Diarium av en Princessa: [iris fields]

I have to refrain from writing another post about how the DHs are so overprotected, but somehow that tale is related to this post. Let's just summarise by saying that K did not want to go for the trip because it wouldn't be safe for A. A pity... Between the last post and now, or I guess even longer than that, I realise I'm glad I married Mr F. Although he's protective, he's not overprotective. And he's always in for an adventure.

That aside, the day started off early with me waking up at 6.30 am. Although the "official" time to wake up was 7, when I'm excited (and worried) about cooking for a picnic or preparations in general, I have an automatic alarm that wakes me up in the morning, if I hadn't already had a restless night's sleep.

After waking up that early instead of cooking the night before to have fresher food, I found out that the gas had ran out. What are the odds?? I was initially relieved thinking phew, I don't have to cook afterall (let's just say I have cooking esteem issues). After prancing around the hall for awhile and feeling a tinge of disappointment, hubby said he'd try to check if the shop selling gas would be open. So off he went at 7am in search of a new gas tank. I was happy as I heard the sound of the tank on the stairs signaling my preparations wouldn't go to waste! Menu for the day: mee goreng! :) As part of my cooking esteem issues, halfway after reconstituting the noodles (don't have yellow mee here lah...have to use packed ones..), the noodles which I haven't tried before (supposedly pancit Canton aka Cantonese noodles in tagalog) seemed to be very little. So I told Mr F that we'll just leave it for ourselves. By some miracle (or perhaps I should've thought about it first, but it was 7 am so...) after adding the noodles to the ingredients, the volume plumped up so we were ready to set off.

We were the earliest car at the meeting point, not that we were going in our car. When our ride came, it seemed a little out of shape and I was like..hmm..I think it would be better to take our car. Mr F wasn't in the mood for desert driving so we stuck to our original plan. Off we set with Art and Mei. They were good company and we had plenty of good, intelligent, light hearted and stimulating conversation throughout the 1 hour drive to our destination. Well, Mei did most of the talking. She had lots of stories to tell about her myriad of experiences having lived and worked abroad. Art was interjecting here and there, and whenever he did, I had to strain to hear him. Now who says all angmohs speak loudly..heh. Oh and I should add, I loved his Scottish accent!

Just as we were 1 km before our destination, our car got stuck in sand. The spare wheel at the bottom of the car (seriously, why keep a spare wheel there of all places??) kept accumulating sand, and because of that the back tires also got buried in sand. Of all days, Siti n hubby didn't bring shovels in their usually well packed desert-friendly vehicle. The next best solution was to tow the vehicle out of the sand. The first attempt didn't work because the front wheel wasn't straight. After straightening the wheel almost by hand (and I mean turning the wheels by hand, not with the steering), it was attempt #2, along with man-power pushing from the rear end. This worked and thankfully we were out of the sand in no time, not before the tow hook of Art's car snapped. Ha. I wonder if we were jinxed because even on our trip last year, our car was the one that had engine troubles. :P Good thing we all had the mentality that these little misadventures added a little more spice to the trips, we would have interesting stories to tell. ;)

Then came the highlight of the day (well, my highlight anyway) - the picnic! Why? Because there was nasi lemak! Haha. Even while waiting for Siti n family who were the latest (due to some rice cooker issues), our motto was "We're not leaving until we have that nasi lemak". A bunch of S'poreans and M'sians desperate for local food, I bet we would have literally raided Siti's home had she not appeared. Even if it meant forsaking the trip. So there we were gobbling down the good food, including chicken curry Sara made. All in all, as I said, it was a yummy-licious highlight.

We spent the next 2 hours literally waiting for the irises to bloom. Siti's intelligence (no pun intended there) had said they would bloom at 12, but there was no sign of any blooming even at 12.30. We were joined by a Msian convoy shortly and about an hour later, a Japanese convoy. Talk about foreigners trying to find amusement in a desert country! It was cute seeing the Japs bowing to one another when they arrived. Their intelligence told them the flowers would bloom at 1 but even then, the flowers were still sleeping. Siti attempted to wake them up by pouring coke (=caffeine) on them but even that didn't work. So much for the rain the night before...

By 2 pm, there were vague signs of the flowers blooming. One here, one there. Very sporadic. No 21 gun effect that we see at our NDP. Our Msian neighbours told me that they had been there the week before and the entire fields were covered in purple. Maybe we went there a tad too late. It was hilarious looking at such a big crowd (~15 of us, ~10 in the Msian convoy and at least 30 in the Jap convoy) bending forward, scrutinising and waiting patiently for the next iris to bloom. One lady squatted in her spot for so long, we were watching her from our car (city people lah, had to run for shade eventually, after we gave up using our umbrellas) and saying maybe she's got positive thinking: If I stare long enough, the flower will bloom. We took several snaps and since it was getting too hot, we left at about 2.30. The Jap had a better route so we took that one back out so that Art's car wouldn't get stuck in sand again, and thankfully it didn't. In fact, we even stopped along the way to look at desert watermelons which I initially thought were tennis balls picnickers had left behind (kekeke).

So the iris fields were a little bit disappointing, but overall I had an enjoyable time. Maybe next year we'll go a week or two earlier to watch the whole field turn purple, and have more nasi lemak of course. Meanwhile, enjoy these photos!