Kukup Fishing Village Outing

Lunch time on the day,

Fine food; Seafood,

Fine location; Beside the water,

Fine Company; Some great MAE crew members.

On 12 October a group MAE staff went on an outing across to Malaysia to visit Kukup, a fishing village. Of course it was combined with a few other tourist things and some shopping. A great outing and it was the day before my birthday.

Porcupine fish drying or was it a kind of charm?

Typical of the houses along the water's edge. No need for a garage here. We couldn't help but notice the smell of the fish mixed in with a few other not so pleasant smells. The state of the water and the rubbish in the water was cause for concern as well. But how could you ever turn back the clock on this one? I believe they are trying.


The houses range from very basic on stilts, to extremely extravagent on stilts. The whole village is built out over the water, the access is from narrow concrete roadways, not built for cars but capable of carrying motor bikes and sizeable hand carts. I did see one golf cart parked in front of a house.

The main industry here is fish and prawns. Fish are raised in fish farms that float in the water. The prawns are mainly minced and then dried in the sun. Then they are made into products such as prawn paste and prawn crackers. Very interesting to us.

Out on the fish farms they sometimes catch their own fish. The worker below reeled in a sizeable fish that looked to me like a catfish and on his little rod it gave him a bit of a fight.

There were a range of interesting fish being kept in the fish farms including this Puffer fish, below. He actually put on quite a show for us. Quite amazing how much he will puff up. Look closely at his face. Does he remind you of anyone you know?

These fish farms are all floating in the water. They are set out in a series of grids on top of plastic
barrels. Inside the squares are the fish pens which are lined with netting. The farmer buys most of his fry and places up to 500 into one of the fish pens. Seems like an over kill to me. The fish are fed on a mixture of fishfeed pellets and minced up reject fish from the markets. The fish pellet contain antibiotics and hormones. I think the fish might need both to survive in the water!Of course one of the things that makes a day like this more fun is the company. Ruth seems very at home on the boats these days and thoroughly enjoys visiting these interesting places.

One of the fun things about these days is the opportunity to get some photos of different environments.

Been there, done that. Kukup is an interesting place, it seems to me that the people there choose to live there and they work hard but have a reasonably lucrative lifestyle. Judging by the houses some are very well off. Nobody seemed to worry about locking doors so it must be a very safe carefree environment. There must be some lessons to be learned from this. However I don't think it would be my ideal place to live. Good old Thames on the Coromandel keeps looking better and better to call home.