Mom And I Braved The Rain To Scale Up Bukit Timah – Fungus, Lots Of Fungus

It was all bright and shiny at the base of the hill when mom asked if she should bring along her little brolly.  Sure, why not.  It’s raining season in Singapore.  Back in where my mom lives, it is her favorite pastime to trek into some of the mountains with my dad in Hong Kong.  But there is no mountain in Singapore!  When I told her that we were climbing up a hill yesterday, her eyes lit up in disbelief.  There are mountains in Singapore, she asked.  Of course not, I answered.  Just that in Chinese language, there is no difference in the informal word usage of hill and mountain.

Bukit Timah is in fact rather low.  If you visit this little bump on a rather flat disc of Singaporean land with a high expectation, you will get disappointed as it is no Mount Kinabalu.  Having said that, if you take the little trails that go round the hill instead of the straight main road that leads to the summit, there are sufficient up and down slopes that can last for hours and make the trekking interesting.  We did just that and felt that we have climbed up the hill a couple of times.

It was the first time I actually led the expedition.  I normally go with my buddy KF the branding consultant and follow his lead blindly.  Starting from the base of the hill, I told the World War II story of how the British and the Japanese armies fought over this little hill of Bukit Timah and I showed my mom where the military cave was (I was trying to replicate what I’ve heard from KF, he is such a great storyteller).  Just when I told her that at times I could hear the gunfire from the military training camp nearby, the sky got dark, air pressure was dropping, and there was a helicopter hovered above where we were.  So dramatic!  And if that was not dramatic enough, I spotted a piece of metal on the ground (see picture on right) and just when I was about to give it a few kicks, my mom screamed, “Stop!  It could be a landmine!”  There is no landmines in Singapore, I laughed!  And she told me about her recent holiday trips to Vietnam and Cambodia.  I shrugged, gave the piece of metal a few kicks, and there was no ka-boom.  Now you know where I got my dramatic genes from.

Raindrop falling from the sky soon after we passed the cave.  There was still a long way to go and I was determined not to cut short our expedition.  The sky roared with thunders and my mom opened her brolly.  Somehow the thought of umbrella and lightning was not very comforting.  Maybe that was why I did not bring my golf umbrella with me.  The golf umbrella could be useful, my mom said.  And she told me that in Hong Kong, people bring along a long stick during trekking to wand off wandering snakes.  “Look ma, there are no landmines in Singapore, there are no snakes in Singapore too!” I retorted.  Right at the moment, inside the dark bushes nearby, I detected a movement.  I strained my eyes and it did not look like the usual squirrels that seem to be the only inhabitant of the hill.  It has a long slender body and I just could not make out if there were legs attached.  OK, let’s move on quick as the sky was falling!

I put my towel over my head and I was complete drenched.  Every cloud has a silver lining and for us, in this wet wet weather condition, we saw quite a number of fungus spawned from everywhere (see the pictures below).  Something that I haven’t got to see before.