Bicycling at the Taman Botani Negara Shah Alam

Recently after a long, long while, we revisited the Shah Alam Botanical Gardens or Taman Botani Negara Shah Alam (also known as the Taman Pertanian Bukit Cahaya Sri Alam) to do a bit of bicycling there. The previous times we came here, we'd missed the ornamental garden. But this time we found it, walked around it and took pictures of it from the best vantage point - the lookout tower across the lake.

It was very, very difficult to cycle on a rented bike because the one I got was very wobbly. Actually, A said my knees were wobbly, not so much the bike. Yeah, right! Maybe.

We rode up to the Taman Haiwan (Animal Park? Mini Zoo?) but were quite upset with what we saw. The birds were confined in cages too small, most of the porcupines were quite bald, only the deer had more space to roam. Do we really need to have distressed fauna in a botanical garden that needs only to emphasise on our myriad flora?

There were some 'art installations' we found, including the 'plants in denims' below. Just two of the trees/plants of note that we came across are the very tall poisonous Rengas and the colourful Eugenia oleina (alt: Syzygium campanulatum). On the whole, the gardens need to be better maintained in order to make it a major attraction.  

Note: A previous blog post on Taman Pertanian Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam is dated 20 November 2011.