Really Nice Vacations

I went to Malaysia on a business trip recently. En route to Singapore to catch my flight back , my Malaysian associate brought me to a organic farm at Kluang in Johor to see how dragon fruits (also known as pitaya) were grown. I had eaten some back home, mainly the white flesh and the red flesh ones. I like the sweetest of the fruits and the crunchiness when I bit on the seasame-like black coloured seeds. However, I did not expect the Asians were such big fans of the fruits. They made them into syrups, popsicle, pudding, ice-cream and even bottles of dragon fruit enzyme! You can even find them in fruit salads in the restaurants.

Dragon fruit plant actually belong to the cactus family and the long stems are so heavy that they need no less than cement pillars to support them as they grow. Just look at the photo to understand what I meant. Hidden in the blue plastic bags were baby dragon fruits. To ward off insects, birds and small animals, the farm hands covered all of them in unattractive thick plastics. I was surprise that the flowers, even when dead, were really huge, almost double of my palm size. After a 10-minute walk, I couldn’t help but asked my guide why all the flowers were withered. None of them was blooming and it is only 11am! Our fair skinned beauty of Zhenxin Organic Park said dragon fruit flower is nicknamed “Queen of the Night”. They only bloomed at night and that’s when the farm workers had to cross pollinate them manually. By 8am in the morning, the flowers will start to fade and eventually wither with the rising heat. By 10am, they will literally dropped dead but that’s exactly when the dragon fruit started growing. She disclosed that Asians particularly cherished dragon fruits because of their medicinal value in lowering high blood pressure and blood glucose levels in type 2 diabetes.

Before I left, she cut a newly picked dragon fruits into 2 and give me one half with a spoon. That was one of the sweetest dragon fruits I had eaten for a long, long time.

Stumble it!