If you see mangoes on the ground in Singapore as a tourist you might be tempted to pick one up from the ground, not from a tree which seems antisocial, and, if the mango on the ground looks half brown and when you kick it is crawling with ants, cut off the bad part with your handy Swiss Army knife or plastic picnic knife. 'Don't!' My Singaporean friends and expats advise me, "Anything which falls to the ground gets covered in ants!
"When we run though the jungle, you daren't even put your bag or backpack on the ground. Ants crawl all over it. If you pick it up and put it on your back, then the ants crawl all over you and bite you. You have to hang your bag on a tree - first checking the branch isn't covered with ants."
That explains why the local family I watch picking mangoes have not bothered with windfalls but are retrieving mangoes from the tree with a long-handled picker.
Mangoes are on the trees along the Upper East Coast Road in Singapore, in May 2015. 9Not to be confused with East Coast Parkway which is a motorway.
"When we run though the jungle, you daren't even put your bag or backpack on the ground. Ants crawl all over it. If you pick it up and put it on your back, then the ants crawl all over you and bite you. You have to hang your bag on a tree - first checking the branch isn't covered with ants."
That explains why the local family I watch picking mangoes have not bothered with windfalls but are retrieving mangoes from the tree with a long-handled picker.
Mangoes are on the trees along the Upper East Coast Road in Singapore, in May 2015. 9Not to be confused with East Coast Parkway which is a motorway.
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