This time round, we hit a different highland, or rather say a preserved hill at Taiping, a town of Perak. Maxwell Hill was our target, but before arriving the destination, we had a long road trip touring within the towns of Perak.
Day 1 - Road trip from Kota Kemuning -> (coastal road) Sitiawan -> Teluk Batik -> Pantai Remis -> Taiping
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A very adventurous and long hour driving journey.
(click to enlarge)
8:30am - Took off from Kota Kemuning
10:00am - Traffic jam somewhere along Kuala Selangor
11:00am - Drop by road off Teluk Intan, paddy field for photo session
11:30am - Arrived at Sitiawan, lunch with Fook Chow dishes
1:00pm - Ordered freshly baked biscuit (Sam Yew Biscuit)
1:30pm - Arrived Teluk Batik beach, sea games, banana boat, slept on the beach, shopping for batik beach wear
5:00pm - Rained. Headed off to Pantai Remis, where earlier was supposed to stop by Ayer Tawar
6:00pm - Arrived Pantai Remis, restaurant we targeted was off business, thank god with the help of GPS POI, we hit to another restaurant
7:30pm - Drove off to Taiping
9:30pm - Arrived at Happy Rest House, Taiping
10:30pm - Supper @ Taiping old market
Paddy field near Teluk Intan, nice place to take photos.
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Lunch @ Fook Chow restaurant. Dishes were all special, to the ground taste of local food. 1. Restaurant Oasis 2. Fish belly soup 3. Fook Chow Lo-mee 4. Must eat red rice wine chicken.
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Next, we stopped by for fresh made biscuit. 1. San Yew Chay is the shop name (GPS POI available in MFM, N4 11.646 E100 42.107) 2. Tao-sa (red and green bean) biscuits 3. Can get the famous Kg Koh Chilli here too.
Teluk Batik Beach, the atmosphere was good that day with free Indian songs played by next door's crowd. I was lying down and slept on my bag and mat, it was so secured that we have 20+ pax around the beach, surely there will be 1-2 could help us take care of our bags. Therefore, I felt asleep for almost 20min. Unfortunately, it rained at 4pm and forced us to leave.
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A locally known seafood restaurant, we found this place with the help of MFM GPS POI, the earlier planned or recommended restaurant was closed for other occasion. We bumped into this place, and I would say I like it very much, compared to the earlier planned one. This has the origin authentic kampung-styled look, it's a home in fact. They served good seafood, and cheap too, it cost only RM300+ for 3 tables. 1. Restaurant Ng Chin Boon (GPS POI in MFM map, coordinate : N4 27.430 E100 37.907) 2. Nice O-chien (egg oyster) & Sambal Squid 3. Look at the oyster, though was small but tasty 4. Tiny little squid fried with sambal 5. Curry fish in slices 6. Fried prawn cake (虾饼) 7. Yam mud
Happy Rest House Homestay @ Taiping. Good deal for 20+ pax, we rented 2 bungalow next to each other. Each with 4 rooms, extra mattress cost RM10/each. We all had a place to sleep. Kids played till 4:30am! Unfortunately we didn't have much time to spend at this house.
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We both then went out to check out any special in the town. Indeed the old market stalls were busy. When we arrived at 10:30pm, the place was not as crowded as we leave around 11:30pm. We hit to Stall #3. 1. Nasi Lemak with sambal udang, very special as the lil prawn was cooked with its shell on. 2. There are other types nasi lemak too, too bad I was too full to try all. 3. Ipoh Bakery bread, locally made in Taiping. Served well with Taiping black coffee. 4. The crowd when we left. 5. Very traditional steamer for kaya butter bread, yummy!
Day 2 - Taiping Lake Garden -> Breakfast @ Taiping Market -> Mangrove tour -> Lunch @ Sepetang (十八丁) -> Maxwell Hill (Bukit Larut)
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7:30am - Taiping Lake Garden
8:30am - Breakfast and tapao char siew pao
10:00am - check out from Home stay
10:30am - Drove to Sepetang, visited Eco park Mangrove educational tour
11:30am - Sepetang jetty for lunch
2:00pm - 1st batch getting up to Maxwell Hill, Cendana Hut is the place we stay
3:00pm - 2nd batch went up with tapao KFC for dinner + junk foods/biscuits
4:00pm - checked in bedroom, shower, chilling weather, great air.... party till all nite long
Morning walk at Lake Garden was nothing special
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1. GPS POI MFM map, named KamLoong, coordinate : N4 51.137 E100 44.535. They served good dim sum as well as Char-siew pao. 2. Guess how much this cost? RM0.80 only ler...
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On the way to lunch at Sepetang, we dropped by an Education Forest Reserved place. Had a walk at their trails in the Mangrove forest. GPS Coordinate : N4 50.533 E100 38.086.
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Very rush lunch @ Sepetang, where we all need to catch a 1:30pm jeep up to the hill. We were cursed like nobody's business as our group was 30min late!!
The restaurant named Tepi Sungai Seafood (GPS MFM POI coordinate: N4 50.155 E100 37.608). Mind you, the road at Port Weld (Kuala Sepetang) river jetty is rather narrow. It's not easy to spot this restaurant, as it is located on top of a fishery stop-shop. 1. View from the restaurant 2. Fresh lala, spitting water 3. Fesh see-ham (Oyster) 4. Cooked see-ham 5. Chilli crab 6. Nestum fried prawn 7. lala soup 8. Octopus
Here is Cendana Hut @ Maxwell Hill.
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Maxwell Hill, also named as Bukit Larut. Is an only preserved hill in peninsular. Not much development done to this place, and it stays the same for the past few years. No personal vehicle could get up the hill, except government operate jeep.
We chooses to stay at Cendana Hut bungalow, it has 3 master rooms with attached bathroom and 3 double bed rooms with shared bathroom. We were skeptical with the service here, as we had bad experience with their operator, same owner as KamaLodge at Taiping Lake Garden. Booking and respond was not prompt, arrangement of jeep transport can be messy, very bad service attitude, etc... However, things turned out to be well after the stay.
The Bungalow has a huge common area, nice view at nite overlooking lights at Taiping, chilling place outdoor, catering of set breakfast at RM5/pax. It was all great except.... there is no cooking place, we didn't prepare ourselves well this time.. another lessons learned to share later at the end of this post.
Day 3 - Maxwell Hill -> Taiping town -> Bagan Lallang, Butterworth
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10:00am - 1st batch of jeep car went down hill, food hunt time... 5 of us had cendol
11:30am - 2nd batch came down and we immediately hit the NSE up to the north
1:30pm - Lunch at Restaurant Ong Cheng Huat @ Butterworth
3:00pm - headed back home, while some continued journey to the island
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Ansari Cendol, famous in Taiping. GPS MFM POI Coordinate : N4 51.179 E100 44.330. Their pulut is real special and grilled well. It is served in cendol as well. Worth a try.
Market 'hunting'. Do you know Taiping market is >100 years old. Indeed, the structure of it is rather old.
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This is a place introduced by AhXian, if you followed his show, Ong Cheng Huat Seafood Restaurant was in one of the episode. To those who can read Chinese, check out the website link above, dishes are all well explained there. 1. Scene of kampung view hearby the attap-roof restaurant. 2. Very packed place, thank god we reserved and had dished pre-ordered. 3. Fried popiah (薄饼） 4. Little chicken (童子鸡) - must try 5. Steamed fish - must try 6. Fried lala 7. Octopus - again.
Overall, it was a great and adventurous trip I would say. It is not easy to accommodate many peoples and many cars in a trip. Much studies have to be done before hand, and lots of coordination are required.
Lastly, from my observations and so, there is this Lessons Learned I would like to share (solely from my opinion).
- 1. There must be mutual agreements and understand among participants. Consideration is a must, as we all go out in a team of close friends. Roles must be clearly defined, i.e. the leader, the follower, the care taker etc...
- 2. Convoy rules is a must, what should one does if one of the car gets lost. Who's taking the responsible to ensure each and other cars could follow the group. Especially when majority of the cars does not have GPS.
- 3. Kitchen ware preparations. We prepared own cup/mug, plates, forks and spoons off hand on our last trip to Cameron. Why this time round we never think of self prepare? Just because there is no kitchen for us? Well.. we need own utensils next time round.
