Taiping
The Wettest Town In Peninsular Malaysia, Holding The Country'S Oldest Museum, Oldest Public Gardens And A Hill Station Reached Only By Government Land Rover · Taiping, Perak
TAIPING COLLECTS FIRSTS. THE OLDEST MUSEUM IN MALAYSIA opened here in 1883. THE OLDEST PUBLIC GARDENS were laid out in 1880 on abandoned tin workings, and the RAIN TREES ALONG THE LAKE GARDENS have grown out over the water in a way that is the town's signature image. The first railway line in the country ran from here. THE NAME MEANS EVERLASTING PEACE and was chosen after the LARUT WARS - Chinese secret-society fighting over tin that the British used as their reason to intervene in Perak at all. IT IS ALSO THE WETTEST TOWN IN PENINSULAR MALAYSIA, which is why everything is so green and why you should carry an umbrella in any month. ABOVE IT IS BUKIT LARUT - MAXWELL HILL - MALAYSIA'S OLDEST HILL STATION, with no public road: you go up in a GOVERNMENT LAND ROVER on a booked seat, or you walk. Book that seat early in the day, because the schedule is limited and the service is suspended after landslides, which in the wettest town on the peninsula happens often.
Taiping, Perak, Taiping, Perak, Malaysia
TAIPING IS ON THE MAIN NORTH-SOUTH RAIL LINE, roughly an hour from IPOH and ninety minutes from PENANG by train, which is the easy way in. THE LAKE GARDENS ARE OPEN ALWAYS AND FREE. THE PERAK MUSEUM keeps daytime hours and charges very little. BUKIT LARUT IS THE ONE TO PLAN: THERE IS NO PUBLIC ROAD, and access is by GOVERNMENT LAND ROVER FROM THE BASE STATION ON A BOOKED SEAT, running to a limited schedule that fills - book early in the day or in advance, and BE AWARE THE SERVICE IS SUSPENDED AFTER LANDSLIDES AND IN BAD WEATHER, which happens. THE ALTERNATIVE IS WALKING UP, which takes hours. THE TAIPING WAR CEMETERY is open and free. IT RAINS MOST AFTERNOONS - this is the wettest town on the peninsula and that is not a figure of speech.