North. What's up in the north of Malaysia?
I've been travelling in Malaysia since I was very, very young. My dad would always keep an ear out for new places to go, new towns to visit. In fact, the only state I have yet to visit is Sabah.
From the back of my mind, a trip up north would be very uninteresting.
I guess I forgot about Pulau Penang, Pulau Langkawi, Pedu Lake, Ipoh...
The 1st Day (15/1/08)
Despite staying up very late the night before, I had to drag my butt out of the bed in the wee hours of 8.30 am. What? 8 isn't considered one of the wee hours? Well I happen to start my day at 12 noon, like any irresponsible people my age.
Luckily I am used to having my butt stuck to a chair for hours (which can't be good for my blood circulation), for the car ride took a mind-boggling 5 hours to reach Lunas, where we would have lunch. Lunas is famous with its roast duck. We have patroned the restaurant, the most famous in the area, some few times, and have a tasty meal of its main attraction, the roast duck, and chai buey, a spicy and sour veggie dish. So if you're ever in the neighbourhood, do help yourself with the duck and remember to buy another for me as a souvenir.
It would take us another 2 hours before we arrived at our rest for the day, Sungai Petani in Kedah. A bustling town, you could have fooled me completely if you were to tell me that we were in Ipoh.
Turned out Dad really didn't make any hotel reservations for the whole trip. But since it wasn't the school holidays, finding a vacant hotel room was easy. We were spoilt by choices. In the end, we decided to stay at Seri Malaysia for its affordability and charm. Who knew it was the start of a beautiful friendship?
The 2nd Day (16/1/08)
What would an adventure be without a climax?
Our climax came in the form of the Paddy Museum in Alor Setar, Kedah. Woke up at 8, reach at 10, by the way.
Located 8 km from Alor Setar, next to Gunung Keriang, a big mountain sitting on fields of paddy,is the Paddy Museum. I noticed that not much information can be found online, so allow me to dedicate a portion of my blog to introduce to all the Paddy Museum.
This is the official website: http://www.tourism.gov.my/news/docs/Paddy%20Museum.pdf
From afar, the museum building does look futuristic, a big contrast to the kampung feel surrounding it. I half-imagined it as a UFO spaceship preparing for lift-off!
A closer look:
Several life-size and life-like sculptures were exhibited outside the museum, but I only had my eyes set on this:
The inside of the museum:
It is actually sections of different paintings. They are really big paintings and very beautiful. The pictures are so big that I had to take pictures of them in sections, then stitch them digitally. I didn't have my tripod along, so the end result is far inferior to the original:
The main attraction of the Paddy Museum would be the rotating platform with the beautiful huge wall-painting of the paddy fields of Alor Setar. What makes it so special is that it's done incredibly 3D-like. It's so real that you can get the feeling of standing on top of a mountain and looking around the breath-taking scenery, and at times even be fooled into thinking the life-like painting is actually the real thing.
I have stitched the whole painting together into a large photo as well, but remember though that the results are very inferior to the real one. After long hours (I'm not kidding) of working on this, I've finally made up my mind to adopt the to-hell-with-it attitude in matching the details perfectly. Haha. Go to Alor Setar to experience this first-hand, it's worth it:
Sorry that I couldn't make it any bigger. The file size is way too big to handle.
The Paddy Museum has 3 floors. The top-most is the rotating platform, the ground floor is the sectioned art gallery, while there's a lower-ground floor with exhibits of tools used in rice-harvesting and more information on a farmer's life.
Plus I found a funny name among the tools. It's supposed to be a mouse-trap by the way:
The museum provides a lot of information on rice-harvesting, which is really eye-opening for city-folks like me.
Oh and check out the view surrounding the museum. If it were harvesting time, I bet it would be amazing:
On with our adventure!
At 1.30pm, we reached Bukit Tambun, which is south of Butterworth. The special thing about this place is the restaurants are right next to a river. With the pollution level in Malaysia, I can't say it was an enjoyable lunch. Whiffs of the stinking river would drift over at times. If only the people of Malaysia would realize the importance of environment conservation.
It was not until 4pm that we finally arrived at Taiping. And what a place it is! It still retains the charm of a small quaint town. Taiping is famous for its rain, as it almost rains everyday. The townspeople have even came up with their own amusement by guessing the time it would rain everyday. A little sport for the old folks in Taiping.
Before I could take out my camera to take pictures of the town, we've already reached the famous Taiping Lake Garden. And what a sight! Taiping Lake Garden is mesmerizing, to say the least. Rows and rows of trees deck the streets just beside the lake, which is in turn broken up by islands of green. Even the failing light cannot shroud its allure:
But I'll leave the rest of the pictures of Taiping Lake for the 3rd day (they were taken on the 3rd day anyway).
It was late, and we were all yearning for a good rest. As luck would have it, we found our hotel right next to the lake garden. And guess which hotel it was?
Seri Malaysia Taiping. Our friendship began to bloom.
Did I mention we lived across from the Taiping Jail?
By nightfall, our ears were bombarded by strange loud, shrill calls. At first I thought it was birds, but then I found these:
Struggling for their last song. We lived near to a large patch of trees (Taiping Lake Garden), and I was lucky no giant bugs chased me. The crickets measured in 5 cm each. My nightmare.
The 3rd day (17/1/08)
I have been to Alor Setar and Taiping, actually. But I was small that time, so couldn't remember much. All I could remember was that Alor Setar was a rest point on my way to Pedu Lake while with Taiping, I can only remember bits of the life-daring ride (which I enjoyed very much while my parents were white-knuckled from fear afterwards) up Bukit Larut (Maxwell Hill) and on another occasion, the "nine-crook" bridge in Taiping Garden. I always love going back to places I've visited, just to refresh the memories.
Gotten used to waking up early. Just in time too because you should NEVER miss out on Taiping Lake Garden in the morning.
Another thing Taiping is famous for is its rows and rows of old rain trees, which I have been told are over a hundred years old. It's only normal that ANYONE that visited Taiping Lake Garden should fall in love with them. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:
This is how big they can grow:
Some of them have branches that grow so low they even touch the water:
Taiping Lake Garden:
Couldn't decide which one is better, so I put both:
Breath-taking eh?
This place is also a haven for birds. Saw white cranes, kingfishers, cuckoos and several other birds. I would have taken photos of each and every bird but my battery drained out and I kicked myself in the butt for not having brought spares.
1pm we reached Ipoh. This is familiar territory, with our family visiting it once every year (and no, it's not to visit relatives, as a lot of people have asked me. We go there for relaxation, and as a rest-point en route to Cameron Highlands). Love the food here! And it's not just the taugeh white chicken rice and the shar ho fun. We've found good chee cheong fun, har mee, char kuey teow and dai chao in this booming town.
Taugeh white chicken rice doesn't excite my parents and me anymore, but my aunt is raring for it. Lucky for us, the most jam-packed stall (obviously the most famous) had, for the first time since our years of coming by, free tables! A shocker for me. The chicken was sweeter and the taugeh was crispier than what we had eaten before in other stalls. No wonder they say Ipoh is the best place to find tasty white chicken and taugeh.
And with the top-quality water that Ipoh is famous for, the sha hor fun is delicious too, but I did not have any on this trip, though I do miss it.
Do try Ipoh's tauhu-fah and soya milk, both the soya bean and black bean flavor. The pristine water and the freshness of the beans make good drinks that you just can't miss.
In the heart of Ipohtown, you can find several shops selling salted and steamed chicken and duck. We normally buy from the biggest shop there, which is also the most famous. Funny thing about this chicken or duck is, it's a dish best served cold. But I know not much people can stomach cold meat though! Odd chinese habit.
The charming town of Ipoh:
Guess where we stayed for the night.
Seri Malaysia Ipoh. The amusing part was, the room prices got lower each day, from RM 180 to RM 130. Plus free breakfast. If this ain't a bargain, what is?
The 4th day (18/1/08)
Basically the vacation is over at this point. We went to somewhere near Kampar, a place called Kuala Tibang to visit relatives. After that it's home sweet home.
All in all, the trip took place through Lunas-Sungai Petani-Alor Setar-Bukit Tambun-Taiping-Ipoh-Kuala Tibang. State-wise, we went through Selangor-Kedah-Penang-Perak, 4 states in total on one trip.
Not a bad trip at all.
Footnotes:
Was excited bout the chance to take photos of real water-buffaloes in Kedah. Strangely enough, I didn't even see one anywhere. It was not until the very last day, on the way back to KL from Kampar that I spotted some along the highway, far from where I would normally have imagined them to be.
