The 'rafflesia' is the largest flower in the world. It flowers for 6 days every not very often, and it stinks and is pollinated by flies.
After our second jungle walk, our guide Hermann had made a phonecall and said, the rafflesia is blooming, we could take a detour to see it at the extra cost of 30MYR each, $12. I asked who the money goes to, we paid it to the dude at the house.
They pronounce it ra-FLESS-ia so I didn't understand the significance of his offer at first. We were unanimously keen. For what we saw, it was more than well worth the $12.
Took a while to get to the town Ranau, then past acres of gently sloping terraces of wet rice padi with people stooped over, as for centuries past. Previously we'd seen hill rice, growing on terraced hillsides, but dry.
Then we went way the heck off the beaten track to a kampung called 'Kokob'. I bet its not on google earth. We wondered if we were welcome. I thought, we cannot say x% of NZ children live in poverty, measuring by this.
We paid, we saw the 7kg buds, we marvelled at one big flower about 80cm diameter. We were perching on bamboo bridges surrounded by mighty high bamboo towering over us. Could certainly smell the flower, and see the busy flies but the smell was not too bad. Wow I never expected to see one of these and it is such a sight. It is at ground level and the 2 buds looked like monstrous peonies buds about to burst.
Asking if we were welcome to do so, we five then walked back down the concrete 'road' of the (shanty settlement?) - weary hot Mums, interested children,hot dogs that came up within a couple of metres then cowered, lots of scrawny colourful chooks pecking but not bothered by the dogs - one chook had a lizard in its mouth and was running from the pack as they do.
What these people could do, we thought humbly, with the price we'd just paid, we with the economic freedom to come all this way just to look at one flower. But the other flowers were intriguing along the roadside, hibiscus, many things we didn't know, and phalaenopsis amabilis just there growing on a tree.
I passed pleasantaries with a couple of girls maybe 12 years, how different our lives are.
xxM
