The Making of a Pilgrimage

I just came back from an interesting talk,The Making of a Pilgrimage: Marking the Sites of Buddha's Life, at the Asian Civilization Museum.

In the talk, Professor Frederick M. Asher highlighted some of the uncertainties about the exact locations of the sites which the Buddha admonished his followers to visit: the site of his birth, his enlightenment, his first sermon and his death.

It was interesting to discover that the sites were as certain as I thought they were.

Even though the sites may not be authentic, Professor Asher did explain, during the question and answer session, that the authenticity of the site do not necessary undermine the sanctity of the site: as long as the faithful hold it to be true, the site has its sanctity.

However, what really captured my attention, was what the professor said about the way we relate to a pilgrimage site. He said (to the best of my memory) that we relate to a pilgrimage site in 4 ways. We sense them through how they were recorded in the scriptures. We visualize them through the accounts of the early Asian pilgrims. We understand them through the recent archaeological findings and studies. And finally we experience them through the fabrications and presentations of the sites' management.

Recently, I had been thinking about what is a pilgrimage and its significance. What the professor said gave me much insight and thoughts about my experiences to sites of pilgrimage significance. That is a topic for another day.

On a side note, I must say that it great that the ACM is conducting such free public talks.

My first sea expedition in a kayak

In the wee hours of National Day holiday, I meet the other fellow paddlers at the Labrador Park for my first kayak expedition to the Southern Islands. It took some time for us to pack our stuff into the kayaks and get ready to launch. It was about 8:30 am when we finally launched out to sea.

The sky was hazy, the sun rising in the sky looked like the bright orange yolk of a boiled salted egg. The weather was great, except for the haze.

There were 8 of us, 3 pairs of us on double kayaks and another 2 using singles. As we launched out, a cruise ship sailed in. We were out in the waters with cruise ships and containers ships and other water crafts.

We paddled round Pulau Bukom and Pulau Busing to Pulau Hantu. There water was quite calm, except for the wakes of the passing boats and ships. It was fun and exciting getting close to the islands and ships on little kayaks.

The journey to Pulau Hantu was about 10 KM. As we approached Pulau Hantu, I was surprised how shallow and clear the water was off the island. From the kayaks, we could look into the water and see the corals beneath. I never knew the waters around there can be so clear. I was in Pulau Hantu once, more than 10 years ago. I remembered the water being very murky and the visibility in the water was very poor. We beached at Pulau Hantu for a break and swam in the clean waters. It was hard to believe this is in Singapore. I was thought the waters in Singapore are all as dirty and murky as East Coast and Sentosa.

About 12pm, we left Pulau Hantu and started towards Sister Island, passing by Pulau Semakau (the landfill island) along the way. Sister Island is about 10km east of Pulau Hantu. The currents were stronger as the tide comes in. Occasionally, there were big waves and it was exciting to raise and fall with the crests of the waves.

Finally, we arrived at the small Sisters Island (there are 2 islands, big Sister Island and small Sister Island next to each other) about 2:30pm.

We had a meal of instant noodles and the rest of the after was a lazy relaxing afternoon. Most of the slept. Some wandered around the small little island. I swam in the waters of an ebbing tide and then nap a little on the clean sandy beach, enjoying the balmy weather.

There was a family that came to the island to fish and another family that came to picnic. After they left, we had the whole island to ourselves. As the sun started to set, it cast a beautiful glow on the island. I explored the island with my camera. The tide was very low and towards the evening, the waters retreated all the way to the break water. It was interesting exploring the part of beach the retreating water revealed. There were lots of junk and broken glass bottles (you should never walk barefoot on the beach). But there were lots of interesting things if you look carefully. Seaweeds, sea snails, hermit crabs, shells, corals...

Then, suddenly, I heard a helicopter approach the island. Looking up, I saw the helicopter carrying a huge flag of Singapore, flying over the island and then towards the Marina Bay, where the National Day celebrations are being held.

It was National Day, and we celebrated the national day too. At 8:22pm, we sang the Pledge just as the fireworks were seen bursting into the sky at Marina Bay. It was a beautiful sight.

The anchorage for ships was just off Sister Island. As night falls, the ships were all light up. You see an interesting line of brightly lit ships in the horizon.

We had a simple dinner of tortillas.

I was feeling really tired and shortly after dinner, I looked for an spot on the island to sleep.

It was windy and I was glad I brought along my sarongs which served well as blankets. The wind did keep away the mosquitoes. Some time in the night, the wind died and the mosquitoes came out to look for blood. I did not suffered too badly though a few were bitten quite badly.

I woke up about 5:30am. The air was still. There was activity in the sea as I heard ships and boats moving. I wanted to sleep some more, but then the wind suddenly whipped up in frenzy. The leaves swept across the ground and my sarong was being blown away. I looked towards Singapore, all seem calmed. But towards the south, I could see an approaching storm. The wind continued to blow and I ran back towards to camp site only to find everything being blown all over. Our clothes on the line was all over the floor. More worrisome, the PDF and spray skirts were blown of too. The others were already up and collecting the stuff.

It was lucky that we chose to camp near to the toilet. Quickly, we collected our stuff and bring them into the toilet. We manage to get empty into the toilet before the rain started to poor.

I must say that I was very impressed that the toilet was actually very clean and well maintained. As we wait out the storm, we made coffee and cooked breakfast in the toilet.

The rain blew over in an hour.

As the rain stopped, we brought out our stuff and started packing. Luckily, we did not loose too many things and we managed to stay dry.

The tide was very low in the morning and I was afraid that we scrapped some corals as we paddled out to the sea.

The weather was beautiful. The rain had washed off the haze and the air was refreshing. The sky was overcast, with some broken parts where the sun peeked through. The water was light and it was very easy to paddle. Kusu Island was about 4 to 5km away and we got there rather quickly. We had a brief stop before paddling back to Labrador park by tracing the Southern coast of Sentosa.

It was a fun and exciting trip, full of interesting sights and new experience. I am looking forward to another expedition!