Malaysian Trip: Anything can grow out there!

http://www.mapsofworld.com/malaysia/maps/malaysia-map.gif

I told Arne of how green and luscious the Malaysian jungle is and how anything can grow. "Just throw a seed out the window and it will sprout by the next day!", I would brag. His eyes would twinkle and he longed to visit my country of birth. "You guys have a lot of exotic and almost extinct orchids over there. We must go there!". And so we did in August 2009. I took the photo above while we were driving down from my home town, Kuantan to the capital, Kuala Lumpur (KL for the locals) for a day trip. I was very happy to see the virgin jungle still intact. Malaysian jungle is the oldest in the world.

Ancient and divine: The luscious green canopies of the virgin equatorial jungle up close.  Let's hope they are spared from deforestation. Truly Nature's treasure to humanity.

Arne was overjoyed when we visited a friend's house with orchids just hanging outside. That is how I remembered orchids should be cultivated. You know, in the humid and warm climate. No fuss, just take the hose to water them and let the water run out of the pot! 

This may not look like much to you but the two stumps in the middle were the remains of two old (~25 years old) coconut trees. As usual in this part of the world, the stumps have been colonized by another plant, enjoying the nutrients the stumps have to offer for survival. The new replacing the old.

Up close, the new plant is an orchid, a Vanda. Arne thought it could be a hybrid (how he deduced that, I don't have a clue...orchid geek). We knew it was an orchid because someone thought the orchid was dead and decided to throw it out. Well, as I said, anything can grow over there! I was told the blooms were yellow (?) in color. Since we haven't been back, we don't have any photos of the blooms, what a pity! 

Looking through my old e-mails, I found a picture of the orchid blooms. It started to flower about 1 week after we flew back to the States. Now Arne says it is "Vanda-like-orchids". I guess it would be easier to identify if it was right in front of you. In any case, they are beautiful. Arne confessed that he has a tough time identifying Vandas as well as cultivating them indoors over here because of their need for strong light and heat. Which explains why this orchid grew very well in Malaysian weather.

Here's a close up of the orchid flowers. If you are interested to identify this orchid, look up Vanda online and I'm sure you will find tonnes of information about it.