When you start traveling, and reaching out to friends for advice and suggestions, you’ll be amazed by the strange connections that form. Friends of friends who’ll put you up for a few days in Kuala Lumpur, your mother’s former piano students who take you out for Thai/Malay hotpot, another who introduces you to an organic fruit farmer keen on showing off his jackfruit, papaya, and coconuts.
So with new friends from Kuala Lumpur, I set off in a taxi an hour northwest to a new farm run by a guy named Arafat. He’d previously been at another, admittedly nicer, more established organic farm the year prior, but his new venture was a coup de coeur, a child in need of some love (and a farmhouse…). Actually it needed a lot of things. So we brought a tent, toilet paper, some beer, and some energy (we’d need it to pick calamansi limes the next day).
The farm is mostly lime trees (Kaffir, calamansi and small sour ones), it seems, with coconuts, lemons, dragonfruit, mangoes, papaya and jackfruit trees along the borders. There’s also a small nursery where they’ll put in more vegetables, with platers made of cut up blue industrial containers (cleaned, of course). They’re building the shed area. Maybe some day there’ll be a washroom. There’s a cold water shower, and the water’s no good to drink, but that’s true of most places in Malaysia, no matter what the locals say.
What you need to know:
Arafat runs his farm with the help of volunteers. It’s a very communal project with everyone pitching in ideas and work. Picking fruit and caring for trees is in the morning, then when it gets too hot to be in the fields, they have shade activities, like social media (facebook and finding new volunteers), measuring lengths of bamboo, installing the floor in the to-be-barn.
The volunteers are from all over. 3 or 4 French ladies and one guy at the moment. Some Spanish. They’re all travelers—on their way from India, or up from Malaysia, not sure how long they’re staying, but wanting to do good work and help out. The work gives meaning to their travel. Food and accommodations are provided, and while the farm isn’t part of the official Woofing Malaysia group, it’s a similar deal.
If you love jackfruit, friendly people, getting dirty, learning to build things, learning to grow things, and isolated farm life with people from all over, this is your place.
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