World’s Largest Flower – Rafflesia in Malaysia

On a Trek to see the World’s Largest Flower – Rafflesia

Is this just a simple story on seeing Rafflesia, the world’s largest flower? Not quite… We’re in the middle of Malaysia, on a shoestring budget, are about to embark on a four hour jungle hike and we have an unconventional guide with us that was set on taking us to see this natural phenomenon. It did indeed turn out to be an adventure with many more highlights than just the world’s largest flower!

This crazy day started out en route to the northern end of the Cameron Highlands which is home to the jungle area that blooms Rafflesia, the world’s largest flower. We started our adventure speeding down the 2 lane roads in a souped up range rover to reach this hilly landscape to the origin of where we’d be starting our jungle trek to reach Rafflesia. However, when we eventually arrived, we took a quick detour.

Our Range Rover for the day… too bad we couldn’t drive this through the jungle. If only I’d known what I was getting myself into!

Our guide decided to take us through a small village that was home to the Orang Asli, the aboriginal people of Malaysia. Could these be the same tribesmen chasing after Indiana Jones in his first of 3 series? Perhaps but what I did learn is that these aborigines have lived unchanged in their ways until very recently when the government started to take a part in their livelihood. We were told what they survived on, how they live day to day, and how their cultural lifestyles had changed over the past 25 years. While there, we were given the opportunity to learn how to shoot blow darts. How did I do? Well luckily, I didn’t shoot anyone in the neck by accident but I did buy a blowgun while I was there. How could I not? These things were awesome. They could shoot a poison tipped dart up to 60 yards away and with a precision within a few inches of its target. Pretty amazing since you’re using nothing more than some lung power and your bio-mechanics to shoot.

 Learning how to use the Malaysia Blowgun while stopping in on the local village

It’s all about lung power and how your stance/posture. These guys can shoot a poison tipped blow dart up to 60 feet with accuracy within a couple inches of its target.

So getting back to my jungle trek to see this famed world’s largest flower, what made it so elusive was the fact that this Rafflesia flower is very hard to come across.. And not only because of the remote jungle area in which it lives. It is due to the fact that it takes this flower around 1 – ½ years for the flower to bloom and once it does, it only lasts about 5 – 7 days. When it first opens, due to the gases inside the bulb, the first of the five petals opens quickly but then the other four each individually open one at a time over the course of 3-4 hours each until all are fully opened. Of course, because of its rarity and the amount of time it blooms, there was no guarantee that we’d  be seeing the Rafflesia flower today.

One of many creek crossings we went through that day on our way to see the Rafflesia flower…

Unique bamboo in this Malaysian jungle

And before we started this jungle trek, our guide had a few things to discuss. One of them included the topic of leeches in the jungle. Sure, I had seen the movie ‘Stand By Me’ during those childhood years. Leeches = Not Cool. So I can tell you, there was no way in my mind that I’d end up with a leech on me by the day’s end! I guess I just assumed you would have to lose your self-awareness by ending up with one on you! Well, nothing could be further from the truth. Not only did two others in our group pick some up but I had two of them on me, sucking blood and proving me wrong by the days end! I’ll have to add this to my stats list!

The Leeches in this Malaysian Jungle… They do start out small until they collected blood! I found two on me at the end of the trek and had blood all over my lower leg…

This was one of the many crazy insects we came across that morning….

However, while on the hike through the jungle, this issue of leeches wasn’t much on my mind. Our guide seemed determined in making ‘good time’ and was intent on what I’d consider speed walking. He had another local with him, wearing nothing other than pants, flip flops and a machete strapped across his back. There were many obstacles along the way including 5 creek crossings. It was a grueling hike but fun nonetheless. However, as fast as we were hiking I still didn’t expect this to be a two hour trek.

 Unique trees in the jungle, there were all sorts with vines running wild on all of them

This is not the world’s largest flower but just some of the amazing and unique plant life in this jungle that we encountered along the way! 

These are the Rafflesia buds, before they start on their long flowering process over the course of 1-1/2 years until they finally bloom!

We finally reached the first flower and yes, I’d say it was worth it. Of course, I left my tape measure back home but I’d say this thing was at least three feet in diameter as you can see from the photos. We decided to press on to search out more. It wasn’t long after that we came upon a few more which also included a double flower which was extremely rare. On a side note, the Rafflesia flower is also known as the ‘corpse flower’ because it gives off a smell similar to that of rotting flesh (yes, not what you expected). Apparently this attracts a certain type of insect which it helps it with pollination of the flower.

The World’s Largest Flower – Rafflesia

This was the  first Rafflesia flower we came across that day. I figured it was best to grab a shot with someone next to it just to show its sheer size. One of them was over three feet in diameter!

This was a sign posted by the Malaysian University. They come through this jungle area periodically to track the Rafflesia flowers. As it shows on this posting, there were 6 flowers at the time they were last out here.

This was just one of many insanely large trees in this Malaysia jungle that we passed that day…

This was the extremely rare double flower that we came across that day. If you look closely, you can see the insects that it attracts.

After taking way too many photos, we pressed on to see some others before eventually heading back.  On the way, our guide wanted us to get hydrated. And for him, this meant cutting down some bamboo trees, hacking them in half and drinking water that collected inside of its sections. It is said to be extremely pure water and actually tasted good though it did have a grassy taste. It was crucial though that we drank plenty as it is extremely easy to become dehydrated while hiking in this jungle as humid and hot as it was.

One of the locals hacking bamboo into sections which we will later find out will be our drinking water for the day!

 The water actually tasted extremely pure however there was a slight ‘grassy’ taste as you might expect!

When we eventually finished the long trek back, I realized what a crazy day it had been but it was an awesome trip, which even includes the nasty leeches I’d picked up along the way! Just remember, when someone asks you what the world’s largest flower is, it is not a sunflower!