An Escape To The Back Garden...

On Monday this past week, me and my siblings went to the columbarium at Sam Poh Tong Cave Temple in Ipoh to make offerings and pay respects to our beloved sister who passed away years ago at a very young age. The place was jam-packed with people ( old and young ) who came with similar intentions - to make offerings and pay respects to their deceased family members, relatives or friends. Like everyone else, we carried out the usual, annual ritual of burning joss sticks and candles. offering foods ( we used only vegetarian foods as we are vegetarians ) and finally, chanting and dedicating merits. The whole place was like a busy marketplace. Dirty, hot, noisy and messy. The smoke from all the burning, almost choked me to death ( a bit of exaggeration here though ) and made my eyes sore. There were some close cases of me being burnt by other people's joss sticks. However, we ourselves, were to be blamed for all the mess and pollutions!

A foreign tourists or two found the whole thing interesting. They disregard all the discomforts, braved and squeezed themselves through the crowd, just to take some pictures of us from every angle. Unlike them, I never wanted to stay a minute longer no matter the reason. I made the quickest escape of my life as soon as we had finished with the ritual. While waiting for my third brother who went to look for the washroom, I found myself straying away from the crowd into the cave through one of its openings. 

I passed through a quite spacious stalactites and stalagmites ' cave hall ' filled with many Buddha and Bodhisattva statues and a short, narrow. very cooling, passageway before I finally exited into a large, quite beautifully-landscaped back garden. The garden was surrounded by some amazing, natural limestone hills. A sight to behold really. Like those often depicted in Chinese brush landscape paintings. There was an ancient Chinese architecture building in the garden, backing one of the hills; which gave me a feeling of being on some mountains in China. Though the round fountain pond never really seemed to match the building's design, it looked alright to be there somehow. 

What amazes me the most was the natural landscape. Those lush greenery that settled on those limestone hills. They looked just so magnificently beautiful to me. Alas, my camera phone never seemed to have captured their beauty completely.

The garden was functionally-landscaped with some shady and some non-shady tropical plants, concrete walkways and some garden furniture here and there; thus making it a great place for strolling around, watching nature, practising meditation or simply enjoying the fresh air.

At one side of the garden, there was a man-made pond which I am guessing, has perhaps, hundreds to thousands of various sizes turtles living in it. I had a fun time watching them swim in the pond or sunbathe on  the ' concrete beach ' or move about the place when some local tourists fed them with vegetables.

Adjacent to the turtles' pond, I spotted a lot of ' fungi ' growing on some tree trunk stools. So unique and fascinating that I was prompted to take some pictures of them. 

How quickly time always passes by when you are having fun! I haven't had enough of all the pleasures this back garden has got to offer. As I had to immediately leave it when my eldest sister came looking for me; saying that we could be late for the train back to Kuala Lumpur should I stay another minute. 

Below here is a short video clip of the turtles in motion ( the voices in the video are from some excited local tourists ). ENJOY!