Taiping (Maxwell Hill) Trip, Kuala Sepetang Seafood

Was in Taiping on December 27th 2010 with family and spent a night in Cendana Hut, Maxwell Hill.

Found these photos in my laptop and thought why not do a brief trip photo and writeup so here it is.

Taiping Lake, heard about this lake when I was really young; 10 or 12 years of age? I could not remember. The Taiping Lake then was the favorite place my elder sisters and brothers will opt for school outing. Together with this Lake, haunted bungalows were what normally associated with Taiping then, but have not heard about those nowadays.

After 5 months, what I remember about Taiping Lake was completely "green" landscape. You will find very old trees at both side of the main road, and I mean really old, 100+ years or so, base on my wild guess.

My daughter snapped photos at almost every corner in the Lake area, ease my effort to choose few nice photos to post it here. A bamboo guarded walkway I picked, hmmm ... would be nicer if some green filter were used, I thought.

We made a short stop and walked around the World War II Memorial Park located along the way to Maxwell Hill. I bet you will not feel anything extraordinary looking at these photos now, but I remember my exact sentiment when I walked on the green grass and looked at the reasonably well-maintained park.

Names of soldiers, mostly resembles their Indian and British nationality, were engraved on the stones.

For reason they probably would never choose for second time, they came to this piece of land that is thousand of miles away from their home, and they died here. I felt grieve, and had some emotion that I never had in my holidays.

A quiet, peaceful walkway just outside Cendana Hut. The only vehicle available from visitors to reach bungalows area is jeep, facilitated by TNB.

We paid few Ringgit at the office for both ways and was briefed on the timing these jeeps will bring us down from Cendana Hut.

Visitors could choose to walk from Maxwell Hill to the accommodation area but the journey will take some 4 hours or so. With our luggage and a city-tuned stamina, that obviously was not possible to be considered.

Cendana Hut, place we put up for a night at Maxwell Hill. It has a wooden platform strategically built for an awesome view on Taiping town and Kuala Sepetang. The platform with wooden hand rail painted in white in the photo that is.

We stayed at the platform a little bit longer at dusk, after our simple dinner there, trying to appreciate the cold breeze, the enchanting moving clouds and the peaceful mood one will feel when you are viewing from highlands.

Naked feet.... I am on holidays :-)

View of Kuala Sepetang and further, Melaka Strait, from Cendana Hut during dusk.

The overnight experience in Cendana Hut, however, was not very comfortable; bed provided was worn and unwelcome noise, suspiciously by rats, kept us awake till dawn.

We had a walk in a garden that was quite ran down located just beside Cendana Hut. Tulip flowers that once imported from Netherland and display in it, was no more at sight.

Later we were made to understand that the business owner has stopped importing tulip flowers because it was economically not viable.

Otherwise, roses that were available in abundance in the garden, kept my daughter busy with her photographing.

We walked further up from Cendana Hut for some half an hour or so during morning of our second day there, and reached this bungalow that was not in stayable state.

Not long after that we checked out from Cendana Hut and heading to Kuala Sepetang, 40km west of Taiping, with agenda and expectation for good seafood, for our lunch.

Entrance of restaurant where we had our lunch in Kuala Sepetang. I was told by my friend the seafood porridge in Kuala Sepetang is something we should not miss. We made 2 rounds in the town area, trying to located a restaurant that offers seafood porridge. At the end the greed-for-food and time factor urged us to decide otherwise. Not a bad decision after all, we enjoyed our seafood lunch pretty much.

Jetty and mangrove trees outside the restaurant. Hope the tress will survive for many years to come, I hope.

A fisherman standing on his boat loaded with fishing nets.
Fishing nets in the photo is meant for catch in shallow waters. Depends on the net size, that catch could include high value fish like pomfret too.

Trawler fishing boats longsided at fishing village. The alphabet of "A", "B" & "C" as printed indicates the license class of boat to operate at shallow or deep water, with "C" as the deepest class.

I ordered fresh-swimming flower crabs, fresh-swimming mantis prawn (kept in bottle to avoid inter-specie fight anyway) and thick shell clams. We finished the seafood, paid a perhaps stolen price, and left to Kuala Lumpur after that.