Lake Work

You signed us up where?

In my defence, I did ask Mary before actually signing up for the People's Association (PA) Water Venture kayaking excursion at Jurong Lake, one installment of a four-part series of guided excursions at four reservoirs around Singapore.

Er, Jurong Lake, I confirmed.

The West looms large in many Singaporean imaginations as a metaphor of distance. The name Jurong Lake seems to add to this mythical status. I could have added for good measure that we were going there to look for Excalibur. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason why we who dwell in Ang Mo Kio should be found in deepest Jurong on a Sunday morning when deepest sleep seems a fairly decent alternative.

Below: a familiar view from all those NIE-bound journeys earlier. I think most will agree that the stretch between Chinese Garden and Lakeside MRT Stations is one of the more scenic stretches.

Mary has a one-word answer to every activity I suggest - proposal? by which she means a detailed breakdown of location, duration and terrain. Very encouragingly, each time my responses to her have progressively evoked less incredulity and revulsion (though it is entirely debatable whether the latter emotion has since been replaced with resignation). And before this descents into another gender stereotype imbroglio about me underestimating my wife, the reader will have to acknowledge that not everybody can be expected to love being under the sun. Out of love (and out of her own volition - no, love is not coercive), Mary has followed me through some very uncomfortable situations as I chased waterfalls and mountain vistas. Today was no lesser an expression of her love.

Our previous outing with Kayakasia led us to expect a similar degree of freedom on this excursion. Unfortunately, the Water Venture people meant every letter of the word guided. It was still enjoyable. The weather was brilliant - intermittently cloudy so we weren't completely baked. After the choppy prelude on the seaward passage towards Sungei Simpang last month, the calm waters of Jurong Lake seemed a world apart. Yet starting at a quarter to ten meant our flotilla of kayaks getting the gathering force of the steadily climbing morning sun.

As we were hustled from point to point, I thought the best arrangement for the both of us was for me to keep up with the pack, while Mary got us the photographs. I want to enjoy paddling too was Mary's steely insistence, when I thrust the camera forwards. I could have misread that, but I was very glad. My wife seemed to have gotten the hang of kayaking.

My memory of the Chinese and Japanese Gardens is hazy, having last visited as a child with my parents. I had plain forgotten about the waterways leading out of Jurong Lake and into the garden grounds. One would think these waterways were the result of creative canalisation. Well, in a way they were - but more accurately speaking, the gardens were actually built on islands raised in the middle of the Jurong River when it was dammed in the 1970s, part of an effort to alleviate the then dour industrial complexion of Jurong. Access to these waterways is controlled, to prevent the unwary from being swept out to sea when the tidal gates are opened.

Below: the various iconic landmarks within the Gardens, viewed from rather unfamiliar angles. Their Chinese names, typically, have a poetic slant only imperfectly rendered in English - Cloud Piercing Pagoda (second from top) and White Rainbow Bridge (bottom-most) are two such names.

The waterways have also ensured the Gardens' growing stature as a local birding hotspot. Indeed, we saw a fair few enthusiasts with all manners of characteristically unwieldy lenses and camera stands.

Above: a very distinctive branch - a purple heron surveys its surroundings.

Below: the commoner grey herons. How many can you count in the heron tree?

We completed the approximately 5-kilometre circuit in a little under three hours, which included time spent photosynthesizing at various rest points. We could have had a richer experience, had we been afforded the opportunity to explore the place at our own pace. It was better than nothing, I must say. There was enough fuel left in us after to perform a quick building inspection at JEM, and to undertake the arduous journey home.

Punggol: A Partial Glossary

I thought it was necessary to explain why this entry features two married men more than anybody else, hence the rambling background below. Earlier in the year, some of us came together to establish a couples group, to encourage each other along this heavenward road. One day we agreed to go on day trips to Malaysia. After two grueling day trips (the early starts, the long drives and the uphill walking), it began to seem like it was all the men's bad idea. So we decided to come together this time round, at Allan and Cindy's place in Punggol, for a less exacting exertion - steamboat and tiramisu. As the ladies busied themselves, Allan and I decided to go for a ride along the area's scenic waterways. We created a partial glossary out of our Punggol encounters. Forgive the pun.

1. Anglers

Anglers in our well-ordered city live in a world of contradictions. They disregard the concrete markers laid down to separate land claimed from land yet unclaimed. But at the same time they also swear by the planar certainty of water's edge, where their life's purpose hangs by a nylon thread. We saw a determined handful, occupying different ecological niches in a classic demonstration of evolutionary radiation - two beyond spiked railings standing at the edge of the concrete embankment facing Pulau Serangoon, three in relatively more commodious conditions chatting happily away on a shaded bench, their fishing rods secured to the adjacent rails and a lone angler standing shin-deep along a creek, casting and reeling and casting and reeling in clockwork stolidity.

2. Birds

The Punggol-Serangoon Reservoir Scheme and the Punggol Waterway Park are both valiant attempts to reconcile the conflicting prerogatives of conservation and development. The result? Superb bird-watching opportunities practically at one's door-step. Alas, we lacked that treasured quality of many accomplished birders - patience. Furthermore, we were on wheels, and movement is the very antithesis of the elusive stillness that patience must necessarily embrace. In our hurry, we still managed to bag a few uncommon avian sights - a long-tailed shrike, a coot and some terns. We don't have photographs of the latter two, for the glimpses of the coot were too fleeting and the terns never stopped flying.

Above: the Pacific swallow is one of the fastest flyers in our skies. I was very lucky to have discovered how this individual liked to return to this particular perch. All I had to do after that was to wait and keep my hands steady.

Below: "looks like some kind of shrike," was Jayson's guess when he saw this photograph. It was - a long-tailed shrike, to be precise. It looks like another pleasant songbird, but it is known to feed kebab-style after impaling its prey - bees, lizards, rodents - on small branches.

3. Construction

Yes, I am saddened by this unceasing war against the forest. No, I am not about to launch into another diatribe against development. (Or have I already?) But Nature has not been banished entirely in Punggol. This isn't a hunt. It is domestication. Nature has been pruned, trimmed and rehoused. In fact, one of Punggol's attractions is how appealingly this has been achieved, even as groves of high-rises, steel and cement daffodils and daisies in our eternal Singaporean summer, swallow a receding horizon. The waterway, which bisects Punggol, then becomes a green-gold filament stitching together the living canvas of both built and born.

Below (from top to bottom): another canalized waterway, another familiar skyline; the Serangoon Tidal Gates, which regulates the water level in yet another of our estuarine reservoir and prevents sea water coming in.

4. Denizens other, reptilian

Well, monitors and terrapins do not excite as much as coloured feathers. They don't exactly move as effortlessly and gracefully as birds seem to do either, each step forward a heaving, laboured lumber. But it is always a delight to spot wild scales that do not belong to geckos darting across faded paint. And monitors actually move rather gracefully through water.

Below: A familiar local versus foreigner face-off, in another guise? The terrapin is actually North American in origins, but have multiplied in local waters owing to their adaptability, and the speed with which they outgrow their tanks and owners' affection. In any case, the reptilian rumble for which we were holding our breaths never materialized.

5. Exercise enthusiasts

One of Mary's ex-colleagues once remarked that Punggol would be a good place to raise children because of its wide, open spaces. Neither heat nor haze at noon prevented both locals and expatriates - from seasoned cyclists to children in outsized helmets on garrishly-coloured bicycles, bronzed runners to reddened amateurs - from coming out and enjoying themselves.

Above: We didn't have time to cross the bridge to the Lorong Halus Wetlands and turned back towards lunch shortly after this photograph was taken. Allan looked happy, but he was in fact rather unhappy with the bicycle seat. Mary later suggested tying a pillow to the seat. This only succeeded in sparking a little, inconclusive debate on whether it would have been better to tie it to the buttocks rather than the seat.

6. Fellowship

Gatherings in Punggols look set to become a commoner prospect in the coming years, as the people of our generation move in to build their own families. But in this case, beyond the unseen hand of demographics, we have Allan and Cindy's boundless generosity to thank - coming out early in the morning to stock up for the afternoon feast, giving us a ride to Punggol (and back to Ang Mo Kio later on) and providing us with a home away from home. Because of them, we no longer speak of Punggol in the abstract - as an offhand metaphor for remoteness, tiny flat complaints, congested LRTs and once upon a time pig farms.

Above: satisfied faces after lunch. My food hasn't arrived yet.