Kampung Sungai Melayu

We had a day off of school today and took advantage of an outing just minutes from our school. It's called the Kampung, a village in the middle of a forest of palm trees and on the inlet that separates Malaysia from Singapore.

The village was opened more than 100 years ago and the villagers are totally Malay, with most of them traditional fishermen. The village is famous for its fresh seafood such as seabags, catfish, shrimp, crab and mussels. The mangrove forest that surrounds almost 75% of the village hosts migratory birds from Siberia from August to April.

This village was also used by the Japanese as one of the routes to attack Singapore during World War ll .

We bought our tickets for 35 RM, about 8$, and had about an hour tour of the mangroves with views of both Johor Bahru and Singapore. They also showed us the floating mussel farm, and a floating "hotel". You can rent the floating hotel, complete with a toilet that empties into the water, and 2 twin beds, and a deck for about 6$ a night.

After the tour we had a lovely lunch at a restaurant right on the dock. We enjoyed fresh steamed fish, prawns, veggies and rice for about 5$ a person.