Blogs from Taiping, Perak, Malaysia, Asia

Hello my fellow travellers! This morning Rizqin dropped me off at the bus station where we said our goodbyes with hopes of meeting again in the future. I told him truthfully that he'll always be welcome in my home, and since he is fascinated by Viking culture I gave him a promise that if he comes to visit I will take him on a round trip in Scandinavia to follow in the footsteps of the Vikings. In Taiping Chandra was a bit delayed but there was no troubles waiting at the station, I had excellent weather there where no people pestering me, I really appreciate that about this country, there are no droves of people trying to scam you or cheat you in any way. There is an aura of honesty and sincerity about this country ... read more

It's been a week, so here's an update. We spent a few days exploring KL and visited the bird park and Batu caves. The caves have a number of Hindu temples inside and we were made to feel very welcome with a free and rather tasty lunch offered to us by local families serving food at the temple. Inside the cave we heard many bats and saw jungle millipede, a giant centipede, a cave racer snake and many cockroaches! Around the city we noticed locals carrying sandwich size plastic bags filled with a suspect yellow liquid. We were baffled for a few days as to why so many Malaysians would have catheter bags....until we clicked that it was iced tea! On Monday we started our cycling. On our bicycles we turn many heads, car drivers have ... read more

Im 19. Jhd. war das damalige Larut noch Schauplatz mehrerer blutiger Auseinandersetzungen zwischen rivalisierende chinesischen Geheimbünden. Heute ist es ein angenehmer ruhiger Ort mit einigen historischen Gebäuden aus der Kolonialzeit (auch, wenn teilweise der Lack schon stark am Abblättern ist.) und einer großen Parklandschaft direkt an der Ortsgrenze, in der sich auch Malaysias erster Zoo befindet. Die "Stadt des Ewigen Friedens" eignet sich gut als Zwischenstopp für ein, zwei Tage. Wenn man ein Taxi von der Busstation nimmt, sollte man allerdings nicht sagen, dass man ins Zentrum von Taiping (Taiping Center) möchte. Sonst setzt der einen nämlich im Einkaufszentrum Taiping Sentral ab und man darf anschließend noch 2 Km durch den strömenden Regen in die Stadt laufen. Wie in Penang ist auch hier das Essen sehr gut und günstig, wenn es auch nicht so eine große ... read more

Day 32: Burkit Merah to Taiping We began the day biking along the highway but after only fifteen miles spotted a sign for the zoo. The zoo!!! I wonder what animals would be at a zoo in Malaysia? J wondered too. So we detoured, and rode ten miles off in another direction to the zoo. It was fabulous! We got the ticket agents to hold our bags in their little ticket booth, and locked up our bikes in the parking lot. We saw giant Malay cats, civets, lizards, barking deer, crocodiles, monkeys, rhinos, giraffe, zebra and elephants. We enjoyed seeing the reindeer get fed, watching the zebras and the bulls break bread together and seeing the mama and the baby elephant cuddle. The monkeys and chimps were unfortunately depressed, but I think thats common for monkeys ... read more

It's been a little while since my last blog, as I have been a busy little zoo man. I have many things to witter on about, so today I'm going to be efficient and use headered subsections. Marvel. The Zooniverse Been having a fine but utterly exhausting time of it at the zoo. I spent three days with the chimps, which was a bit of a chore as the main ape keeper clearly doesn't like having volunteers there. Rather than tell us what to do and correct us if we get it wrong, he just takes things off us and does it all again. Doesn't seem to realsie how much extra work this generates. His name's Ankol Mani, but I hust call him Captain Chimp. Still, playing with Julie is great fun, and throwing the food ... read more