Video

Normally I don't do rainforests. As a rule they are wet, sticky, damp dense and dangerous labyrinths of vines, poisonous plants and impenetrable undergrowth. Abundant with life and as picturesque as a sunset on oil canvas, the rainforest is the embodiment of a stereotype of beauty. Bukit-Timah on the island of Singapore was the non-exception that proved the rule. Wet! You don't know that half of it! Try walking for eight hours in a sauna with a backpack and you sort of begin to get the idea. Forget shorts and light shoes - too dangerous. Only full jungle boots and canvas trousers will protect you from the smorgasbord of poisonous plants and animals served up by the rainforest.

OK, so Bukit-Timah is not exactly the rainforest adventure of a lifetime, but it is sizeable patch of primary rainforest that has never in its history been cleared for cultivation or interfered with by humans in any way. It is bursting to the seams with over 800 species of native flora and fauna, including giant hardwood trees and carnivorous plants! Walking quietly on the forest floor you will also see long-tailed macaques, flying lemurs (at night), the 30 foot long reticulated python, and the intriguingly named greater racquet-tailed drongo which made my head want to spin for its unceasing clattering in the trees.

I found the pitcher plant, the large vine-based carnivorous plant with a leaf shaped like a test tube; designed for catching and digesting insects lured in by the sweet smelling fragrance it exudes. Wild fruit hung heavy and ripe from every other tree. David Bellamy, the naturalist once pointed out that Bukit Timah has more species of trees per hectare than exist in the whole of North America. Other patches of rainforest around the island of Singapore also host the wild orchid, the national flower of Singapore

I was a fish out of water trudging around in the undergrowth of the rainforest in July of 2002. Watching my step to avoid disturbing armies of termites and startling regularly at the sound of reptiles slithering in the bush, always keeping an eye overhead for the giant pythons that dangle from the braches above.

A civilised path has been cut through the Bukit-Timah nature reserve that allows locals to walk, jog or cycle to the peak of Bukit-Timah mountain - the highest point on the island of Singapore at a measly 700 feet! The peak is the only place where you can look back to get a sense of the forest that you are transversing if you take the difficult route to the top through the heart of the unspoiled forest.

As an introduction to the rainforests of South East Asia you could not do better than Bukit Timah. My brief introduction, however, served its purpose well in assuring me that I should confine myself to the arid wastelands of the world's desert regions and leave the rainforest to those more suited to life in the steaming jungle.