Balance

Monday (11 August 2009)
Gerik
8.00am: Woke up excitedly to continue on my journey southwards. Got prepared to drive on, but was greeted by the signs of early morning mist of Gerik.
I didn’t expect to see such a thick mist. I didn’t even know that Gerik is on such high altitude to have this mist.

Gerik

Lenggong
9.00am: Reached the Kota Tampan Archaeological Muzium. Here lies the remains called ‘Perak Man’, the only prehistoric human remains finding in the world which shows deformities. There’s also pictures and displays of other prehistoric findings around this area.

Perak Man

Tasik Chenderoh
After that, it was time to head down south to Kuala Kangsar. Along the way, I drove past the Chenderoh Lake. There’s even a rest area on top of a hill overlooking the lake.

Tasik Chenderoh View Point

Empangan Chenderoh
A short journey down the main road later, I saw a sign to Chenderoh Dam. Being curious to see how the dam would look like, i took the turning to the dam. About 15mins or 9km through winding kampung roads later, I arrived at the power plant. Seeing an open gate without a guard in the guard house, I drove straight in to find a good view to have a picture. On my way out, I was stopped by the guard who insisted that I was trespassing. My argument was there wasn’t anyone in the guard house and the message written on the wall is to ‘report to the guard post inside’.
In the end, I was permitted to leave after agreeing to delete the picture. Well, I deleted only ONE picture of the dam … I still have two pictures…

Empangan Chenderoh - Forbidden Picture

Kuala Kangsar
My next stop is Kuala Kangsar. BY then It was about 11am and I was getting hungry since I didn’t have anything for breakfast. I intend to go to the landmarks and not stop for long before heading to Taiping for lunch. Stopped by at Masjid Ubudiah, the Royal Palace and the Kuala Kangsar Bridge and proceeded to Taiping.

Taiping
I realised I didn’t do my own research on where the famous wan tan mee stall was. I was spending about 15 mins turning round and round the town looking for what would seem like a ‘famous wan tan mee stall’. In the end, the stomach won over curiousity. I just stopped at a random chinese coffeeshop where I can find parking space and had a plate of wan tan mee there.
Next, moved on to drive around the Taiping Lake Gardens and its attractions in the vicinity, foot of Bukit Larut (Maxwell Hill), Taiping Zoo and War Memorial Cemetary.

Taiping Lake Gardens

Kuala Sepetang
It seems that I don’t have many locations left to explore between Taiping & Ipoh. Checked out the map and realised that two other nearby locations would be Kuala Gula Bird Sanctuary and Kuala Sepetang (Port Weld). According to my travel book, there won’t be much birds at this time of the year as the birds will only be flocking there starting the month of September.
Since Kuala Sepetang has its place in history for having the first railway tracks in Malaysia (Between Port Weld and Taiping)
On the way to Kuala Sepetang, I actually drove past the Residence of Perak’s first Menteri Besar, Ngah Ibrahim. It was quite a big mansion (but sorry, did not stop for a photo session.)
Nearing the town, the landscape around me changed from the normal palm oil trees and into mangrove forest. Kuala Sepetang is a small peaceful town which was only awaken by my car. The town was actually a dead end of the road. I would have thought that the railway tracks would still be here but there wasn’t any sign of rail-works along the drive. So much for preserving history …

Ipoh
That was more or less the end of my northern road trip. Two hours drive later, I reached my hometown in Ipoh. The next day, I’ll be heading back to KL. Hopefully in the next few months, I’ll be able to take another trip, this time to the east coast or the southern region.