VERY busy at the moment. No days off since our little expedition to Gopeng. So today we thought a quick trip to the Botanical Gardens in Putrajaya would be a restorative kind of thing to do.

The train fare has well gone up since our first foray to Putrajaya in 2012. In fact by the time you've paid your MRT fare to KL Sentral, then your MYR 18.60 each to Putrajaya, then your MYR 15 for the taxi to the gardens (including the mysterious MYR 2 booking fee), you're losing out to the Grab door-to-door option (which cost MYR 45, including tolls, on the way home).

Since that maiden voyage, my trips to Putrajaya have all been work-related (graduations, visits to Wisma Putra, seminars, and the like). So this was our first time in this lovely space.

On a Friday morning the gardens are very quiet. There's no-one doing exercise-dancing or practising tai chi. Apart from the gardeners we saw only a handful of other people.

All is calm. You can enjoy the fresh air, the flowers, and the trees in a tranquility that is only shattered by the occasional blast of leaf-blowing.









And the birdsong! Wonderful. We saw golden orioles, a collared kingfisher, and an amazing sheeny-green-and-russet job who remains unidentified, but we heard many more.

My only quibble is the lack of food... The restaurant by the lakeside doesn't open until 12.00, and there's nothing else. So un-Malaysian...

But we came back feeling refreshed. Which is what gardens are all about.