Selangor stories - Teja on the Horizon

If you've somehow run out of things to do in Kuala Lumpur, you can pop across into the adjacent state of Selangor. Bukit Gasing (or Gasing Hill) in Petaling Jaya is a rare bit of Klang Valley forest. It was once a rubber plantation; abandoned to nature, the equatorial climate reclaimed it in less than a century, resulting in a pleasant urban forest. The green spaces of the Klang Valley are under constant development pressure. This is why the majority of surviving green spaces and forest pockets are hilly rather than flat. It is a lot harder (read: more expensive) to develop such terrain. It's rather sad, if you think about it, that this impracticality is the Malaysian citizen's most effective saviour of green lungs and access to nature. Consequently, Gasing Hill is a very popular forest park, drawing hikers, joggers, and ramblers, from miles around. It is very busy on the weekends, less so on weekdays. But there will likely still be people then, uncles and aunties from the immediate residential area around it. So hiking in Gasing Hill feels safe even if you came alone. Gasing Hill community forest Bukit Gasing Forest Park vs. other hiking options in Kuala Lumpur If you are visiting Kuala Lumpur and looking for a bit of nature recharge in a real forest, the closest and most accessible forest is KL Forest Eco Park (formerly known as Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve, which I personally feel is the more appealing name). Bukit Nanas is a real rainforest, despite its tiny size. By that I mean, it is the last remnant of the original rainforest that once covered the Kuala Lumpur city centre. However, because of the amenities that have been added to make exploring it more comfortable, hiking through Bukit Nanas feels less like hiking through a real rainforest. It has the feeling of a public park, even though you are surrounded by original rainforest trees. Bukit Gasing, despite being 'only' a fairly recent secondary forest, and a former plantation to boot, feels more like hiking in a real forest. Although there are pavement and steps near the entrance, the trails are maintained mostly by frequent passage, but otherwise left to nature. Another accessible forest is in FRIM, towards the northern edge of Kuala Lumpur. It is a larger forest, has more amenities (Bukit Gasing has none), and has other attractions besides hiking. However, between the two, Bukit Gasing is free to enter. (Not that FRIM is expensive.) Trail in Bukit Gasing Forest Park What is the best way to go to Gasing Hill? This part of Petaling Jaya is not really conveniently linked to public transportation. The best option is to come by car. Traffic is often heavy between Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya, because the latter is a key residential suburb for KL workers and businesses. But if you go earlier in the morning it should be ok, because the rush hour traffic is just beginning, and mostly goes the other way. The alternative is to use ride share facilities through one of the e-hailing apps. As the location is quite urban, it should not be too difficult to get a car both ways. You could take public transport, depending on where you start from. This will probably be the LRT train, in which case you'll alight at the Taman Jaya station, and have to walk to Gasing Hill. Considering it's not really a large forest, it seems not worth it to spend almost as much time to get there in trains and walking, as you would spend in the forest. However, it would be the lowest carbon option. (Although, arguably if you're getting off at Taman Jaya station, you might as well go to the Taman Jaya Park instead, which is less of a walk!) What was it like to hike in Gasing Hill Community Forest? Bukit Gasing is effectively a community forest. They even have a website, where you can find a map of the trails. However, to be honest, unless you are the type who needs to explore every nook, this is a forest where you don't really need a map. Entering Gasing Hill forest After the simple archway at the entrance, you encounter the paved early portions of the trail. Soon, it begins to branch away. When I went hiking there for the first time I was apprehensive, because I did not know which branch to choose. I was not sure if I could find my way back, since there did not seem to be trail signage. However, Bukit Gasing is very small, and the many trails inside are fairly close to each other, that you'd wander onto another one even if you did accidentally take the wrong fork. One morning was enough to satisfy my initial apprehensions of not knowing which trail to choose. Unlike some other nature trails, the ones at Bukit Gasing don't really 'go' anywhere. That's why there's no information to indicate trail names, its estimated hiking length and time, and what to find at the end. This is a rambling forest. Trail runners and 'hashers' in Gasing Hill A common sight in the Bukit Gasing forest are trail markers left by various trail running groups and hasher clubs. Although generally made of paper, there's clearly a lot of groups that do trail running in Bukit Gasing. One might wonder at what point the trail markers would start to qualify as litter. My forest wisdom tells me, that trail runners have come by here I also saw signs posted on trees which seemed to be an amenity rather than ad hoc bills, providing the QR code for the trail map of Bukit Gasing. While not strictly necessary for this particular forest, it was unexpectedly 21st century. In hindsight, such a digital map is also probably a better local solution considering our low maintenance culture but high mobile data penetration. A digital map accessed from the internet does not suffer from the elements and requires no physical upkeep. Humidity in Gasing Hill forest The terrain in Bukit Gasing is varied. The trails are sometimes steep and sometimes even. It can even descend into little creek beds. I went on a morning following a night of rain. Malaysia is exceptionally humid generally to begin with (usually over 80%), but the very air was almost wet on the skin within the forest thickets, and especially close to the stream. It dampened the late morning heat somewhat, and I was glad for it. But it was so damp that my iPhone5 spontaneously shorted. I'm not kidding. Now, before the Samsung cybertroopers say anything, this phone had survived a lot of grief from my travels. Despite never having pretensions for adventure travel, it has bravely come on hikes, speedboats, and cave crawling. It survived being kept next to the engine of a quad bike being driven across the searing hot Omani desert, a jaunt that melted the phone case of one phone and damaged a second one kept together with it. It has suffered being held by briny wet hands, due to my penchant for seaside locations. Despite all that, it had only shorted once, when I dropped it in salt water on a rainy day in the Maldives. Even then, it powered back on once it dried out. I had this phone in my pocket, and it had no contact with water whatsoever. I did not drop it, nor was it even particularly shaken. Just the sheer humidity alone seemed to have shorted it! I dunno, I reckon maybe that morning it was close to 100%?! Among the last images I took before my phone shorted Emerging on the back end of Gasing Hill forest I did not have a particular destination in mind. Despite its name, there isn't really a peak for Gasing Hill. I suppose there would be one point in the undulating terrain where it is technically the highest. And I guess there's a reasonable view from one of the high ground points. But in terms of the lookout peak, it's not really that kind of forest. So I simply decided to follow one trail and see if it gets to an end, or lead me back where I came. But the trail rose steadily, and eventually I came upon a steep but climbable slope. I wasn't sure if it was passable, and contemplated turning back. Beyond, I could sort of see a kind of low wall. Perhaps this was the other end of the forest. I had seen on Google Maps that there was a road running by the forest on that end. I thought about my dead phone, and considered that I had no means of communication or navigation if I went back in and somehow failed to find my way back out (yep, I was pretty risk averse back then!). So I decided to climb the slope. Pretty steep Then, when I got up there, I decided to scale the low wall. And I found myself transported to the concrete jungle once more. Coming out of the forest I looked down a long corridor of concrete floor. The top of the embankment I just clambered over, I surmised. It was flanked by a row of cylindrical columns. I had pulled myself up through one of the gaps between them. The road was up beyond another short embankment on the other side. On top of the embankment The road embankment was too sheer and tall to climb over, though. So I walked along the path. Eventually the path emerged onto road, and I found myself on the main road that skirts around the forest. Later, looking at the map on the Bukit Gasing community website, I realised that I had accidentally gone into the utility company's reserve zone. I guess you do need the map for something! Back into the forest I thought I would walk back to my car by road. Anticipating an easy walk compared to the forest, I was quickly disillusioned. As you walk down the road in front of the row of houses, one house in particular has really aggressive dogs. They are left unleashed. I don't mean that they just bark and growl at you, nor even that they advance threateningly a little bit. It's not a situation where if you simply ignore them, and unthreateningly keep a distance from their house, you can pass. They will actually come chase you at your heels. I sure hope the dogs like the guy's neighbours, at least. It would be quite miserable for them to go through this every day. After two or three attempts, each time the dogs growing angrier, I decided to return via the forest after all. I found a different entry point, and plunged back into the woods onto a different trail. This is how I knew how easy the forest is. Despite being on a completely different trail than the one I was originally on, I simply kept walking. Sooner than I thought, I was at a little bridge over the creek, close to where the trails were paved again. And I was back where I started soon after that. Epilogue: Hiking Gasing Hill again I returned to Bukit Gasing because my couchsurfer wanted to go hiking again, and insinuated that I could not give him useful or interesting suggestions. As in, hiking locations he didn't already know about. So I took him to Gasing Hill. This time, we took the other fork on the trail, which I had not taken before. Jason was suitably impressed, until he asked whether the trail leads to the peak. I told him, there was no peak. He literally stopped in his tracks in male astonishment that there was a hiking place that was not all about conquering a vantage point. I stopped in female astonishment that he was considering turning back, just because there wasn't a peak. But he rallied, and decided he would appoint a peak-like destination, and we shall attempt to reach it. We did, and from that vantage point I could see where I climbed up to the utility reserve, on my first hike. Hey, that's where I was! Fancy a hike in a local community forest? Check out Gasing Hill!

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tejaonthehorizon