Kerangas forest — the word is Iban for "land that cannot grow rice" — is Bako's most distinctive and ecologically peculiar vegetation zone. It covers roughly 40% of the park's area and is characterised by stunted, slow-growing trees rarely exceeding 15 metres, an open canopy that admits more light than most tropical forest, and a floor that alternates between waterlogged white sand and hard laterite pan. The soils are so impoverished in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that conventional plants cannot survive — which is precisely why carnivorous plants thrive here.
The kerangas is where you will find Bako's extraordinary diversity of Nepenthes pitcher plants. Nepenthes ampullaria carpets the ground in open patches, its squat pitchers trapping leaf litter. Nepenthes rafflesiana climbs into the canopy, its hanging pitchers catching insects and the occasional small vertebrate. Three other species — N. gracilis, N. mirabilis, and N. reinwardtiana — grow in different parts of the park.
The open, low-canopy structure of the kerangas makes it one of the best zones in the park for birdwatching. Hornbills cross the open sky regularly. The Bornean tarsier prefers the dense kerangas understorey for hunting. Kerangas edges, where the vegetation transitions to beach scrub or padang, are favourite foraging zones for bearded pigs. The open, light-filled structure also means you can see further than in the tall dipterocarp forest, giving better opportunities to spot movement.
The padang — open sandstone plateau with sedge, stunted trees, and exposed rock — is an extreme form of kerangas. The Lintang Trail crosses the padang near the summit section, and on clear days you can see the full arc of Bako's coastline from this exposed, treeless zone. The padang is formed by the combination of waterlogged, nutrient-depleted soils and salt spray from the South China Sea, creating conditions that exclude virtually all trees and leave an open, windswept plateau of grasses, sedges, and low-growing carnivorous plants.