Category: Kedah

Don’t Just Photograph What You See

Matsuda MashimaruLeave a comment

Standing in the middle of the forest in the dark, looking up at a towering Tualang tree, I suddenly felt lost.

I had prepared for this. I had a long checklist in my head of what to photograph, what to look for and which moments I should focus on. I had imagined the pictures long before I arrived. But standing there at 3 a.m., everything looked and felt different. Nothing was happening the way I had pictured it back home.

I was the only photographer among the team. There was no one beside me to ask, “Did you get this?” or “Don’t forget to photograph that.” There was just the tree, the harvesters, the bees and a whole lot of darkness.

And everything was moving.

Someone was preparing the ladders. Someone else was handling the rope. The harvesters were moving from one place to another. The bees were somewhere above us, invisible in the darkness. Voices, footsteps and movement filled the forest.

What should I photograph?

Should I photograph the Tualang tree? Focus on the harvester preparing the ladder? Follow the team handling the rope? Or wait for the moment when the actual harvesting begins?

I stood there with my camera, trying to make a decision before the moment disappeared.

And then I realised something.

Taking still photographs in a situation like this is very different from shooting video. With video, you can let the camera keep rolling and allow the story to unfold. With a still camera, you have to decide.

What deserves to be captured?

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Domesticating The Wild Bees

Matsuda MashimaruLeave a comment

Sitting on the damp forest floor beside Zam, the leader of the Tasik Pedu honey gatherers, I watched a shower of golden embers burst from the Mentawan torch, drifting down through the dark Tualang canopy like falling stars.

In that quiet night air, a wild, ambitious thought struck me.

“Zam,” I whispered, my gaze fixed on the glowing canopy above. “Why can’t we just domesticate Apis dorsata? What if we put up wooden hive boxes on the high branches, run a high-altitude bee farm, and harvest honey all year round instead of waiting for the Pedu flowering season?”

Zam slowly turned his head. A dry, amused grin spread across his face. The exact look a veteran forest hunter gives a dreamer with overly creative ideas.

“Sally…” he chuckled softly. “You want to put a tiny wooden box out for a wild bee that owns the entire jungle canopy?”

Refusing to surrender my breakthrough, I answered with absolute confidence.

“Yeah, why not? Nothing is impossible, right? We just haven’t found the way yet.”

It was my defiant response to his skeptical grin. But as the embers faded into the darkness, I had to ask myself: was I actually onto a clever possibility, or was I fundamentally misunderstanding the wild mind of Apis dorsata?

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Would You Climb This Tree?

Matsuda MashimaruLeave a comment

From a distance, the tree looks almost fragile.

A pale, skinny chopstick stuck straight up into the jungle canopy. You’d almost think you could snap it in half if you tried. Then you step right beside its buttress root and realize the rainforest just played a massive optical illusion on you. Up close, the trunk is massive, so wide it takes three people with outstretched arms just to wrap around it.

The air down here is cool, dim, and smells of damp soil, while the top of the tree lives in a world of its own, high up in the bright sunlight.

Cranking your neck to look straight up, your eyes play tricks on you all over again. The highest branches look like delicate little twigs, and the huge, heavy wild bee nests clinging to the wood look no bigger than tiny mushrooms. In reality, those branches have been holding their place up there for generations, carrying the weight of the forest canopy, wild bees and everything else that comes with living twenty stories above the ground.

Standing beneath a living giant that has outlived generations, you suddenly become very aware of your own size. And looking all the way up, a rather practical question comes to my mind:

Why would anyone want to climb this thing?

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Hiking Gunung Pulai, Baling

Matsuda MashimaruLeave a comment

Okay, let’s be real … this time, we weren’t hiking, but we were rock climbing. There, I said it out loud. Gunung Pulai may look small from afar, but trust me, this mountain is about 95% rock, basically a giant chunk of stone sitting proudly next to another chunk of stone called Gunung Baling in the middle of Baling town. And yeah, climbing it? Way tougher than it looks.

If you’re like me, the kind who’s always craving a panoramic view of the town framed by the sea of Butterworth and the Penang Strait, then you have to do Gunung Pulai for the sunset view. I know, I know, it sounds a bit odd to climb in the afternoon, but curiosity got the best of me. I just had to see the sunset from the Butterworth-Penang side.

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Hiking 2.0

Matsuda MashimaruLeave a comment

We made a pact to have at least one adventurous hiking trip every year, no excuses, just a bunch of us pretending to be outdoorsy for a weekend.

We’re not hardcore hikers by any stretch; we hike for the snacks, the laughs, and that glorious moment at the peak when we can finally say, “Yeah! Totally worth it!” (and later goofing around with our limping legs for days). This year marks my second time organising our annual hiking trip with a bunch of thrill seekers, but not ‘physically fit’ best friends.

This time around, I decided to spice things up for our 5-day, 4-night adventure. One mountain? Too easy. I told the team, “We’ve got five days gais, let’s make our legs regret it!” So, we set our sights on 2 mountains around Gerik, Perak, and another one at Baling, Kedah.

(Click each link ⬆️ for more stories)

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