Hiking Gunung Pulai

Gunung Pulai is a 654 meter high hill near the city of Johor Bahru. Gunung Pulai is easily reached by the North South Highway, and turning into the Kulai exit, after which you would need to detour underneath the highway by following a signboard to your right just after exiting the toll plaza. Follow along the road, passing oil palm estates and a quarry that are both eating away at the hill for about 5 or 6 km, until you reach a village called Kampung Sri Gunung Pulai. You will need to park your car at the start of this 5 km road that leads all the way to the summit (on which sits some telecommunication towers), and proceed on foot. A few hundred meters in, the road splits into two, one going up to the peak, and one going down to the picnic/waterfall area, and you will see the archway to the now defunct recreational forest.

Reaching the top of the hill is a straightforward climb up the tarred road, which takes roughly 1.5 to 2 hours. Most hikers only climb part of the way. There are 3 telecommunications towers at the top, two on the summit, and one a little lower down. A couple of viewpoints provide breathtaking views of the rainforest that clothes the hill.

The unique about this forest is the high proportion of that ubiquitous dipterocarp that grows on hill ridges – Meranti Seraya or Shorea curtisii, which grows almost at sea level here, even at the foot and on the slopes (whereas elsewhere they normally grow higher up on ridges, not usually on slopes). Large individuals of seraya trees can be seen literally everywhere in this forest.