Part 1:Land of the Mines

The state of Perak amazes me with her legends and historic memoirs. When I was in the early 20’s, I used to commute between KL and Penang where I always landed myself for my first job after each academic graduations...gosh, still wonder why my first job was always Penang. Anyway, back to the commuting thing, I would take the express train that cut thru’ the lake...such a serene view ... it was last year that I came to know it’s called Tasik Merah (the Red Lake) where the amazing arowana fish breeds and having spent my vacations on this land. We’ve been coming back to Perak for the last 2 years and still find more places yet to be explored.

Ipoh, the capital city of Perak is not as elegant as KL ... hahaha...sorry to say this Ipoh folks. It is said that Ipoh get its name from the name from the Ipoh trees that was once found abundantly in Ipoh some time ago. One thing Perak folks could be proud of is the numerous historic buildings left during the colonial time. This Majestic Hotel stands grand with it’s beautiful scripture and detail works on its finishing. Even the antique open elevator still works...though we prefer taking the stairs... The Ipoh tree stood with such elegance in front of this hotel.

Taiping has been named as Heritage Town and the town really looks old. I think the town council should put more effort to brighten and brings life to this town rather than relying on its popular spots like the Taiping Lake and Zoo.

There is this coffee shop run by an elderly Chinese couple, maybe the 3^rd generation. I assumed they let out the front portion to this mak cik who sells her daily breakfast, lunch and tea. The walk-in customers are from all races ... hahaha ... the 1Malaysia has been there for such a long, long, long time. Well, the setup is not the kind of environment that you have at the modern Kopitiam ... no white coffee, no Astro, no WiFi ... its purely a lepak place where unofficial meetings were held on how to run the state, securing government contracts/projects, etc... And there’s this swing door just like the one as seen in a cowboy’s bar ... such a cutie view .….

The weather doesn’t favour us when we were in Taiping as its raining cats and dogs. It is known that Taiping receives some limelight for being the wettest town in Peninsular Malaysia. The average annual rainfall is about 4,000mm in Taiping while the peninsula's average is 2,000mm – 2,500mm. Its unusual rainfall has also led to a fertile collection of flora and century-old rain trees in the Taiping Lake Gardens...there were words going round that the women were fertile too...but I guess the men has no where to go when it rained except to lepak at home with their wives… hahaha.

We decided to drive to Kuala Gula, the bird sanctuary. Though the weather doesn’t permit us to take the boat ride to the islands, at least the gallery and the milky stork viewing ease us, giving us a good feeling after having the long drive.

We took an inner ride to the fishing village and we saw baskets of cockles that have been harvested and brought to shore. We didn’t pack them though since its cheaper to buy it at the fresh market...these fisherman sold them in bulk.

On the way back, a few blocks from the village, we saw flocks of eagles flying and looked like they were having a great time teasing and being playful by flying into each other.

>>> part 2 …. tune in for more extreme adventures