Pencinta Alam means Lover of Nature in malay. Its a club where everything seems to Go Green~
Warning: Badly taken photos, and there might be some wrong information since I got what I can catch. Also, information overload.
Enjoy!
After going to Batu Caves, we headed towards FRIM, it actually stands for Forest Research Instituition Malaysia. There they plant the trees for research of it durability and stuff. @-@
This is Mr. Ang. He's our tour guide through FRIM. He works there, I think. Most of us probably underestimated him, thinking he's just some old man to lecture us. But oh no, we started going,"Uncle, you superman, ah?" or "I think he can walk with his eyes closed!" Yup, he's fitter than us young people! You'll see ;)
After a lecture from Mr. Ang about some trees in FRIM, we head towards a park, then to the museum.
Views of the beautiful park.
Big fish!
Here's my first picture of the museum's interior. It's the ground floor. The museum has many things, from all the olden things made of wood to seed and leaves and wooden chairs :>
Mr. Ang explaining to us about that board, which was showing us the types of forests?
I forgotten what this is, but it looks like a mini wardrobe.
Here is a real tree stump, in the picture it says Banir Keranji, the malay name, and also, Buttress of Dialiun platysepalum.
Here's wonder man and a tree trunk, according to the picture, its malay name is Meraga.
There were scenes like this for display. I'm guessing those animals are stuffed.
Here are kompangs, they are like the Malaysian version of drums. Everything there displayed are related to wood or the forest. So these are made of wood. And rotan. And leather?
Real trunks and trees for display.
Things that are made from wood, a ship replica, fisher man traps? And the last I can't make sense of.
A real ship!
Here's a sampan. Its like a fisher man's boat.
These are keris. They are malay weapons. Its like a long knife or a short sword ^^ The Sultans now also have the keris in their official photographs. The ones they use are metal or gold though.
Peti duit, or saving box. They have invented locks then, I see.
Here's a by-hand grinder. The machine one is beside it, and I didn't take a picture :/
The hallway of the first floor.
Erm, I don't really know what is this, but its a display, a replica of a place, I think.
Seeds of plants and trees. All the names are scientific or in malay though. Sorry!
Display of leaves! That flash -.-
The booth itself. On the top of the right hand corner, that is the leaf of a plant called 'Ghost Spring Tree'. You can see it later on.
Here are the lovebirds~ They moved when I took the picture >:/
This is the mechanism to weave cloth! I didn't get to touch it. I thought you aren't supposed to. Twinny did. She said she was hyper over it. Typical her :D
This might be a gasing. A spinning top. I might not be sure, since there aren't lables.
A wooden vase.
Ah Ha! This is a peti sejuk. I liked to surprise the people who wasn't really checking out the things there. An olden refrigerator!
A royal marriage bed, the sign said. Apparently, it is used for couples who don't know each other well, and the bridegroom is to sleep at the opening of the bed. The bride then has to ask the permission of the bridegroom to exit the bed every morning and the bridegroom has to use his wit to think of a creative way for the bride to exit.
That is what I remember it said.
I couldn't understand what this is since its sign was in malay.
If you look at the previous picture, behind the bed there is more of these odd things.
More pictures of the park.
I was exited to find this flower! QvQ
From here on, We are going toward the jungle, and I will be explaining a lot about the plants there.
Prepare......
We were in front of the pond, and Mr. Ang explained to us that this tree's seeds, the round shaped ones, will only 'fly' when they are whithered. These healthy green ones can't 'fly'.
The rain tree. Also called the five o'clock tree. It is because when there are water droplets on these trees, you will feel like its raining if you are standing under this tree. As for the five o'clock nickname, it is because its leaves will close in the evening and open in the morning. Taiping, Perak are famous for these trees, they grow leaning over the roads and over the lake, making the whole place very beautiful.
Additional idiots who insist to pose for me.
Hah, John, your face :P
Here, we have reached the outside of the jungle. It still looked like a giant park with large trees. Never underestimate it!
The picture shows the bayan (or mayan, I couldn't hear. ) tree. A lot of animals are attracted to this tree during its fruiting season. Bees make their nests in their trunks.
There are many ficus trees. This is one. The roots grow in such a way that the dried leaves are trapped and they can use it as organic fertilizers.
Bamboo. Used by asians for furniture.
Palm tree. World largest leaves. That's Pn. Leong, the Pencinta Alam club teacher advisor.
The journey! One of the rare shots that don't mean anything.
The kulim tree. Its leaves can be eaten or made into perfume. The leaves smells like prawns to me though. I don't like prawns :/
Do you see anything? An elephant maybe? This is the Simpoh Gajah, gajah meaning elephant in malay. Mr. Ang stuck the leaf of the Simpoh Gajah on its trunk and told us, "There, ears, eye, nose, tusk. See from this view." Needless to say, we were fascinated.
This is the Liana Tree, or wood climber or the Tarzan tree. Familiar? This tree is important to stabilize the condition of the forest.
This tree is called Merbau. The interior of the first church in Malaysia was built using this wood.
Engkabang is its name. The seeds, I think, that the guy is holding (another odd person that went into the picture -.-), can be eaten by boiling, frying or grinded into powder. Mostly eaten by the Sarawakians and Sabahans. It's oil is also used to make lipstick and chocolate that doesn't melt.
Crappy picture! Concentrate on the leaf, find two 'eyes'. They are actually the oil gland of the tree. I didn't get the name of this plant.
This is one of the interesting trees. "Its pictures are in the National Geographic. Do you know how hard is it to get a photo in the National Geographic?" Mr. Ang said with a sense of pride.
The Pokok Kapur. Scientists believe that there is hormones of rejection in this plants. Like magnets, Mr. Ang said. It also help hot air to vantilate and to let sunlight reach the ground so its seedlings can grow. It is use to make moth balls and tiger balm oil.
The Jelutong tree. There is a picture of its seed later on. It's liquid was used to make chewing gum, the organic chewing gum. Now, the tree is used for pencils, large, expensive types of picture frames, soles of women's high heels and a type of wooden shoe of the Melaka Baba Nyonyas.
I remember someone giving a remaked, "What a waste!"
The Candle light tree. "See? It's very straight right? Candle light tree." ._.
From here on, it started to get hard to write notes down since Mr. Ang started moving faster.
I didn't get the name of this tree but I know it is used by the Chinese-Malaysians as coffins.
Here! In the leaves booth, The Ghost Spring Tree! It is used by the orang asli to concieve.
QAQ I look like a mess. This is also a ficus tree. Mr. Ang says this tree is, "Only in FRIM." Boil the roots to concieve.
Pictures of the Ingarburung trunk.
These leaves, if you take a withered one (I'm not so sure, Mr. Ang gave me a withered one.), press it, you can smell a sort of smell. The closest I can come up with is curry? A weird smelling curry?
This is a Melastroma? I couldn't get its spelling. The patterns are beautiful, no?
Wild Yam tree.
Here, Mr. Ang asked us to count the years of the tree. To count the tree's years is by rings, but, in Malaysia, the trees do not go through winter, so they grow all the time and do not make rings. Well, we did try to find rings to count.
Fish Head Bark. LOL. I only caught that.
I did not catch anything Mr. Ang said about this tree. I learnt that the only way to hear him, is to be the one directly behind him. I was the only one who is crazy enough to force myself there and take notes. So I missed a few trees through here, since I was third in line.
Bad picture. We came across an area with water splashing through on our way.
Then, we had to either go around or under this large trunk which should be fallen or growing badly sideways and I got twinny's notebook badly dirtied. Here, I finally mange to over take and stay behind Mr. Ang's back.
Mr. Ang continued on as leisurely as seemed impossible for an old man who suggested a more 'challenging' route for us young people. I swear, as soon as he chose the challenging route, it was filled with twigs everywhere, small narrow routes and I couldn't over take the people at the front so I could take notes. And I tripped a few times due to clumsiness and the stupidity of jotting down notes while walking.
The trail full of leaves, roots and twigs.
And finally, we manage to come out of the forest!
Twinny's here. She looks funny.
Coming out of the forest, we reach a road with stones everywhere. We rested while we wait for the rest of the people to appear. That was before Kit Yi found she has a leech crawing on her sock. She panicked, and Ka Heng to the rescue! I realised then, that leeches are really small. Before they suck your blood. And I found one. On my leg, a tiny dot, sucking my blood.
"Ka Heng!"
After that, Ka Heng became a busy guy running around with his salt spray, saving the world. :D
We continued then, up and up the road, and Mr. Ang told me leeches are also used for medical purposes nowadays.
Halfway through, Mr. Ang pointed out a place where the orang asli stays. "There, behind the netting." It took me awhile to notice.
When we reached the pathway forking out towards the canopy walk, we stopped and wait for the rest again and Mr. Ang showed us some Jelutong seeds he found there. The seeds were very familiar to me and I realised I used it for a buddhist event before.
The path leading to the canopy walkway looks mostly like this. Little dirt stairs...
One of these pictures are the pictures of a durian and mangosteen tree. I can't figure out which @-@
After climbing up a long way and getting awfully tired after exerting myself so much, still forcing myself to keep up after few seconds of rests in between, we finally reached the canopy walkway. To find it closed.
A rubber tree beside the balcony outside the canopy walkway.
Everyone started resting, since the climb also took a toll on them. The red shirt girl is a ballerina, so she is still going strong. The guy in black shorts and the one he is speaking to are quite strong too, and they usuallly over take me. The green shirt is my sub photographer!
Then, a senior debated with me about my stamina to hike in the first of the line. I sit infront of the computer all day long. I used to dance k-pop dances for fun, but I've been out of practice so... yup. I'm a person bad at sports. Probably I was very motivated to keep going since I really, really want information about the various trees.
The balcony outside the walkway
Pictures of the canopy walkway surroundings.
After that, we started to head downwards.
That is how the steps look like as we went down.
We went through stones, dirt, then large bricks as we go lower and lower.
Bamboo.
Good ol' people overtaking me. Probably because I slipped a few times and I started to have churnings in my stomach. We started to hear sounds of water too.
We reached water! I thought we were going to stop here but we actually still have another short journey to reach the real waterfall.
We rested again as we wait for the others to catch up. I wanted to take a picture of the 'superman'. I'm guessing he's 55< since he said he has his pension to live his life. He says he's 25.
He also said he came from a malay village, so he is more 'wild'.
I also ate biscuit waffles from Sharon just in case if it was gastric I was suffering from.
We reached the waterfalls! The journey towards it has many slips and trips from me. There are people in the waters and also a group which was having a picnic on a large slab of stone.
I changed my clothes at a portable toilet booth a walk down from the waterfall.
After this, most of the pictures are contributed by Ching Yee and her camera!
Water, water and more water! It was heaven to wash off the sweat after all that jungle trekking.
My feet. I don't think I'm
that short. Am I?
I spot a certain someone's purple ball...
Miscellaneous scenes around the waterfall.
Many pipes appearing as we trek near the water areas. They are good to hold on to when I slip. :P
Beautiful trees around the waterfall...
Orange moss!
Many views of the bridge.
The water leads all the way down to this area. The portable toilets are somewhere to the right.
Found a model posing. Hehehehe. I snuck a picture like the stalker I am. :)
I'd like to dedicate this post to FRIM, Mr. Ang, Ching Yee, who helped me with the pictures and my Dublin friend, Ivana.
I learnt a lesson not to write as you trek, especially at the narrow lanes or climbing through large stones.
And I'm not a reporter or journalist! I just wanted to have a story to go with my pictures. I mean, a picture of a very interesting tree is just a picture of a tree if you don't have information to go with it right?
Hope you learnt some things from this post. Also, a reminder, things in this post might have some wrong information!
Till next time!
