BUKIT GASING is a 100-hectare forest park that straddles the border of Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya at Bukit Kerinchi and Kampung Pantai Dalam on the KL side and Section 5 on the PJ side.
 For more than three decades, this little green oasis at the edge of PJ's sprawling suburbia was "so near and yet so far away" for me (to borrow a line from the lyrics of an old hit song).
 In the early 1980s, I took up nature close-up photography as a hobby and initially began exploring patches of greenery and woodlands close to my home in search of photo subjects.
 Oftentimes I had wanted to go and check out Bukit Gasing, which is just a ten-to-fifteen minute drive from my home in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, but for one reason or other that did not happen until August this year (2019).
 In the meantime, I had visited many

places far and near in pursuit of my hobby, venturing as far as Sabah (see my stories on Mount Kinabalu and Mount Trusmadi) and Thailand.
 In the meantime, some news about Bukit Gasing broke now and then... news of intrusion into the park, legal suits, illegal cultivation and fires started deliberately to clear land, and even a murder. Each time, it had the effect of nudging my memory, reminding me that Bukit Gasing was still on my "to do" list.
 The opportunity for me to visit Bukit Gasing came when my grandnephew Vincent from Sabah was staying with us temporarily in early August 2019. He had completed a diploma course and was preparing to enrol in a private university for a degree course.
 One day while we were driving down Jalan Gasing, Vincent said he had visited the park with friends when he came in 2017 to begin his diploma course. I seized upon what he had just told me and got him to be my hiking guide.

 So, two days later, on a late afternoon (after tea), he led me on a two-hour hike in the forest park that I had wanted to explore for so long.
 As we were going home after the hike, I felt that I hadn't missed much all those years. There was a scarcity of insect life and other fauna that I was looking forward to photograph. I can't say that I was disappointed given what I already knew about the park. Perhaps, we had gone there at the wrong time of the day.
 Perhaps, we should go there again in the early part of the day, especially on a morning with good weather, in order to see butterflies and other insects and small creatures that are worth a snapshot.
 Some links: 1. Bukit Gasing Forest Park 2. Save Bukit Gasing 3. Friends of Bukit Gasing 4. Trail running in Bukit Gasing 5. Hiking @ Bukit Gasing, Petaling Jaya 6. MCA Selangor's statement of November 23, 2010 7. "Female jogger sacrifices her life to save daughter from robbers".