durians and history (Lost In Translation)

durians and history

I had a weird dream again.
This time, I was back in school and was in my dreaded History class. Except that this time, the teacher was, for some reason, teaching us the history behind how durians were discovered in Malaysia. And apparently they originated from Malacca, discovered by people from Kluang (my hometown). Interesting, eh?

So apparently back in the 1800's, some rich tycoons from Kluang sent some slaves to Malacca in search for the mythical fruit - never seen, only heard of by traders - that tastes like paradise. Apparently. So there they went, looking for a fruit no one's ever seen or even know what it looks like. These days, it takes only about two hours to drive from Kluang to Malacca. But back , they either had to walk or ride some animal nonsense ride or something. But since these guys were slaves, they obviously walked the whole 250km+.

Eventually, after a grueling, tiresome journey, they reached there only to find that people there didn't know what they were too. It was pointless. Impossible - unless they ate a lot of unnamed fruits and whichever was the best must be the durian.

After weeks and weeks of searching, they finally came to a conclusion that such a fruit did not exist. They could not find anything that matches the descriptions from the rumours. But at the same time they also know that if they headed back empty handed, they'd be punished by the rich tycoons. Tired and frustrated, they decided to heck with it, they're gonna find the ugliest, most repugnant smelling fruit they could get their hands on to bring back to their masters.

And lo and behold, they found this...

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