Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Putrajaya Agriculture Heritage Park

Showcases the commercialized crops in Malaysia, Taman Warisan Pertanian, or Agriculture Heritage Park is unique over its kind, where the park serves not only for leisure, educational and tourism purposes, but as a living museum. From major Malaysia comodity crops such as rubber, cocoa, oil palm, coconut, to more locally available fruits and herbs such as jambu (guava), jackfruits, mata kucing (longan), serai (lemon grass), sweet corn, pineapple, delima (Punica granatum), roselle, durian (the king of fruits), pitaya (dragon fruit), black pepper, coffee and many more, the park is simply a good place for a plant biology lesson.The photo above shows Ling Shing standing in front of an orchad of jackfruit trees.

Information center for the park. The right photo shows the staircase to the guest resting area.

Our photo at the guest resting area, just a few stairs away from the information center.

Expecting a free admission, we were paying RM 2 entrance fee per person. Of course, with that amount of money, we had spent more than one and a half hours inside the park, non-stop walking for most of the time.

Uphilling walking path after the entrance, with both sides flanked by guava trees. The buildings far behind are the apartments in Putrajaya.

The whole park is built on a hill. After 30 minutes of climbing uphill on winding concrete pathway (lower left), we reached the observation platform (upper row), where we took a short rest to catch our shortening breath. We could see Putra Mosque afar, from the platform.

Jackfruit (top), lemon grass (lower left), pineapple (lower middle) and roselle that can be found in the park. In the park, we have the chance to take a close observation on the fruit trees (below).


The most interesting part of the park should be the rubber tree plot with different clones of rubber trees. The plot features how the whole process of latex, from the collection of latex in milky colloid, coagulation with formic acid, and lastly the compression of coagulated latex into pieces of rubber.

Rubber tree plot (upper left) with more than 70 different clones of rubber trees. The latex collecting method was demonstrated in the plot (upper right). The hand operated machine, used to compress the coagulated latex into thinner pieces of rubber (lower left) and the completely dried rubber pieces at the end of the process (lower right). A kampung look hut is built at the middle of the plot, serves as the rubber exhibition center with some nice beautiful flora nearby (below).

Heavily ladened feet always make us hungry. Agriculture Heritage Park provides our need with food stalls, ranged from local delicacies, chicken rice, roti John, fruit juices, to famous Satay Kajang Haji Samuri.

This park, for us, is more worth a visit than Putrajaya Botanical Garden. At least, we would have the chance to get to know how the trees, where the fruits come from look like. For example, for the first time, we knew that pitaya is the fruit from a kind of cactus tree, and how are longan and jackfruit trees look like. The park is definately a place where we can learn something new.

We were in fact "lured" to the park by the "Karnival Jom Makan Buah", or "Come and Eat Fruits Carnival" held in front of the park's entrance. The carnival, held on 8-9 August 2010, was not as interesting as the park itself. With around 20 to 30  of stalls selling local fruits, the carnival was lack in discounts, nor the variety of local fruits. However, we still managed to bought some sweet corn, mangosteen, mango juice, and a lime tree for our garden from the carnival.

Fruit stalls and the fruits in Jom Makan Buah Carnival.

Located in Precinct 16, Putrajaya, Taman Warisan Pertainan orchard opens from 9.00 am to 7.00 pm (closed temporary 12.15- 2.45 pm every Friday). The food court opens until 11 pm. The best way to get to the park is by car. Or, you can hoop onto a ERL to Putrajaya Station, and get a bus from there to the park. If you are from afar, our advice, take a Putrajaya tour from local tourism company, and look for the package with Agriculture Heritage Park. For further information about this park, you can visit Malaysia Vacation Guide and official site of Putrajaya.


More places in Putrajaya on our list: