Waterworld

The people of Pohnpei, an eastern Pacific member of the Federated States of Micronesia, tell this of how their island home was created. A powerful man gathered his companions and, in a canoe, sought for new lands where the sea met the sky. He was directed towards a tiny sliver of land, hardly large enough for habitation. They summoned rock and earth to build their new abode, but barely did the island grow than the sea gnawed away at it. Dismayed, they turned to Katengenior, Stabiliser of the Shore, who raised a reef around the island to keep out the ocean's clawing fingers. Still, the earth was loose. The men sought the succour of Katenanik, who fastened mangroves to the shoreline. The earth held, and thus was Pohnpei born.

Below: Waterworld, if ever there was one.

The enduring qualities of mangroves do not diminish over the countless blue leagues between Pohnpei and Singapore. But other waves approach more formidably than Neptune's. Men call these powers Progress and Development. In the shadow of their imminent landfall, we hurried to visit that northern stretch of mangroves known as Khatib Bongsu.

I first got to know about Khatib Bongsu while looking up park connectors on the NParks website. A couple of weeks ago, another fortuitous search online led me to the Kayak Asia page. We quickly booked ourselves on the Paddle Sungei Khatib Bongsu 1 trip, abbreviated (in age-old Singaporean fashion) to the more manageable SKB1. A kayak seemed the best means to explore a mangrove forest on the fringes of land used for military training.

Our stiffest challenge was hauling ourselves up for a six-thirty start on Sunday. The start point was Sembawang Park, just short of two kilometres west of the mangroves we were due to visit. We learnt that SKB1 was really the Sungei Simpang estuary, and that the actual Sungei Khatib Bongsu (SKB2 in logistical parlance) was further east. It was all the same, as distant plans for Simpang New Town or even for another estuarine dam threaten both areas.

Below: kayaks line up behind the start line in the sand, Sembawang Beach

The trip was not a guided tour as we thought it would be. Seven plastic cases containing information sheets were scattered throughout the mangroves, numbered accordingly on a map distributed to us before we set off. We paddled as a group to the river mouth, where we were dispatched in smaller groups upriver, each of us assigned to a particular number on the map to prevent overcrowding. It suited us perfectly, affording us the opportunity to explore the area at our leisure.

Below: room for leisure on the trip.

We spent close to two and a half hours in the mangroves, inching gingerly in and out of narrow mangrove channels, ducking low overhanging branches and keeping a lookout for (what turned out to be very shy) wildlife. The calm before us was beguiling. (Only wakeboarders were determined to break the silence, their roaring speedboats tearing up the tranquility and demonstrating the wave-breaking properties of mangrove trees.) It was hypnotic watching the ripples widen into silken oblivion as our kayak glided on the water. We could hear the gentle parting of the water. Sometimes they seem to whisper as breezes delight when they nestle in the leaves. At other times, they tinkle teasingly like distant elfin bells. Water, earth and sky were woven into a single elemental drapery, held together by intricate mangrove braids of root and branch.

Above, from top to bottom: a fig tree lets its hair down; two green worlds meet at the prow.

Below: can you find the spot of bother in what would otherwise pass for an imperturbably serene picture?

Below: make-believe mangrove Maori.

There could be no sharper contrast to popular perceptions of mangroves. In these accounts, mangroves are pestilential wastelands, known first as swamps before they are acknowledged, an obscure second, as forests. Civilisation, so it goes, has no place in this terra nullius with neither past nor future and which only await the transformative touch of an excavator. These same green shores once hid tigers and crocodiles, and today still attract interminable clouds of biting insects, as many Singaporean men who have spent time there during their reservist training can attest. As morning waned, and the harsh noon sun climbed, the Sungei Simpang estuary seems to turn into a featureless expanse of green and brown desolation.

However, the remains of docks and abandoned ponds we saw there told a different story. The people from the nearby Kampong Wak Hasan, cleared in 1998, once thrived on the bounty from this labyrinthine waterland - fishes, shrimps, shellfish, timber and fuel. And for even longer, the mangroves were home to nomadic sea-people known as Orang Seletar, who have today profited little from the claims made on their land by developers, and on their heritage by national identities.

Below: what used to be Kampong Wak Hasan, now reclaimed by the jungle, the sea and the Singapore Armed Forces.

Fetid or fecund, mangroves such as Sungei Simpang, or SKB1, are an integral part of our natural heritage. Unfortunately, they stand on the verge of erasure. Their beauty, forgotten, endures nevertheless. The grandeur of mountains is immediate, that of deserts and grasslands striking in their stark duochromes. These places awe from afar. But the beauty of mangroves is not in scale, and is yielded only to those who look closely.

Above: from top to bottom, what wildlife we could capture in photographs: a grey heron, a common sandpiper and a common sloth.

Glam Kampong Glam

Colonial-period literature laments the enervating effects of the tropics on those who linger there. These authors then go on to disparage those born in these sweltering latitudes, judging these natives to be too languid to be of any use. Much ink has since been spilled to dispel the myth of the lazy native, but the undeniably stultifying spell cast by a cloudless tropical afternoon spent outdoors can hardly be wished away.

It is the sole reason why ideally we wish to start our day trips early. But ideals make you feel good, and are seldom if ever made good - the key reason being the travails of waking up at half past six on an off-day. Missing the morning alarms usually means having to postpone and rework any plans, and substituting city for nature since the former typically promised more comfort.

That was how we ended up exploring the Kampong Glam vicinity, a late afternoon visit which was ultimately curtailed by humidity and hunger, summed up by another one of Mary's many utterances of destiny - I'm famished and if we don't find food soon I'll vanish.

In the three short hours we had there, we found more than enough pursuits to occupy an entire day. We share five.

1. Chase golden glimpses of Masjid Sultan

The history books taught that the Raffles Town Plan of 1822 laid out in the fledgling settlement of Singapore different areas for different social groups to live in. Thus was our subsequent development determined, early on, by imperial diktat, and the Kampong Glam area was set aside for the Muslims.

Below: a view of Kampong Glam which Crawford Lane residents can enjoy from the comfort of their homes.

The unmissable golden domes of Masjid Sultan (Sultan Mosque), the area's iconic landmark, form the backdrop to many a Kampong Glam vista. But the fingerprints of colonialism sit heavily on its facades. The mosque's initial construction in 1828, on Sultan Hussein's request, was sponsored by the British East Indian Company, the quasi-statal concern with which the Sultan struck that historic agreement heralding the birth of colonial Singapore. Even its present Indo-Saracenic guise, which it owed to a subsequent reconstruction in 1932, represented a British attempt to combine Mughal and Neo-classical architectural styles.

But Kampong Glam is also a window to another, non-European, West, through which one glimpses the history of the region before the Union Jack was raised on these shores. Before the trope of development was foisted on the non-Western world, and its narrative hijacked by Western voices. This was the West of the greater Indian Ocean world, which brought hither Islam, the Haj, Sufism, dhows-loads of farangs (scholars, merchants, mercenaries) and even biryani. It was a world where Hadhramis, Gujaratis, Malabaris, Minangs, Javanese and Bugis mingled freely. A world whose diversity was elided by the label Muslim, a term born of administrative convenience during colonial days.

Below: A slice of India in the Kampong, the elegant Masjid Malabar, known popularly as the Blue Mosque. Compared to Masjid Sultan, this is a relatively younger establishment, completed in 1963. The blue tiles were only added in 1995.

2. Visit the Jalan Kubor Cemetery

We often wondered what stories the tombstone-studded patches along Victoria Street hid. It was only at a recent symposium that I learnt the name of the place. Evidently I had paid no attention to the road sign - Jalan Kubor translates into Cemetery Road. Officially opened in 1848, the cemetery is the final resting place for many prominent Muslims, including the descendants of the said Sultan Hussein. The moss-covered gravestones witnessed their last burial in 1963, despite its official closure in 1875.

Development hangs like Damocles' sword over the cemetery grounds, which later we learnt sit outside the Kampong Glam Conservation Area. The fate of the former Bidadari cemetery, which we passed earlier and saw was boarded up and ready to make way for Singapore's latest New Town, augured ill for the Jalan Kubor plots. On the bus, we also read a Straits Times article which announced the closure of Tampines Bike Park, to make way for another new housing estate.

We wondered which was indeed gathering pace - urban renewal or simply generational nostalgia. For is not change the only constant?

3. Wall and peace: mural-hunting

What does urban restoration and revitalization involve? A fresh coat of paint, or several?

These murals have attracted both curiosity and controversy. Back in 2012, the Urban Redevelopment Authority stated that a small number of these murals "flouted conservation guidelines" and obscured "key architectural features". While it has clarified that murals are not prohibited, it added that permission will be granted on a "case-by-case basis".

What conclusions can we draw? Well, few things occur in this country without criticism. And then there are also those who believe that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Above: one of several artworks by the Lithuanian street artist Ernest Zacharevic, better known in these parts for his Penang murals which did so much to spruce up the aging facades in Georgetown.

4. Buy local at Haji Lane

Singapore's narrowest street, as its name suggests, once housed poor Muslim pilgrims. Today it continues to meet the needs of pilgrims, albeit a very different sort. These needs range from the standard to the spiritual - a watering hole, raiment to look like Granny or Pocahontas, the marking of a seasoned Maori warrior or even New Age nirvana. Haji Lane also houses a number of independent local boutiques, little shrines to local creativity.

Below: funky shop fronts on a funky street.

5. Work your Fictive Fingers

This took place the day after our half-day outing, near where we began our walk. Fictive Fingers at Crawford Lane, started by sisters Hani and Aisah, serves both art and cakes. A couple of weeks previously, Mary had signed us up for an Indian block printing class there. The textiles on which the British East Indian Company built their fortunes in the eighteenth century was produced using the same technique.

We were at once initiated into a forgotten world, where art gives life, and not just for a fancy few. Where art is not just lofty imagination, but earthy concentration, discipline and grit. Where art liberates, not because you are in a gallery soaked in silence, or because you have just let go of wads of cash, but because it is what you can call your own. Where art is not perfection, because it is human.

Above (from top to bottom): tracing and customizing our designs; carving it from the eraser block, once we had transferred the designs on to them. These were a lot easier to work with then the wood blocks used by more accomplished artisans; inking our blocks and printing them on fabric, which is easier than it looks. My joy at ensuring my lammergeier (it's really just a bird, actually) look passably decent was ruined by my inexperienced, and inconsistent, inking; posing proudly with our finished products.