The year 2007 came like a tragedy to my whole village, we were visited by an unexpected visitors from the past in a liquid form, I was told by my mother it has been more than 40 years that this village was last hit hard by flood sure every year come rainy season there were flood but this time around it was so severe. It all started with the first wave at around Christmas day of 2006 and it lasted at about 2 weeks (25 Dec 2006- second week of Jan 2007) , then the second wave (third week to end of Jan 2007) came after almost a week of almost free of flood and it came back more fierce that the first. If the first affect only at about 50 percent of the village population, the second one which also lasted at about 2 week flooded almost all households. Contrary to flash flood, this flood creep slowly though it was not too high just at about waist high for the highest level it lasted for almost 2 weeks that almost all vegetation died away due to the foul quality of stagnant water with dead animals everywhere, decaying vegetation, sewer and stagnant large body of water that reminded me of the Kevin Costner's movie "Waterworld".


The industry of Bunga Kantan, a kind of flower used widely in Malaysian favourite food of "Asam Pedas" and "Laksa", the main source of income to almost all the villagers was hit the hardest. The plants were wiped out and new plants would take at least 2 years to mature, it was a disaster and though 4 months had passed by and though, replantation can be seen everywhere, the nightmare still continues to lingers on especially when rainy season came. The devastation effect of flood slowly fade away with new activities of house renovation, with walls were repainted to hide the wound that though cannot be seen anymore forever would not heal totally. And it really struck me that the fruits of labour of the old generation was gone forever, the fruit nursery fo durians, mangosteen, and many various other fruits planted by my great grandfather, nurtured throughout the generations, to be enjoy by the children and grand children was no more.



But I guess it is time to start over life moves on, many new plants were being planted to become the new legacy, hopefully my children and their children and their children afterward would have the same joy that I have tasted before. For my still growing family, during that hectic time, a joyous moment indeed on 24 Jan 2007, baby Yasmin was born, a silver lining in a very dark cloud, the next generation that will inherit the world.

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This is my personal venture with capturing photos of the flora and fauna of the tropical garden be it in my own backyard or wherever that I have been to, the tropical jungle, along the way to work, or even vegetation on the roadside that catch my eyes. I have been thinking of compiling all my photo scrap book years ago but have yet to find the time to really sit down and actually put it all together until now. You will find that most of the name given here is in Malay but if I were to find the actual name of the plant or flower in English or in its scientific names, I'll sure include them alongside.

The above flower is called "Mahkota Berduri" because of the so many thorn all along the plant stem but my wife really like to grow them, there are red, yellow and a few other color varieties of the flower. And also varieties of flower sizes, really small, medium and big in size. "Mahkota" literally means "Crown" and "Berduri" means "with thorn". After googling here and there finally I found the scientific name for this plant and it is Euphorbia milli also called Crown-of-Thorns, I guess later on I'll write an entry solely about this plant.



One of the many varieties of orchids grew in the small garden in front of our house. Btw, if you are interested in all the actual size of all the pictures here, feel free to let me know. And all the pictures were taken using my hand phone Nokia N73, my digital camera Nikon Coolpix P1, my office digital camera Canon Powershot S3 IS or my sister's digital camera Canon Powershot A80.

Some of the pictures are fairly new and some will be quiet old, probably a few years old, ahaa.. if it weren't digital pictures they might be collecting dusts inside albums somewhere considering the recent flood that hit my house they could be already gone, thank God for the technology.

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