This story happened to my dad, while he was still in his younger days, around 18 to 21 years old. He was out fishing with his friends. They were all in separate boats, not too far away from each other at sea. It was not really for a living, more for leisure. It would be a bonus if they caught a good catch that day. He was hoping to catch fish and prawns.

Without realising, it was soon going to reach dusk(maghrib, the prayer time for muslims, and the time devils are most active), my dad reached out to switch on his oil lamp while his friends called out to finish catching his last fish and prawns.

It was soon turning dark. My dad reached out to the big net to free the prawns from the net. He did it one by one, turning around and placing the prawns onto his boat while he did so. While he was busy, he heard crunching noises, as if someone was munching prawns, he turned around and got the shock of his life. There in front of him on the other corner of the boat was the pontianak, munching on his prawns. From the dimly lit light from the oil lamp he could see its face, it wasn’t so pleasant. Its face was badly decomposing, with flesh hanging from its face. It had long black hair and it’s long white robe had dried blood stains which had turned brownish yellow.( my dad figured it must have died during the world war judging from its blood stains). All this happened in a few seconds and my dad fainted.

By this time, his friends were already calling out,”Ju, kau nampak pontianak tu tadi?”(Ju, did you see the pontianak just now?) When my dad woke up, he was already at home. He had a fever for the next 3 days as soon as he reached home.

When he recovered, he gathered up his courage to go back to his boat and he saw at the corner of his boat where the pontianak once stood, was a few crushed prawns. My dad figured it must have just wanted to taste the juices of the prawns and give a little scare while doing it.

This story was related to me by my dad, whose friends told him and my grandmother what had happened on that scary day.