After being on lockdown in Ipoh for two months, interdistrict travel finally reopened here in the state of Perak so we decided to head to Taiping.
In this video we're going to tell you all about the activities we had in Taiping, tell you what our favorite food in Taiping was,
show you where we stayed and tell you how much money we spent. Let's get started!
Taiping was just a 45 minute train ride away from Ipoh and our first destination in Taiping was the beautiful Taiping Lake Gardens.
You can see the beautiful lake here there are many kilometers of walking trails so we are going to go take a stroll.
This is probably the biggest park that we personally have been to so far during our one year in Malaysia and what a beautiful park.
But what was most interesting to us was the wildlife and specifically the hornbill birds.
We have never seen birds like this in the wild.
The oldest coffee mill still operating in Malaysia is right here in Taiping.
It's the Antong Coffee Mill and we began our visit by tasting a few samples of their coffee,
and visiting a small museum where we were able to see the history of the coffee mill.
The people working here were so friendly and really went out of their way to give us a good experience.
Then we visited the mill itself where they roast the beans the same way they've been doing it for almost 100 years.
You can see here they are roasting the coffee beans in charcoal burning ovens, and you can taste the difference for sure.
And speaking of charcoal burning ovens, we visited a factory where we were able to see where the charcoal itself is made.
The factory is about a half hour outside of Taiping in Kuala Sepetang.
This is just one small section of the factory, and as you can see here the wood is ready for the kilns.
The wood comes from the forest surrounding the factory.
We learned all about the entire process with our tour guide whose family has run this place for three generations.
What I thought was amazing is that the wood burns in these big kilns for up to a month in order to produce the charcoal.
And the fishing village near the charcoal factory was really charming.
We enjoyed spending some time watching the fishermen go about their chores and watching the boats glide through the waters.
Here's a boat that looks like it might be coming back from a fishing trip.
It's so quiet here just watching the boats, it seems very authentic, not touristy at all.
Next was a trip to the Perak state museum, and we thought this museum was very well done.
It's divided into sections, the first section was an exhibit about Perak's original indigenous people,
where the different tribes were located throughout Perak and artifacts from their everyday lives.
The next section highlighted Perak's natural features such as the different types of animals that can be found in the state.
The next room displayed cultural aspects of Perak such as traditional dress and the types of food found in Perak.
And then outside of the building there were displays of the different types of transportation throughout time in Perak.
Next was a visit to the orangutan island and this was my personal favorite experience in Taiping.
The island is actually about a half hour north of Taiping and begins with a short boat ride to the island,
and the group of people walk through the cages and view the orangutans outside the cages.
I learned so much about orangutans here, I learned that orangutans only live in Malaysia and Indonesia,
I learned that orangutans have such a large arm span their arms are actually longer than their legs,
I learned that orangutans live to be up to 50 years old.
Look at this one coming over the water. Keep going! They must be pretty strong to go across the rope like that.
It was really amazing to see these wonderful creatures and it really gave me a new appreciation for the importance of protecting their habitat so that their numbers can start to increase again.
We also took a night safari through the Taiping Zoo.
It was too dark to get any really good photos but we really enjoyed the safari.
And next time we're in Taiping we plan to visit the zoo during daylight hours.
All right now the most important question about Taiping: What was our favorite food?
It was these delightful fried banana fritters. Wow they were so good.
They were fresh very warm and very gooey and delicious and addicting, I mean really addicting.
They had other treats here too but the bananas were the best.
We stayed at the Louis Hotel during our week in Taiping and we were very satisfied with this hotel.
The room was very clean and the staff were exceptionally friendly.
But best thing about this hotel was the faucet in the bathroom take a look.
This looks like an ordinary faucet, right? But look what happens when i turn it on. It's like a disco.
Our spending in Taiping averaged RM90 or about US$22 per night for our hotel,
we averaged RM74 per day or about US$18 for food,
averaged RM8 or US$2 per day for transportation getting around Taiping,
and RM27 or about US$7 per day on activities.
So where are we going next? Well be sure to subscribe to our channel and hit that notification bell so that you can be notified when we release the video for our next destination.