The roof tank
Most landed houses have one with a few hundred litres. If the mains are reported contaminated, close the inlet valve before it refills.
5
Water, fire, food
In that order. You last about three days without water and three weeks without food, and roughly three minutes without arguing about whose turn it is to boil it.
Making water safe
Ranked by how much we trust them. Number one wins every argument.
- 1
Boil it. Rolling boil, one full minute.
Kills what matters. Doesn’t remove mud or diesel, so start with the clearest water you can find.
Kills germsNeeds fuel - 2
Filter, then boil.
A filter makes floodwater clearer, not safe. Clear first, then straight back to step one.
Kills germsRemoves mud - 3
Purification tablets.
Follow the pack’s dose and wait time exactly. Cheap, light, lives in every go-bag.
No fire neededTastes like a swimming pool - 4
Sunlight, in clear PET bottles.
Clear water only. Six hours of full sun, two days if it’s overcast. The last resort the Malaysian weather is actually good at.
FreeSlow. Very slow.
Water you already have
The water heater
A storage heater is a tank of clean water. Most Malaysian instant heaters aren’t. Check yours tonight.
The toilet cistern
The tank, not the bowl. Fine for washing, and for drinking after boiling if you don’t use blue cleaning blocks.
The sky
Rain off a clean tarp into a clean bucket is the safest free water there is. Skip the first few minutes of rain off a roof.
Making fire, three ways
Lighter
Carry two. One will be the one you lent to your uncle.
Ferro rod and cotton
Cotton balls rubbed with petroleum jelly catch a spark and burn for minutes. Works when wet.
Feather sticks
Shave dry wood into curls that stay attached. Practise on a Sunday, not in the rain.
Local tinder that works: coconut husk fibre (sabut), dry bamboo shavings, dried pandan or palm fronds, and damar resin. An Orang Asli guide will light damar in a downpour while you’re still reading this paragraph.
Never indoors: charcoal, BBQs, generators. They make carbon monoxide, which has no smell and kills sleeping families every blackout season. Not the kitchen, not the car porch with the shutter down, not the condo balcony.
Food without power
The fridge rule
Keep it shut. A closed fridge keeps food cold for about 4 hours; a full freezer about 48. When in doubt, throw it out.
Cook in this order
Fresh food first, then fridge, then freezer, then the stockpile. The tins can wait; the chicken cannot.
No-cook menu
Bread, sardines, peanut butter, biscuits, fruit, Milo with powdered milk. Not glamorous. Edible.
Cooking options
Gas stove, camping stove, a brick rocket stove outdoors (see DIY Tools), or a BBQ pit in the garden.
Foraging, carefully
The golden rule: only eat what you can identify with 100 percent confidence. Malaysia is generous with food plants and equally generous with plants that will ruin your week.
| Plant | Eat | Careful |
|---|---|---|
| Coconut | Water and flesh, raw | Falling coconuts are a real hazard. Not a joke. |
| Banana | Fruit raw; banana heart (jantung pisang) cooked | Peel the heart’s tough outer layers. |
| Tapioca (ubi kayu) | Young leaves (pucuk ubi) and root, both cooked | Never raw. Peel, boil well, throw the water away. |
| Kangkung | Leaves and stems, cooked | Not from drains or polluted water. That’s where it loves to grow. |
| Pucuk paku (edible fern) | Young curled shoots, cooked | Learn the edible species from someone who knows. Many ferns look alike. |
| Papaya | Ripe fruit raw; green fruit cooked | Easy to grow in a pot. Plant one now. |
| Wild mushrooms | No | No. Not even that one. Especially not that one. |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Condo vs. rimba
| Need | In the city | In the jungle |
|---|---|---|
| Shelter | An inner room, away from glass. The stairwell beats the lift lobby. | Off the ground and never in a dry stream bed. Flash floods, snakes and leeches all travel low. |
| Fire | Camping stove by an open window. Never charcoal indoors. | Dead wood that snaps, not bends. Feather sticks. Damar resin. |
| Water | Roof tank, water heater, stored containers. | Rain off a tarp. Streams below villages or plantations: boil, always. |
| Food | The stockpile, eaten in the right order. | What you carried, plus what you can identify. Nothing else. |
Swipe the table sideways to see every column.
Myth, meet fact
MYTH Rainwater straight off the roof is fine to drink.
FACT Your roof hosts pigeons, lizards and their opinions. Boil it.
MYTH Clear water is clean water.
FACT Germs are invisible. That’s their whole business model.
MYTH If monkeys eat it, people can too.
FACT Monkeys also eat things that would put you in Hospital Kuala Lumpur.