Taman Negara : Oil Palm Plantations

When I was researching remote destinations for backpackers in Malaysia, I spent a lot of time searching on Google maps. From the air, most of West Malaysia appears like a checkerboard. Oil palm plantations dominate -- I repeat: dominate -- the landscape. (Click on the link to see a sample on Google maps.)

I tried many times on my bus trip to Taman Negara to capture these vast fields. And, I tried again on my trip to Kuala Sepating (to see the mangroves). Since I was always traveling at high speed on a highway bus, it was difficult to take steady photographs. Additionally, my view was obstructed by thick, tinted windows.

Of all my oil palm plantation pictures, this is my best. The sheer distance of the path between two rows -- nearly to the horizon -- should help you to understand the magnitude of these plantations. Sometimes I would drive for thirty minutes on a highway bus and see (almost) nothing but oil palm plantations. Small villages would appear for a few seconds, but then be swallowed by more endless rows of oil palms.

The palm is beautiful to me. Not having grown up with palm trees in my childhood, I was amazed when I first visited Los Angeles in high school with my father. California has a landscaping addiction to palms. They make good city dwellers, so they are planted everywhere it is warm enough to grow. Even the chilly bay of San Francisco is lined with fattened palms. That first time, I marveled at their symmetric beauty. At the oil palm ages, it grows in height significantly, up to twenty meters. Past a certain producing age, they are cut down, and new palms are planted. You could see this pattern repeated endlessly in the countryside. One hundred or more rows of mature trees were followed by a clearcut area where new trees one or two meters high were planted.