming

Soon, the year 2015 will end, but the fruit season has begun. Despite unfavourable hazy and dry weather, small jack fruits appeared on the trees since last week. The new branches with few leaves and one fruit just popped out from tree trunk all the way from bottom to top! 
In two month time, I will have plenty of jack fruits to eat!

Haze and Tourism

Tourism business is badly hit in Sarawak. Hardly any tourist wants to take a ride in the haze. Cruises and boats all lay there wasting.

Kuching

Unlike at Venice, more than 50,000 tourists visit the island daily, despite a bit cloudy and cold.

Venice  

Haze

Sarawak is now facing the worst haze ever.  While I was in London, the haze even caused the Kuching Airport to close down. NASA reported that the extent of the haze surpassed  that occurred during 1997. It was reported that the haze was mainly due to the forest burning and prolonged drought in Kalimantan, sort of El Nino effect. Poor us, have to suffer continued breath-in of polluted air. 
During such time, all the neighbouring nations suffered increased sicknesses, slow down of tourism, business and outdoor activities. Logically they offered help to fight the fire. Well, pride stood in and this country refused to accept help. So neighbouring countries and its own people continue to suffer. Isn't there any international court to settle this dispute?

Kuching on 28-09-2015