Bali Flora and Fauna

Went with In-laws to Bali for holiday. The trip is mostly touring but I managed to squeeze in quite a number of flora fauna pictures.

At Benoa Bay, Kuta, I saw a large deposit of marine algae. These were Sea Lettuce.

While on a jetty, saw this Sally Lightfoot Crab, a rock crab. Hard to get the frame right because it is always on the move.

At Uluwatu, before seeing the Fire Dance we have to pass through a path that is famous for mugging - by monkeys. These were crab eating monkeys. This one is probably the alpha male. Large and fierce looking. Not time to snap more picture because the guide urges me on.

Back at the villa, the first plant that caught my eye is a Breadfruit tree.

An early morning stroll alone on the alley (the so called road), I found a Sky flower. It is similar to Laura Leafed Thunbergea which is very common in Singapore. The difference is the leaf shape.

While going to see Mt Batur (volcano), the van break down. Took the opportunity to take pictures of the plants around. Caught sight of this Angel's Trumpet.

While having buffet lunch at a resturant that have a good view of the volcano, an unidentified bug flew right on to me begging to be included.

On the way back, went to a coffee plantation for coffee tasting. It has a showcase garden that have quite a number of plants. The first one of course is Arabic Coffee.

The next one is a yet to be identified Ginger.

Passion fruit in this area is called Makasa.

The famous Luwat Coffee comes from the droppings of this Civet Cat (Asian Palm Civet). It looked sad because it is in solitary confinement.

Here they offer free samples of beverages.

While waiting for the "sunset dinner", caught sight of this Spotted Dove up on the roof. Good thing I brought the 48X Cannon camera. No problem zooming in to this bird with decent clarity and no camera stand (just an attached selfile stick on the table).

Went for a long stroll on the next day. The beach is just one Kilometers away from the villa. Saw this Pandan tree with nice fruit (Spiny Seashore Pine).

Passion flowers are common here.

Out of nowhere came a small padi field.

As usual, Munia birds are found with it. This one is a White Rumped Munia.

Back to the villa and decided to take a picture of a tree with white trunk. Can't identify it.

While going up Bedugul, we stopped at a road side to rest. One guy with a few animals and a "Donation" sign was at the road side. I don't donate as I do not encourage people to take captive of the animals.

There is a Green Iguana (not local) in the cage.

There is also a stringed Buffy Fish Owl.

One Red Parrot is also there. Not very clear picture. Auto focus end up in the back ground.

Another Civet cat was in a pet box.

Finally an upside down Fruit Bat.

At Bedugul, the first sighting is a Flame Vine in the car park.

Then there is this large Red Passion Flower.

Near the entrance are two Orchids (Epidendrum Ibaguense).

Right after the entrance is an unidentified Juniper tree. Very nice looking.

Two variety of lilies were captured by my camera.

Two other unidentified flower is also in my collection.

Further down there is a fully yellow Lily flower.

Around the corner there is another Angel's Trumpet. This one is white.

This flower looks familiar but just can't remember the name.

This Shrimp Plant is unmistakable.

This Fireball Chenille Plant, looks like normal Red Cat's Tail but is much more fluffy.

It looks like a normal Glorybush. This one is actually a Emperor Glorybush.

Not sure what is this plant's name.

This one looks a bit like Snowrose. Probably a variant or another specie. It really looks nice.

Fairy Pettycoat can be found in Singapore. This one has a full bloom.

Some deers are kept in this park. The fist one looks like a Barking Deer.

The other one is a Rusa Deer.

There are a number of diseased Mediterranean Cyperss,

A bed of Daisy is a very nice scene.

Blue Lilies are also seen in Singapore. Unfortunately due to poor eyesight, most of the flowers are facing the wrong way.

Specifically took a picture of the fruits of this plant. It looks very different.

Now, this is the identifiable Snowrose with flower.

Anthurium are common in singapore. I find this Flamingo Flower a bit different. It has pretty large leaves.

Another common Anthurium (Bird Nest Anthurium) is at the corner also.

Next stop is Tanah Lot. This place is more scenery than plants. Saw a captive Fruit bat again.

There is nothing to capture except the very hot sun on the next day before returning back to Singapore.

You would have noticed that I did not include the tour side of the pictures. Those are mostly for the in-laws. Below are some of the nature pictures. These pictures are collected in another album (limited access).

At Kuta

 At Uluwatu

 At Mt Batur

 At Jimbalan Bay

 At Legian Beach

 Along the way to Bedugul

 Tanah Lot

No maps as it is not a walking trip. The complete picasa album (just flora fauna) is here.

Saving file from image proxy

Image proxy is a web page used to serve images from web sites that stores its images outside of the root directory of the web page. This is done for security purposes. The web image tag looks something like <img src=imageproxy.php?filename=xx.png>

The resultant web page looks exactly like any web pages except when you try to save it. The file name become imageproxy.php instead of xx.png. Any user will complain that this is no user friendly.

I took hint from some Netizens that by using the ALT attribute and put the actual filename as its value solved the issue. It also helps when the image is not available. User will get to save the file with the proper name. It benefits both the programmer and user.

Chek Jawa

Chek Jawa is a place name in Pulau Ubin. Previously it is just a wetland that is not accessible to public. In 7 July 2007 NParks make it into a visitor accessible park. This trip is specifically to visit Chek Jawa Wetland.

To access the island, you have to go to the Jetty. It is just further down the food center in Changi Village.

The access to the jetty is via a building (circled in the picture). You have to go downstairs to the basement. There are two areas. One for Ubin and the other one for Pengeleh Malaysia. The ubin access is on the right hand side. There is no passport needed for Ubin access.

If there are not many people, you will have to wait at the waiting area. Twelve persons are required for the bump boat to begin the trip. You can hire the whole boat if you want. The trip is $3 one way per person. I don't know the price increased already as I read from blogs that it is only $2.50. No discount for kids and seniors. The trip itself is about 15 minutes. Its school holiday so I just need 5 minutes wait before embarking the boat.

I have planned a very indirect way of going to Chek Jawa. First detour is to the Sensory Trail.

The first picture I took is not yet identified. Its bud or fruit looks red.

Turning into Sensory Trail, there is yet a vine that I cannot identify.

Here is a moth that it not identified even though I post it on web for ID. It is a day flying moth.

The first identifiable picture is just a common grasshopper.

The next one is a butterfly that hides below leaves. Its probably a Common Awl.

Further down, I saw a vine from the Bean family but can't identify it.

Common Sailor are seen quite often, this one stays for a shot.

The last picture from Sensory Trail is a creeper. The tiny bean family plant is a Desmonium. Its full common name is Greater Clover-Leaved Desmonium. Sure sounds big even when it is tiny.

Turning into Jalan Ubin which is a metalled road,  I saw a very white fungus. Its over exposed. Should have use digital camera instead of handphone.

Its hard to capture this insect as it never stops for a shot. This is a Common Mormon.

According to OpenStreeMap, there is a trail just before the junction. I missed that. I choosed the next trail at Jalan Durian just after the junction.  Turned into the trail and met with a dead end. But it is still fruitful. Saw a funny looking flower. Only found out later that it is dead one. A live one looks nicer. Not able to identify.

At the end of Jln Durian saw a cute climber. Its leaf end curls up. Again blank on ID.

Instead of going into the one way path to wetland, I choose a detour path. The first thing I noticed is a Coral Fungus. A rare sight.

A Knight rests peacefully for a focus shot. Slightly out of position due to zooming with free hand.

This common hairy plant is a Hairy Clidemia

Further down the path saw a web. That owner is a silk Orb Weaver spider.

This female Tailed Jay is quite faded but its characteristics are still visible and intact.

Ixora lobbi is very common around here. Took one picture of its blooming flower but it is blurred. Settle for buds instead.

A family of wild boar walked right behind me across the path. I could only stood still and took a number of pictures. Only this one is clear. Flash is required but I do not want to startle the wild animals. Read from Netizens that wild boars here are friendly. One of them is famous but is dead and buried. I don't want to hang around them as they are still wild.

A Malay Viscount came out and stay right in my path. I obliged to take a picture of it.

Going back into the main path, I reached Chek Jawa Wetland. The first thing that surprises me is a Shed with Cold drink dispenser. There is no electrical lines linking to the wetland. Later I found out that there is a generator further behind.

I went into the jetty through a hut. Did not bother to take a picture of the hut. There is nothing worthy of a click around here.

Walking back to the shed and proceed to the bridged walk. Its high tide and I could not see anything that is worth taking at all. From the bridge walk, there is another Mangrove bridged walk. Went into it and bring out my GPS map. It could not get the GPS location. It is here that I noticed that the GPS is not available since I visited the Jetty earlier. It is probably due to me switching to Panorama Camera app to take a parorama view of the main island.  Switched off GPS and back on and every thing goes well except that Endomondo does not capture the trail from Jetty to the Mangrove Walk. WikiLoc is working fine as it is in another handphone.

Nothing much to take picture all the way to the shed. I took a rest at the shed and some students were giving out survey sheets. I am obliged to fill in one. The young girl was surprised that I indicate no change needed. Obviously right? I am a naturalist, there is no reason to change the natural environment to artificial one.

They are surprised that a senior citizen walked 6.5 KM all the way from the main jetty. They are even more surprised that I am going to walk another 5KM. I did share Osmand and WikiLoc app to them to show how I can walk around easily.

The sky looks grumpy and thunders heard. Sadly all the insects go into hiding from then on. The rest of the route was just walking.

The outward bound route is also a one way route. Not surprising that there are cyclists who go the wrong way. After reaching Jln San Heng, I proceed North as planned even though it drizzles slightly now.

At the end of Jln San Heng, there is a beach. It is supposed to be a camping site. Surprised to see some barrier on the sea. I though it is kelong pikes but on the map it showed that the barrier stretches for miles along the coast. Don't know what is that for.

The return trip is supposed to go via a trail. It was closed. No choice but to take another trail further down the road. It is like a kampong trail that passes through a few houses. Again nothing interesting here.

After reaching Jln Ubin, saw from the map that there is another trail that leads to another wetland. Ventured into it and is disappointed that it is a dead end with construction in progress. On the way in heard a buzzling sound. It is a large group of bees moving house. I walked right pass it only to realize it after that. Luckily nothing happens and no sting received as a gift.

Turned into Jalan Batu Ubin instead of continuing through Jln Ubin as planned. There is nothing here worth taking pictures either. Reached the village and realized that they only sell seafood. Time to go back to main island.

Walked to the jetty and found that they are short of just one person. No waiting time to embark on to the bump boat. One thing I don't like embarking here. We have to walk through a number of other bump boats. It is a reason why I hesitate to bring handicapped people to Ubin.

The trip ended with late lunch in the food court.

The picasa album is here.

WikiLoc route map is here.

What technology that helps the blind

Ten years ago, I evaluated a number of technologies that is of use to visually handicapped (VH). It was quite a fruitless search. Ten years later I attended the China Information Accessibility Forum in Beijing and it showed quite a number of improvement. The following is a description of some of the technologies available as gathered from the forum.

I am not a fan of Apple iPhone but I do admire the free VoiceOver accessibility feature available. With it, VH can use the phone almost as easily as others.  There were apps written to help blinds. Ariande can help blind navigate places alone. LookTell Money reader can read money denominations (only US$). Color ID Free can read colors (can only read simple color). VizWiz provides human assistance to help VH. Android has assistive technology also but is a far fetch from VoiceOver.

Another technology by Apple is also of interest. It is the iBeacon technology. This technology allows a BT beacon to beam its proximity and some static information to the user. Obviously, user must use iPhone to do it. (Android have apps that can do it too.) It has a number of applications for VH. If every bus could be equipped with such beacon, it would help VH to detect which bus is the required one.

If the beacon can be fixed on every bus stop then VH will know which one to disembark on the last announced stop. If a building is equipped with Beacon, It will greatly help VH or sighted to know their exact location with a given virtual map of the building. Even those sighted can get lost in a very large shopping mall. Android has yet to catch up on this. Samsung is reportedly following suit but I am yet to see it.

Voice dictation system. Microsoft demonstrated its Cortana system that integrates voice recognition with linkage to app activation - a sort of personal assistance. Although it failed several times to perform during the presentation, it nevertheless a good technology to adapt for the blind. I have not seen Apple Siri at work but it is basically implemented much earlier than Microsoft. Android does not have one but there are quite a number of apps that does the same. How good is it is yet to be ascertained.

Obstacle Avoidance and Detection system. This technology was not that new but has not been very successful. Saw a video on this system. It could be helpful but as far as I know, detecting suspended small/pointed objects is still an issue.

Object location tag. Saw from booths in the forum that allows items to be tagged with a tag that has a buzzer built in. You could call up to 8 devices per calling device. It is nothing new just that the idea is rather interesting. If they could make it into adhesive tag then its use might be wider. I would like to see something like a RFID. It uses passive tags. The reader must be able to pinpoint the tag among other tags.

Face recognition and detection. According to the demonstrator, it helps the blind to be able to talk to others face-to-face by detecting where is the person. It allows pre-recorded face so that it can even announce the person's name. It did recognize me as a 50 plus old anonymous guy.

Small MP3 like equipment that can play music and read documents (without screen) is something of interest. A number of companies were making it. I would be more interested if it can automatically change language according to the mixed language document.

PC screen reader. It has been ages since this technology is available. Nothing much changed. Laptops and PC sales are going down due to increasing mobile handphone use. It is sunset technology.

Some researcher was trying to integrate all the technologies in one app. It might be useful but probably takes decades to do so.

One biggest challenge is to make the equipment affordable. Many of the VH have low or no income. Having such equipments are next to impossible. Don't forget many of the equipment requires internet access. There is a monthly bill to pay. Many equipments also require general public to take part like iBeacon for buildings/bus. The infrastructure cost is huge. Other VH are also illiterate. Coaxing, educating them enough to use such equipments is a long and tedious task.