Nine hectares of primary rainforest that was never cleared, in the middle of the city, with a canopy walkway and no charge.
This is the strangest thing in Kuala Lumpur and most visitors walk past the gate.
Bukit Nanas — Pineapple Hill — is about 9 hectares of primary lowland dipterocarp rainforest, gazetted as a forest reserve in 1906, which makes it the oldest permanent forest reserve in Malaysia.
It has never been cleared. This is the original forest that covered everything here before the tin prospectors arrived in 1857, still standing, in the middle of a capital city, with the KL Tower rising out of the middle of it.
What it is like
Within two minutes of the entrance the traffic noise drops and the temperature falls several degrees. It is dark, humid and green, with tall straight dipterocarps, buttress roots, lianas and a great deal of insect noise.
There are marked trails — Jelutong, Merbau, Penarahan and others, named for the tree species — totalling a couple of kilometres, and a canopy walkway suspended in the trees.
Wildlife: long-tailed macaques, plantain squirrels, monitor lizards, and a surprising range of birds. Nothing dangerous.
There is a small information centre and a herbal garden.
The jelutong tree
When the KL Tower was built in the 1990s, a mature jelutong on the site was preserved rather than felled, at a reported cost of several hundred thousand ringgit, and the tower’s retaining structure was designed around it.
Whether the sum was well spent is a fair question. That it was spent at all, on one tree, in the 1990s, in a city building as fast as this one was, is genuinely notable.
The honest bit
It is small. Ninety minutes covers it and the trails are short.
It is also humid to a degree that surprises people — this is not a shaded park, it is a rainforest interior, and the still air under a closed canopy at midday is heavy.
And the forest has been under pressure for a century: it was around 17 hectares originally and is now about half that, with land taken for roads and development, most recently and controversially for a proposed access road that drew significant public opposition.
Practical
Free, open daily during daylight hours.
Monorail to Bukit Nanas, or walk in from Jalan Raja Chulan.
The forest connects to the KL Tower site, so the natural visit is: walk up through the forest, take the tower, and come down. That saves the unpleasant walk up the access road and is much the best way to do both.
Repellent, water, and shoes with grip — the boardwalks are slick after rain, which here means most afternoons.
