Cuti Cuti Malaysia 5: Dec 29 2006, Seventh Day, Friday, Taiping, Bukit Larut, Tapah Road, Home

By 0630 everyone was ready to go and left for the foot of Bukit Larut soon after. I did not know how others felt but I was excited and couldn’t wait to be driven up. Once we were at the office I went in and paid for the first Land Rover to go up at 0830. Since it was still early we had to wait. While waiting I saw a lot of people walking up the hill and some were already coming down to indicate to me that Bukit Larut is a very popular exercise place for people in Taiping. After a while a retired school teacher came to approach us and we started talking. From our conversation I understood more about the community of Taiping. It is a town with a soul of community.

Our Land Rover was ready to leave eventually. There were twelve of us and the twelfth, later I found out, was the staff of the operator – Larut Matang Land Office. Sam and Mar sat in front with the driver and the rest at the back. Before we pulled out the driver left the back flip door down open and I thought he was going to close it when we moved but instead the twelfth person jump onto the flip and stand hanging on like a comic book superhero. Honestly I thought he would disembark somewhere close along the climb. Instead he stood that way all the way up to the peak. With the Land Rover going up very fast maneuvering the steep climb and corners he was really like a superhero. You should see it for yourself the next time you going up Bukit Larut make sure you take the first one in the morning. With both hands holding the mesh of the top and legs spreading wide he had positioned himself as if he was about to take off in the air flying through the forest. It was a sight. The disadvantage for me, since I sat at the edge, was that I had to hang on tight holding everyone in place from falling out of the Land Rover. Because of our superhero I had to be one as well. If not I could have taken few shots as a prove. The road was tight and steep and I understand why visitors had to be driven up.

Tulips of Bukit Larut

It was about 9 km up and we got to the main stop at 1036 m above the sea level at around 0915. We had two hours at the top and our Superhero told us to get back there to go down around 1045. The first question that I asked the keeper there was where was the Tulip garden. I was shown the direction that required us to walk up a bit more. The walk up was tiring but it was worth it as soon as you were at the tulip garden. The tulip garden is managed by the Cendana Resthouse where a fee of RM2 to be paid for entry. Nobody else were there so we sat around the tulips and enjoyed ourselves. My Nikon obviously was made to work overtime. We really just enjoyed and pleased with ourselves being there. The resthouse was also nicely refurbished giving it one restful feel and cosy resort look. My assessment was a nice place to stay and enjoy but for a night only. If you stay longer than that would be an overkill. The were other bungalows of course but very basic. One or two were under renovation and should look better once completed.

After a while we had enough and walked back down to wait for the ride down. We were still early but nobody wish to walk anywhere else so we lingered at the gazebo waiting and having a nice family bantering.

Exactly at 1100 we boarded and went down on the same land rover but minus our Superhero that now left behind to manage whatever he supposed to manage there. I discovered that we were sharing the ride with the people that were staying at the Cendana and two of them were two female experience mountain climbers. I over heard them talking about their climbs.
As I said earlier a lot of people take places like Taiping for granted and almost always skip it either on the way down south or up north. The location of the town away from the highway also plays an important role in this. If you look and explore it with different perspective I believe you would enjoy Taiping and you would not regret it. I certainly did not. Having spent two days there I believe it still has a lot to offer and I am going back there again, hopefully, soon. If you were from Taiping and reading this please email me and tell me what else I could do there.




We headed for breakfast straight away and I chose one mamak restaurant at the edge of the town because it will ensure variety. After breakfast without missing a bit we went back to the hotel finished our packing, checked out and left for home. Of course going home was not a straight forward thing for me ..LOL. We stopped at Bagan Serai for Baqir to shop for his school pants, Sg Perak for me to nap, and at Tapah Road to visit my sister-in-law, Bok. We were safely home around 2116.

Inside the Land Rover that took us down

The Crossing

Cuti Cuti Malaysia 5: Dec 28 2006, Sixth Day, Thursday, Kulim

Ever since our first end of the year sojourn up north we had never really stop at Taiping to really explore it. When we planned this trip I had two very good reasons to do it. First was the Taiping Night Zoo Safari and second Bukit Larut (used to known as Maxwell Hill). We left Kulim quite early and soon enough we were in Taiping. I followed the signs in Taiping and decided to check out the places first before checking at Seri Malaysia for rooms. A nice surprise was to discover as we approached Taiping town that Seri Malaysia was along the way and at the vicinity of the Taiping Lake Garden and everything else that we wanted to explore. First I drove to the foot of Bukit Larut to get exact information on how to go up the hill. I was told the days ticket had been sold out and was asked to come as early as 0800 the next day. Which was my plan anyway? Another nice discovery was that the Taiping zoo was actually within the Lake Garden with that my mind was set to get two rooms at Seri Malaysia. I drove around the lake garden and turned into Seri Malaysia and we were very fortunate to get two connecting rooms for the night.

Quickly I made plan for the night and were out of our rooms as soon as we said our prayers.

Taiping is a historical town which I feel a lot of Malaysians took for granted, including Taipingese themselves. This was what drove me to really wanting to explore the place. When I was home after the trip I did a search on Taiping using Google and came back with slightly more than 1 million hits world wide and around 165K hit from Malaysian sites. Quite impressive no doubt. I doubt it that many Malaysians know that the Taiping Zoo is the first in Malaysia. Yes, it is sad but that is the truth as some of us prefer to travel oversea to find history and culture yet we have a lot within our own backyard.

Comparatively I knew it was quite a big town and just trying to initiate some senses to my family I drove around town. Of course you would not find all those big malls and hypermarket (Carrefour was due to be completed in 2007) but the town is huge with history. As we passed streets after streets we could see and feel the history, mostly provoked by the old historical buildings around us. One major mistake that I made during this was not really walking the town. (Hey! A good reason to go back to Taiping :). Maybe the main turn-off that day was the unusually hot day. But the first in our agenda then was to find a place to eat and with sheer luck we ended up at the bazaar. I can’t recall the name of the bazaar but it was along the same street as The Store. I guess the main street for people of Taiping. Just like the old bazaar that I am used to there were eateries at the ground level and bazaar on the second. We did not have a clue as what was the best to eat in Taiping but for sure at least two of us had to have rice. So we just sat at the high potential stall and had our lunch. No pressure to go anywhere we took our own sweet time eating and joined the Kakak who owned the stall in common conversation. With no fixed plan I suggested we go up to the second floor to check out the rest of the bazaar and a major event took place :). The major event was actually I ended up spending around RM500 buying jeans for everyone. Well it started when I saw this sale sign for Lee, Lois etc. Lee at RM99 was something worth checking out I thought. With a combination or good salesmanship and my porous resistant towards shopping the guy managed to convince me to take a serious walk down memory lane buy buying Rider jean and Lee Chetopa, I almost added Lee Corduroy. Seeing me at my weakest moment my children grabbed the opportunity to add on their own collection. But I must tell you here that I actually had to persuade, yes I persuaded her, my wife into buying one for her. Of course to the salesman that was the biggest sale and commission for him to date but to me a flat wallet. But I was happy.

We continued to walk the street and saw few other shops worth checking out but not before me tracking back to see ‘my good friend’ (Kawanku) to replenish my supply of RM. Crisscrossing the street finally we entered The Store as a finale, I just knew it had got to be The Store.

Mar saw the pool when we checked in and she reminded me of it. Since we were going to the night safari as well we drove back to the hotel to rest a bit.

You have a choice of either walking or to take the tram around the zoo. Of course I was bullish to walk but my wife thought otherwise. If I said walk the kids would have just towed behind me but considering the zoo was a bit dark I opted for the tram. I had been to the Singapore Night Zoo before so it naturally became my benchmark and I am glad to report Taiping Night Zoo Safari is not that far behind. Of course camera flash was not allowed and I had to content myself with slow speed night photography, which did not come out well. Artistically the photographs are good as they depict movement and flow. After completing one round around the zoo on the tram we were given option to explore a bit more on our own. Baqir, Mar and myself decided to do just that but Sam, Kakak and Kak Cik chose to stay behind at the main plaza to wait. We walked in the dark to admire the animal night life especially the Savannah. We did not do the whole zoo but chose to walk the second ring that was better. We enjoyed it until Mar got restless. I sense she saw something that not suppose to be there J) and we walked a bit faster.

We joined the rest at the plaza took some photos and left the zoo for dinner at the hotel. We chose the hotel because we were bought by the advertisement we found in our room. It was a mistake as the food were lousy and the service appalling. Can you imagine eating a steak, a hard one to boot, with a butter knife? We could have explored other places to eat. Since we were going up Bukit Larut very early the next morning we decided to retire early. Not before I was pissed off with the hotel staff.

After dinner I went to the reception to enquire about the wireless internet access and I paid for a half day service. Once at the room I tried to connect but I can’t and I called the reception to enquire. After few minutes of talking he said he will call back. He did saying that there was a submarine cable failure because of the earthquake in Taiwan. I was really pissed off hearing that and said to him, ‘ Why in the world you sold me the service then?’ ‘We were just informed’ was the reply. ‘It doesn’t matter it is your job to know and your service provider to inform you and not until a customer complaint!’ and bang I slammed the phone.