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.

I've always had a major fear of heights since I was a small boy. Acrophobia sucks... I rather not explain the details of my fear. Honestly, it's quite embarassing. Anyways, I became sick and tired of living with this fear. Imagine going to a high raise apartment, standing on a really high balcony or staring down from a really high place and feeling a chill sensation on your legs. Gosh!

One day, I decided to face my fear directly! It's the least I could do for myself. I stumbled upon SkyTrex Adventure website and decided to go there myself. What better way to combat your fear, than to challenge face to face with it. Hey, it worked! Giving myself a huge dose of my fear was the cure after all.

For those of you who's been there, you'll know that some of the challenges there are.... well, challenging (you'll feel that it's not THAT challenging after all after completing the stations though). For the benefit of those who are hearing about this place for the first time, SkyTrex Adventure is an aerial obstacle park. Different obstacles were designed and suspended from tree to tree. Your motive is to pass through all these obstacles. They prepared three different obstacle sets; Little Adventure, Big Thrill and Extreme Challenge. BTW, I took the Extreme Challenge, just sayin'. I do not want to spoil the fun entirely for those who are planning to go there, so no spoilers here.

To register, you need to pre-book via their website. Payment is made immediately. SkyTrex Adventure is located at Shah Alam Botanical Park. From the Shah Alam KTM station you can get a taxi to the said place. Just mention Bukit Cerakah to the taxi driver. Mine didn't know the place when I mentioned "Botanical Park" and "Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam" (what its called now). The standard charge should be somewhere between RM10 - RM15. Do prepare another RM3 for the park entree fees, plus another RM3 if you wanna buy gloves from them. You can bring your own if you want.

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.

Every Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) student knows that their university life will not be completed without exploring our famous horse stable... at night. Insert hashtag #studentlife. This is the entrance to our riding arena.

As for me, I cycled here once at 3am in the morning. Hey, it was Friday night, and I was bored in the hostel. The only transport I had at that time was my awesome LeRun. Why not take it for a spin at night? The breeze was cool, the road was deserted, the street lights were dim, and the environment was quiet. Well, you can say it's quiet if you ignore the background insect sounds. I was really enthused about spotting some ghosts! Unfortunately, I came back to the hostel catching a cold. This was during my foundation days.

About 2 years after that, I came back here at about 2.30am with some of my friends. This time, we came prepared. Well, sort of. We recorded our drive there. Me with my iPhone of course! One camera at the front of the car, and the other at the back. Once reaching this place, we switched OFF the lights from the car. We took a slow drive around the area while randomly observing the environment. You would expect to see something in an eerie almost abandoned area, like a horse stable. Unfortunately, we went back empty handed. We reviewed the video once back at hostel. Nope, no luck.