Pulau Ubin: a day trip back in time from Singapore

Solitude. It's not easy to find in Singapore, a country with the third-highest population density and where four-fifths of the population lives in government-built high-rise blocks. But if you look hard, it is within grasp, on a small island called Pulau Ubin, sandwiched in a channel of water between Singapore's main island and Malaysia's Johor state.

Covering a mere 10 square kilometres, Pulau Ubin is a hilly island whose shape has been likened to a boomerang or a raptor in full flight. Unlike Singapore, full of new shiny malls and the latest high-performance Italian sports cars, Pulau Ubin is in a time warp, where the fastest objects are wild boars and red junglefowl, and where generators power TVs inside tin-roofed homes. It’s Singapore as it was pre-1965 independence, semi-rural and decidedly dressed down.

Today, fewer than 50 people live on the island, and apart from the working village by the jetty, there's scant trace of humanity. This microcosm of Singapore half a century ago is so enduring that the entertainment behemoth Mediacorp films parts of Mata Mata, a period drama set in 1950s Singapore, on the island.

Though currently home to a skeleton population (but a thriving environment with 603 species of vascular plants, 207 species of birds, 153 species of butterflies, 39 species of reptiles, and more), the island wasn’t always so low-density.

In 1825, John Crawfurd, British resident of Singapore, a senior government post, landed on Pulau Ubin to the hoisting of a British flag and the rousing cacophony of a 21-gun salute, part of a ceremonial trip to take possession of lands agreed in the Crawfurd Treaty of 1824.

To the 1800’s Ubin supported a booming quarrying business – the granite here (ubin is Malay for granite, pulau means island) was prized, used to build the Horsburgh Lighthouse unveiled in 1851. During its boom years, thousands worked and lived on Ubin. The quarrying industry left in 1999; the craters left behind have since filled with water and appear as almost natural lakes.

According to Chinese legend, Ubin was formed when a frog, a pig and an elephant challenged each other to swim to Johor, and whichever failed would be turned to rock. All three did, the first two became Pulau Ubin, the frog turned into Pulau Sekudu, off Ubin’s southeast coast. That’s the myth. In reality, Ubin seems so distant from Singapore you might as well be visiting another planet.

This explains its popularity, which peaks at about 2,000 visitors on weekends, most seeking to experience a side of Singapore that’s virtually disappeared. The demand hasn’t been lost on kayaking and biking outfitter Ubin Adventure Centre – it opened an office on the island last year, offering trips to walk-in customers (previously all excursions were booked in advance online), suggesting that Ubin’s popularity is growing.

Getting to the island is a perfect introduction to the island’s antiquated, unhurried ways. From Changi Point Ferry Terminal, passengers wait for 12 people to arrive before the boat, called a bumboat, departs (the service runs during daylight hours only). Each visitor pays S$2.50 (Dh7.5), unless you charter the whole boat for S$30. The boats are clunky wooden vessels with interiors filled with decades of detritus and sputtering motors that just about sustain enough drive for motion.

Once off the ferry, bicycles with rusted frames and saddle posts line the jetty railings, and stilted buildings, one of them the only full-service restaurant on the island, appear to the left, jutting out over silty water. A small village hugs the pier, with a few smaller places to eat and buy basic provisions, but what’s most striking is the large number of bicycles for rent, hundreds and hundreds of them (available from about S$10 per day).

Three roads leave the village: one to the right, past the police station and beyond to the overpriced, unremarkable Celestial Ubin Beach Resort, where guests entertain themselves with a fish spa and a scrappy beach.

The other two, left from the jetty, lead to the east and west before splintering off. A National Parks office at the western cusp of the village has boards stapled with handouts on what to see. Across from this visitors’ centre is a new micro-grid test-bed outpost that brought the first biodiesel-powered electricity to the houses and businesses of the main village last year.

And then, quick as a flash, the village ends, nature takes over, and Ubin’s delights begin to materialise, from lotus ponds to towering trees to the appropriately named Butterfly Hill.

To the west of the island is the undulating 10-kilometre Ketam Mountain Bike Park that cuts through rubber forests, along rocky hills and flowering meadows. The Singapore Mountain Bike Association calls it “a glowing example of how a proper [mountain bike] trail should be done, with proper riding flow and sustainability in mind”.

Between Butterfly Hill and the bike park is the island’s finest viewpoint, the peak of Bukit Puaka above the old HDB Quarry (now labelled Ubin Quarry on maps). The waters filling the quarry give off tints of cobalt, contrasting with the verdant forests around it, while high-rises on Singapore’s main island appear in the distance. It’s a pretty spot, but oddly whenever I visit, I’m always alone.

The east-coast Chek Jawa Wetlands is a National Park site opened in 2007 to showcase seven different ecosystems, including mangrove, coastal forest and rocky shore, the last a rarity here since reclamation-crazy Singapore barely has any rocky coastline.

The boardwalk skirts forest and mangroves, home to mud lobsters, Malayan monitor lizards, sea snakes and the threatened straw-headed bulbul. The 114-step Jejawi Tower, named for a banyan tree and set among the mangroves, provides a breezy lookout above the wetlands, while Chek Jawa’s main house is a mock Tudor cottage with a working fireplace, built for the chief surveyor in the 1930s.

But the greatest joy of Ubin is the escape it offers, an escape from people, from technology, from buildings that dominate the horizon, from the imprint of humanity. That’s why many people raised here don’t want to leave.

At 45-C Bicycle Rental in the main village, I sit with owner Chew Yok Chun, a small man with doleful eyes. Born here in 1945, he lives in his home behind the shop. “It’s quiet here, and you can do what you want. You can catch fish anywhere. And nighttime, because of all the trees, it’s not so hot. I love this island.” He opened a bicycle repair shop when he was 17, and started renting out bicycles seven years ago. “It’s difficult. Not easy to do business here. I work nearly every day. Whenever there is a public holiday, I have to be here.”

His brother-in-law, Yeo Choo Huat, drives a taxi on Ubin by day. A slim man with a neatly manicured moustache and a restless manner, he rues leaving Ubin. “I was born in Kampong Chek Jawa, but moved to Punggol 12 years ago with my wife and children to live in an HDB [public housing flat]. Singapore is no good,” he grimaces, shaking his head.

As we speak, an old, crossed-eyed man comes up to us, waves to me, and starts to imitate Psy's clippety-cloppety Gangnam Style dance. After 10 seconds he walks away. "That man, he is 80, he moved here a few years ago with his wife," explains Yeo. "He rents out his HDB and now he is rich and goes around on his motorcycle." Yeo's jealousy of such reverse migration is all too apparent.

Despite the universal praise and the idyllic image of the old way of life, Ubin’s primitive-life-loving residents have suffered some recent scares. In January 2013, the government published a report predicting that Singapore’s population, now at 5.3 million, could hit 6.9 million by 2030, and to accommodate the higher numbers, reserve land (Pulau Ubin is officially categorised as “open space and reserve land”) might be developed. And in March of last year, it sent a letter to island residents, suggesting the Ubin they had grown to love was under threat.

The drama blew over in July 2013, when the government reassured residents and nature-lovers that there was no development plan for Ubin, declaring “our intention is to keep Pulau Ubin in its rustic state for as long as possible, and as an outdoor playground for Singaporeans”.

Ubin’s proponents were never too worried. “If the government does make large buildings here, it will be after I pass away,” reflects 45-C Bicycle Rental owner Chun.

Margie Hall, a nature and history guide and conservationist from the United Kingdom who lives in Singapore and takes groups around Ubin, remains hopeful for the island’s future as a natural environment. “I’m optimistic because the original plans for Ubin’s development [housing, industry, subway line] were published around 1990-1991 and were supposed to come to fruition when the population of Singapore reached four million. We are way past that and there is still land for housing and industry available for use on the main island. However, because of that plan there were some unfortunate losses at Ubin, like Kampong Melayu and Kampong Chek Jawa cleared at the end of the 1990s for proposed land reclamation, though happily, pressure from conservationists stopped that from happening.”

At last, a victory for those who cherish nature’s gifts.

artslife@thenational.ae