Walking Palms at Lambir Hills National Park, Malaysia

Keep a day exclusively for Lambir Hills National Park if you are visiting Sarawak, Malaysia. Well, a day may not be sufficient for this 6952 hectare forest!

But there are interesting selections of forest walks to choose from which will help you get a fairly good idea about the atmosphere there. A small fifteen minutes stroll to circuitous all day jungle trek, many interlinked trails; you have plenty to choose from according to your time, interests and stamina.

National Park in Sarawak

Lambir Hills National Park is probably the world’s most complex and diverse forest eco-system. The list of species of birds and animals here is mind boggling: 237 different species of birds, flying squirrels, wild pigs, gibbons, and many different types of monkey, various species of deer, and untold insects and other invertebrates… the list goes on.

Walking Palms At Lambir Hills National Park (Pic from Wikipedia)

Walking Palms at Lambir Hills National Park

The plant biodiversity here is amazing! One species that attracted my attention is Walking Palms at Lambir National Park! Imagine, trees that can walk! How weird can that be!

Walking palm tree, scientific name: Socratea exorrhiza, has a very unusual root system. Trees have one trunk, that is what we have learned and seen, but the trunk of this palm splits into many smaller roots, few feet off the ground. This gives it an appearance of a tree with multiple legs.

The roots make the palm more stable and therefore allow it to grow taller and more quickly than if they did not possess them. When the roots in front die, the other roots take place of the front roots and the cycles goes on.

This interesting natural phenomenon makes it look as if the tree is actually walking!

How to Reach Lambir Hills National Park

Reach Lambir Hills National Park in about a 30 minutes drive from Miri Town, via the Miri-Bintulu road. If you wish to join in a group, there are organized trips from travel agents which depart from Miri city early in the morning, and return to Miri after lunch.