Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) is definitely a place to go for nature lovers. It's located at Selangor, just on the outskirts of Kepong and Selayang. There are various facilities provided there, such as; badminton court, tennis court, football field, jungle tracking (with canopy walk), primary school, auditorium, museum, waterfall and the list just goes on. Just head on to their website for more details. They update it quite often.

For me, I love going for a 'walk' along the forest. You can observe various nature wonders there! I've covered a bit about their famous camphor trees in a previous post. In this post, I would like to share some images I took few months back. All these images were already shared in my Instagram account.


There are about three main ponds in FRIM, and this one is my favorite. This pond is located just at the back of the Arapaima pond. Yeah, they have few Arapaima's in FRIM.



These are FRIM famous camphor trees. Notice how the leaves of different trees never touch each other? It's a special trait of this tree called crown-shyness.


Those fibrous roots grew really wide across that area! Now, try to imagine if those were long slimy tentacles... Kinda reminds me of Davy Jones. Nope not the real one, I'm talking about the one from the movie.


Apparently, this particular species of butterfly is quite rare. If that's the case, I'm quite lucky to get this shot! Via quick Googling, I found out that this butterfly is called Fluffy-Tit (Zeltus Etolus). Cute name.


Nature is simply amazing and beautiful. Had anyone ever wondered how come water is ALWAYS flowing from the top of the hill all the way to the bottom, 24/7? The behind-the-scenes works of nature is not easy to comprehend sometimes.


Not sure if it's that, but I think this mushroom is called Pigskin Poison Puffball. That's quite a mouthful to pronounce. If I got the name right, this one is quite poisonous! Just sayin', if the name is not obvious enough.

Camphor were known as 'Malaya Chandan' in the Vedic scriptures. This was simply because, at one time, Malaysia were famous for our camphor's. Well, time changes things, and we are well known over the world for other things now.

The picture you see above are camphor trees (Dryobalanops Aromatica or Borneo Camphor if you will) at Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM). One special trait of these trees are, leaves from different trees would not touch each other. So, when you look up, you can see a map-like view up above. This phenomenon is called 'crown shyness'. They look quite cool when you see them on a sunny day.

There are a couple of places at FRIM where you can spot these trees. One particular place (probably THE place to see these trees) is now restricted to public access after achieving their UNESCO world heritage status. You have to pay to enter into that area, where you will be escorted with a representative. He will bring you around, explaining some research done by FRIM in that area, plus of course, showing you these trees. For the benefit of those who are curious about the said location; it's beside the Arapaima pond. It was quite a disappointment for me, personally, who frequented FRIM for jogging during the weekends since I was 6 years old, and now not be able to enter into that area freely. In fact, I studied in the primary school in FRIM. Ah, good times :-)

After some explanation by the people in charge there, apparently some joggers who enter into this area steals some plants. One particular plant is Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma longifolia), planted there for research purposes. My humble request to anyone who's reading this post, please do not damage or steal plants, especially if it's planted for research.

Another place where you can spot these trees are, at the jogging trek, on the way to the entrance of the canopy walk hike. There will be one part of the trek where you will be walking up a steep hill. You can spot these trees on the way up the steep hill.