Bukit Cerakah (01): That "Damn Hill" (?)

Last time they said that the origin of this place name is from the word "celaka" @ damn, pronounced cerakah because the locals couldn't pronounce it properly. Correct me if I’m wrong. Later on, they upgrade this place and gave it a better name, Taman Pertanian Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam @ Shah Alam Malaysia Algriculture Park. The latest re-naming was Taman Botanikal Negara @ National Botanical Park.

After many years since my last visit when I was, like, 10 maybe, I decided to pay homage to one of my childhood places. After all, it’s just a 5 minute drive from my house.



Surprisingly, the car park was pretty full though it’s only 10 on a Sunday morning. Turned out that many people like to come here for cycling activity and to hit the outdoor adventure activities (flying fox, paintball shooting and the likes), we found this out at the bicycle renting center where all the good bikes had already been taken up and we had to book and wait in the long waiting list for the next batch of bikes.

So we took the tour bus instead, which in a way was more convenient of me to catch a glimpse of the changes that the place had gone through.



Which I may say, yielded a disappointing result. Many of the places of attraction were poorly maintained, I’d say, what with the buildings looking sad and dilapidated, needing repair, mostly unopened to the public and the likes. The plant - based parks were a jungle of weeds and crumbling replicas, which did not live up to the name of National Botanical Park.

The only place that remained unchanged is the 4 Season House. It was spring time so flowers were in bloom. Enter the "refrigerator" to enjoy the season's best. You'll get what I mean if you visit this place yourself.





After the near-freezing experience in 4 Season House fridge, we took a walk at the nearby Mushroom park which had nothing special to offer except for mosquitoes at different breeding stages (sarcasm) and old mushrooms. But I snapped this delicious flower called bunga kantan which was in full bloom. This flower can be cooked up or eaten raw in several Malay dishes.



Ok, so I give you some nice views to ooh and aah at. Not much though since I omitted most of them due to such embarrassing details.


The watchtower which had such steep stairs that I crawled on all 4 at certain parts.



You can find more info on the place here: http://www.malaysiavacationguide.com/shahalam.html

Suffice to say, I was disappointed with the outing so permit me to use this word... DAMN!