Pulau Tekong : Pulau Sejahat

Posted by xinli under National History, Personal, Reflections, art
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Against the green hills of Johor, she lies quietly on the deep blue waters as tiny boats and ships go about their daily business in front of her. The silence was occasionally interrupted by the roaring engines of white metal birds that have descended upon the grey runaways of a nearby international airport. As night falls, the island was shrouded in darkness under a sky of midnight blue. The bright lights of the mainland obscured the ocean of stars that covered the entire sky. However Pulau Tekong, forming a contrasting image of mainland Singapore provides her residents a breathe-taking view of the starry night.

Lying in between Singapore and Malaysia on Selat Johor, Pulau Tekong is Singapore’s largest outlying island with an area of 24.43 km3. The figure continues to increase day by day as land reclamation efforts continues to expand the island’s land area. Today Pulau Tekong, like Jurong Island in the Southwest is an amalgamation of islands consisting of Pulau Tekong, Pulau Unum, Pulau Sejahat, Pulau Tekong Kechil, Pulau Semechek, Pulau Sanyongkong and other tiny islands that surrounded Tekong in the past. The island used to be inhabited by people until resettlement took hold and made it a restricted area for the military where most males like me did our basic military training.

According to infopedia.nl.sg, 4,000 people who were mainly Malays used to live in Pulau Tekong in 1956. It was a time when Pulau Tekong was like her neighbour Pulau Ubin, where kampongs and dirt roads still exist and time seemed to have frozen compared to mainland Singapore. Furthermore, it was an island producing rubber, coconut, vegetacles, prawns, fish and tropical fruits. Read more to find out about Pulau Sejahat and Pulau Tekong.

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