lepak day

I am supposed to call Forestry Department and arranged for an interview with the director to get map on forest in Selangor. Unfortunately the director was not available and I spent my day continue reading Joe's blog. So, for the whole day today, I am glued on my five-wheel drive. Office phone on my left, handphone on my right. Elbows on the table and nose about 30cm from my laptop's monitor. Soon, I would need another glasses aside from my sunglasses. Time to check on my lucky bamboo pot.

I love forest. Make me choose between seaside and forest, I would easily choose forest. I like the green, the white water river, the humidity and the colours. Oh my the colours! Multi shade of greens. Beautiful! But no insects please!!! No cockroaches!

Last week, I had to cover the launching of Forest Day at Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve. It was about 30km away from my office. I never knew that there is a forest reserve in Ayer Hitam. All I know about Ayer Hitam is that it is a landfill area, thanks to Karam Singh Walia. Actually it is the oldest forest to be reserved in Selangor. laaa... rupanya!

A friend who offered to show the way to the forest reserve also lost her way. Apala lu Ta! (She hates people call her Ta like alif ba ta!hehehe). Finally after lot of wrong turns, we finally found the place.

Anyway, who would have thought that next to a monsoon drain, near a housing estate, is one of the few educational forest reserve in Selangor. From the outside it may not be impressive but inside aduh aduh duh! So beautiful. I received booklet like info on the forest reserve, jointly written by Paiman Bawon and Amat Ramsa Yaman.

Browsing the book, I learnt that there are plenty of unspoiled rivers deep inside the forest. There are Sungai Rasau. Rasau means dead trees in Temuan language. The name derived from many dead trees found near the river. Then there is Sungai Biring derived from Muring trees that were found abundance there. Sungai Nasih got its name from Selasih treee which are used by the indegenous people as part of their staple food. Unfortunately Sungai Biring and Sungai Nasih are badly polluted because of uncontrolled developments near the area.

Then there are the white water (jeram). Jeram Belanga because it shaped like belanga or periuk (paneh in Tamil and pot in English .. see the P words hehehe). By the way the orang asli respected the place and said that it is still used by the spirit of the jungle. Then there is Jeram Perigi or well in English. It was said that the area is too clean. There is not even moat on the rocks and stones so again the org asli believe that spirit and creatures frequent the place (alamak takutnya!)

These beautiful and serene rivers situated far inside the forest, so I asked one of the Perhilitan (rangers) whether it is possible to hike to these places, he said it would take at least a day to go to the white water and another day to hike back. ayayayaya! Can we take a ride in the heli then?