Durians!

My friend Carl has recently bought a 5 acre Durian orchard in Balik Pulau. He was so kind to invite my friends and I to visit his orchard and have a Durian feast there.

We were suppose to go to his orchard last week, but I had to attend Fabian’s review/graduation class so it was postponed to…TODAY!

After a light lunch (we want to save space in our stomach so we can pig out at the orchard), we met up at his place and off to his orchard.

The road towards Balik Pulau is winding and quite sickening to some people. But the anticipation of going to have Durians didn’t really affect us.

The orchard had 200+ Durian trees and they were all so fruitful.

Every tree had so many Durians

This bunch looks more like grapes instead of Durians

Once we arrive, we wasted no time eating the Durians. We had all the different Durian species in Carl’s orchard namely Hor Lor (Gourd), 15, D24, 14, Xiao Hong (Little Red), Ang Hae (Red Prawn) and the one and only Lilian. Yes I kid you not. There is a tree with no name and even the estate manager doesn’t know what is the specie, so Durians from that special tree is named after Carl’s wife, Lilian. This is so cool. Mind you, the fruit taste good too.

After a sumptuous meal of Durians, we took a walk around Carl’s orchard.

Durian flowers blown away before it had a chance to fruit

I’m standing between 2 vertical bamboo sticks used to support the branch of a Durian tree. With so many Durians on the branch and each fruit as big as my head, the branch will break without the bamboo support.

An unripe Mangosteen fruit on Carl’s orchard. Carl’s orchard have a range of different Durian species and a couple of Rambutans trees, Cempedak trees and Mangosteen trees.

This Carl and he is the owner of the Durian orchard. No I’m not joking, yes he is an ang mor, but not an ordinary ang mor. Carl is an American. If you don’t know him, you won’t believe that he loves Durians. Yes, he loves it so much that he has bought an orchard. Of course Lilian is also a Durian lover and I bet she was just as enthusiastic as Carl in getting this wonderful orchard.

In the past weeks, after talking to a few of our regular Durian seller, apparently this year’s Durian season will be different from the previous year. There will not be a bumper harvest all at a time. Resulting in an over supply which drives Durian price down. This year, Durians ripen on a more evenly spaced out time. I suppose it has something to do with the weather but a quick check in Carl’s orchard shows some trees are only begining to flower…

So looks like this year will have a longer supply of Durians but at a higher price.