BEGUILED: ON LARUT HILLS (SECOND EDITION) /by Liew Suet Fun

• author: Liew Suet Fun
• publisher: Liew Suet Fun
• published in: 2022
• language: English

Straddling the southern tip of the Bintang Range in Malaysia, 20 kilometres from the Straits of Melaka is Larut Hills. A 6,878 hectare forest reserve, it holds pristine forests populated by rare plants, enchanting fauna and a handful of human residents of Maxwell’s Hill, a hill station conjured out of this wilderness by the British in the 19th century.

Here is the home of the enigmatic agile gibbon, helmeted hornbill, clouded leopard, the world’s largest moth and one its noisiest insects, the empress cicada. They live amongst ancient tree ferns, delicate mosses, giant palms and hidden waterfalls. Beside them remains a fine scatter of colonial timber bungalows with old footpaths drenched in mist and cloud. It is a world far beyond our world of nature-by-design and high-speed telecommunications.

This new edition of Beguiled continues to take you through this landscape and the people who inhabit her space, but it also brings the story of Larut hills up to date. In November 2019, a devastating storm left at least eight landslides in its wake. Almost three years later, the road while still being repaired, remains inaccessible to visitors and all amenities and facilities are closed. In a concluding section, the question of coping and a possible way forward for the hills are discussed. In such is hope for sustaining a landscape that continually nurtures us with powerful and irreplaceable spiritual and physical gifts.