Near Singapore’s Concrete, an Oasis of Nature - Pulau Ubin

Sanjay Surana New York Times 2 Jan 14;

After cycling a half-mile along a soggy clay track that sliced through a corridor of rubber trees, tailed by an electric-crimson-colored dragonfly, arches of bamboo creating a canopy, I emerged by a small, silty lake. A dilapidated jetty reached out into the water, a mint-green fishing boat loosely tied to it; a splintery, whitewashed wooden sign nailed to a sea grape tree announced “Cold Drinks.”

But there wasn’t a soul in sight, only a dozing dog that roused itself, momentarily, at my presence. Such are the simple, solitary pleasures of Pulau Ubin.

This four-square-mile island, formerly thrumming with granite quarries (Pulau Ubin is Malay for Granite Island), is only a 10-minute boat ride from its motherland, Singapore, but the gulf between the two couldn’t be more pronounced. While the Lion City, which marked its 48th year of independence last month, has grown rapidly in the last five decades — outward more than 20 percent (through land reclamation), upward (via the endless construction of office and condo towers), financially (it’s the world’s third-richest country in gross domestic product terms), and in crowdedness (it has the second-highest country population density after Monaco) — Pulau Ubin, which has no electricity or running water, is like a land that time forgot, stuck in the 1960s, when newly independent Singapore was a scattering of low-slung, stilt-housed villages. And for that, many Singaporeans are thankful.

According to folklore, hilly Ubin was formed when an elephant, a pig and a frog challenged one another to cross the waters to Johor, across the Straits of Johor. Whichever failed — and all three did — was turned to stone. The pig and elephant became Pulau Ubin, and the frog Pulau Sekudu (Frog Island), visible off Ubin’s southern coast. The stone, granite, was the island’s sole industry from the 1800s up to 1999, when the last quarry closed, and in its heyday thousands called Ubin home. Today fewer than 50 Singaporeans live here, and nature is very much in control, reason for the government to categorize Ubin as “open space and reserve land” in 2001.

Compared with the glass-clad skyscrapers, air-conditioned shopping malls and rush-hour-traffic-choked roadways of Singapore, Pulau Ubin is a grounding antidote to urban existence. This quality is its attraction, judging by the arrivals — about 2,000 each weekend, and a handful of French families, British backpackers and Singaporean youths looking to temporarily change scenery on weekdays — who come to experience a long-forgotten Singapore.

From Ubin’s jetty, reached by bare-bones wooden vessels called bumboats, and tiny main village, a few paved roads fan out to coastal campsites, dirt paths, lotus ponds or beautiful wetlands. The most striking constant is the lack of noise. Apart from the odd muted roar of a 777 landing in Singapore, sounds are limited to the crowing of red junglefowl, the chirps of the scaly-breasted munias, straw-headed bulbuls, Oriental magpies and collared kingfishers, or the wind rattling candlenut, jambu bol and nipah palm leaves.

But despite the unspoiled character of Pulau Ubin, there are ripples of concern among the holdout residents who doggedly champion the island’s anachronistic lifestyle. In January, the government published “The Population White Paper: A Sustainable Population for a Dynamic Singapore,” projecting that the city-state’s populace could hit 6.9 million by 2030 (it is currently 5.3 million), requiring 25 square miles of additional land in a country only three and a half times the size of Washington, D.C., possibly through developing “some of our reserve land.”

Two months later, the island’s householders received a letter from the government’s public housing body, ominously titled “Clearance Scheme: Clearance of Structures Previously Acquired for Development of Adventure Park on Pulau Ubin,” again raising the specter of development. In July the government quashed any rumors, stating, “There is currently no development plan for Pulau Ubin. Our intention is to keep Pulau Ubin in its rustic state for as long as possible, and as an outdoor playground for Singaporeans,” and that the earlier letter was notification of a census survey, not an eviction notice, and “could have been more carefully worded.

For now, Ubin residents believe that the island’s primitive ways are safe, and there are reasons for optimism that green spaces will continue to be valued. Last year Singapore unveiled its “50 Years of Greening” campaign (part of the nation’s vision that it be known as a City in a Garden), and in April Singapore announced its application to Unesco for World Heritage site status for the 154-year-old Botanic Garden. On the day of my visit to Ubin, National Parks Board employees were diligently tagging birds to study their habitats and migratory patterns. (Board statistics also flaunt the island’s biodiversity: 603 species of plant, 207 species of birds, 153 species of butterfly, 39 species of reptile.)

After the restlessness of Singapore, Pulau Ubin’s gentle wilderness is a relief. I biked to Chek Jawa Wetlands on Ubin’s southeast coast, a preserve that incorporates six types of ecosystem (including coral rubble, coastal forest and mangroves, all visible from a boardwalk); it is home to the piercingly vocal oriental pied hornbill, has a Tudor house for a visitors’ center, and a 70-foot viewing tower that once summited, clichés aside, will make a visitor feel like the king of the jungle. Cycling west, I spotted an elderly couple milling around outside their tin-roofed home. Ahmad Benkasim and Sapia Bentitayeb have been married 50 years (Benkasim has lived on the island for all of his 70 years), and their love of Ubin is evident. “Here we have everything, rubber, durian, jackfruit,” Mr. Benkasim said. “In Singapore you have what ... steel? There it is hot and noisy. Here, you have peace, and at night it is cool. We have three children in Singapore, but still like to be here. This is our house.”

Ubin’s parallel universe soon feels normal. On the main island, shade comes courtesy of man-made walkways or the shadows of skyscrapers; here, the abundance of trees ensures shade is ubiquitous. In Singapore, office workers are glued to smartphone screens; here, visitors quickly learn to look in all directions, with visual stimulation from a wild boar muscling through the forests to the side, or a Malayan water monitor slinking into the reeds by the roadside up ahead, or a troupe of long-tail macaques leaping from branch to branch overhead.

Ubin has Singapore’s only off-road mountain biking track, a circuit of gravel trails, rocky hills and flowering meadows. And Puaka Hill, the island’s highest point, provided a vista that I hope to never forget. Below, dark blue waters filled the abandoned Ubin Quarry, the surrounding forests giving it the appearance of a giant sapphire on a bed of emeralds. Singapore’s outline stretched across the horizon. That there was nobody with whom to share the view was reward in itself.

IF YOU GO

How to Get There

Bumboats to Pulau Ubin leave from Changi Point Ferry Terminal when 12 passengers are ready to board, cost 2.50 Singapore dollars (about $2 U.S.) each, or charter the whole boat for 30 dollars. To reach the terminal by public transport, take the MRT East-West subway line to Tanah Merah, then bus No. 2 to Changi Village Bus Terminal (the last stop), right by the ferry terminal. Or take the MRT to Simei and bus No. 9 to the “After Changi Golf Course” stop; from there the terminal is a five-minute walk.

Getting Around

The main village has many bike shops. For about 8 dollars (10 dollars on weekends), I rented a 21-speed Raleigh mountain bike from Comfort Bicycle Rental. Cyclists planning to attack Ketam Mountain Bike Park’s double-black-diamond trails can rent Cannondale and Trek bikes for20 dollars per day.

Dining

A few coffee shops, as they are known in the local vernacular (cafes with some standard dishes), dot the village but the only full-service restaurant is Seasons Live Seafood. It has large plastic tanks filled with crustaceans and fish, and prepares better-than-average renditions of chile crab, Hong Kong steamed fish and drunken prawns. The chilled fresh young coconut is a lifesaver after a day on the bike.

Staying

There are basic campsites on the island (campers have to register at the park kiosk by the Ubin jetty), and the average, overpriced Celelstial Ubin Beach Resort close to the jetty, but Pulau Ubin is perfect as a long day trip.

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