The main street of Kuala Kubu Baru is lined with 1920s Chinese shophouses — two-storey terracotta-tile buildings with five-foot ways sheltering the pavement below. This is the rebuilt town: the original Kuala Kubu was wiped out by a catastrophic flood and landslide in 1883, and the new administrative centre was laid out from scratch on slightly higher ground in a grid pattern unusual for a Malayan town of that era.
The result is a grid of broad streets centred on a padang, the open green that colonial planners planted in every district town of consequence. It's faded and quiet — no particular effort has been made to make it a heritage attraction — which is part of its appeal. A few coffee shops on the main strip serve old-school kopi and curry puffs to the morning crowd. The town centre is worth half an hour of wandering before or after a day in the forest.