Futile search for durians

Last month, we set for a durian expedition when our informer told us about the prolific durian trees dropping fruit in the Upper Thomson Road area.

He said: "The durian trees are on both sides of the road. People usually go there late at night to pick the durians which dropped by the roadside."

So we thought we might be lucky too.

When we arrived in the area, there were no cars or durian pickers. Or durian trees. Errrr....in the first place, do we know what a durian tree looks like?

Anyway, it was still bright daylight, so no harvesting activity. And I remembered my informer telling me: "Durians have eyes. They only drop when no one is seeing them."

Oh, really?

Then we decided to drive into an inner road, off the main road, entering the nature park of the reservoir.

We spotted several cars parked indiscriminately on the turf and we joined them, thinking they must be looking for durians nearby. We got out of the car and began our hunt, along the road.

At one spot we thought we smelled durians but found no sign of human activity.

But we noticed a van in green and the two frontseat passengers were beaming from ear to ear each time they passed by. A happy courting couple we thought.

About 10 minutes later, we gave up our search and returned to the car.

We were greeted by the summons paper. Oh !@#$R!, those fellas in the green van were park rangers. No wonder they looked so pleased.

The fine was $150. I guess the other car owners also had the same letter.

Not wanting to give up, we drove to Yishun Avenue 6 where there's supposed to have lots of durians in the nature park next to a certain block. It was another tip-off by my informer.

When we arrived at the block, we were caught in a thunderstorm. Yes, there was a park, more like a small forest opposite the block. There was a sign which read: State Land.

Oops, sorry, we're leaving. Actually it was the ferocious downpour which drove us away.

By then, we were famished with hallucinations of udang merah durian, mao san wang, etc.

Ok, back to Toa Payoh where we had started our journey.

We picked a sizeable udang merah (ang hay) at a durian stall in Lorong 8 and devoured the fruit within minutes at the food centre next to it. 

Durian stall outside Toa Payoh Lorong 8 food centre. Apparently they were giving away free durians of lesser grade when competition with another stall  got too hot, said a constituency insider.

The next course was the delicious BBQ chicken wings from a famous stall.

The dessert was, of course, another udang merah.

Said one durian seller from Malaysia: "I just don't understand how you Singaporeans can still eat durian after your dinner. In Malaysia, we don't do this."

We were too paiseh to tell him that we were hunting for durians earlier but came back empty handed.

A few days later, we tried to explain to the park authorities that we didn't park the car there for long and we weren't aware that it was illegal to park there.

The reply was: You're ruining the grass...blah..blah....blah.

Ok, quickly pay the fine and don't argue anymore.

Otherwise they might do a Singapore Chief Justice (former) and up the fine instead.

Then another informer wanted to give me the number of his pal who takes a boat to Pulau Ubin and hunts for durians in the forests there.

Interested? Not me.

What if there are wildboars? What if there are spirits?

His pal can have all the durians he wants there. Good luck to him.

 I'm heading for Chinatown for my durian fix.