I am sure you do not like this place but this place is an important landmark in Taiping, the historical city.
This is a cross junction with traffic lights, I was from Kamunting town, if I cross the junction, I can reach the Taiping Lake Garden, the Taiping Zoo and the Maxwell Hill; if I turn right, I will reach the Taiping town. To left, to a few government offices and schools.
The Kamunting Jail is famous because some famous political personnels had been kept here before.
You will find that Taiping is an important army base. If you are driving from Kamunting to Taiping on the hill route, you will see many "Markas Tentera" or army barracks.
Taiping is a strategic land location and was used by the invading Japanese army when they march south towards Singapore from Kelantan.
There are many colonial style military adminstrative buildings all over Taiping.
Probably the most photographed view of Taiping Lake Gardens are the impressive rainforest trees with their branches overhanging the road, reaching across the lake and almost touching the surface of the water.
On those majestic branches are overgrown lichens, ferns and wild orchids.
Many advertisements have taken with their beautiful lakeside trees. Hopefully, these trees will be well taken care of to ensure that they will be around for the locals and visitors to enjoy.
One of my favorite memories of Taiping Lake as a kid is to run over the many bridges in Taiping Lake.
There is a zig-zag bridge with a pavillion in the middle. You can see over the side, the water lilies, the dragon flies and little fishes and water skippers.
Then there is also an bright red wooden bridge and another bridge where boats can rowed underneath.
One of the beautiful sights of Taiping Lake is when the large red water lilies are in bloom.
Water lily is considered "virtuous" in Buddhist belief as this graceful bright large flower bloom from a stalk that grew from the muddy water below. Many Buddhist use the lotus flower of the water lilies for prayers and can be seen as a base of seating Goddess of Mercy or Buddha.
Along the canals on the old trunk road, you can also see this beautiful water lilies. But do not pluck them and they are cultivated by the local villagers. The lotus seeds are eaten and lotus shoots is a Chinese soup delicacy. Of course, there are many water lilies species of different colors and sizes, red, pink, yellow, white, lilac, blue.
The British legacy left behind an excellent school system. King Edward VII, as well as St. George's and Convent School, are many of the old schools that are still running today.
English used to the medium of instruction but now replaced by Malay (Bahasa Malaysia) while English language as a subject is maintained. In recent years, the teaching of mathematics and science has been reverted back to the use of English as the medium of instruction throughout Malaysia.
"SK" mean "Sekolah Kebangsaan" or "National School". "SKM" means "Sekolah Kebangsaan Menengah" or "National Secondary School" while "SKR" means "Sekolah Kebangsaan Rendah" or "National Primary School".
Malaysia school system has 6 years of primary education for children starting at seven years old. Secondary School has Forms 1 to 5 with optional Forms 6 Lower and 6 Upper. Many students go to college or university directly or after matriculation classes in higher education locally or to Australia, New Zealand, UK, Ireland, United States and other countries.
While the Chinese were major group of immigrants to Taiping for the tin mining, many Indians were recruited by the British to plant the rubber trees, construct railway lines, roads and buildings as well as serving as clerical administrative staff.
Many may think that that all from the Indian subcontinent are homogenous group - they are not. There are Tamils, Gujeratics, Punjabis, Bengalis and Ceylonese.
Ceylonese (Sri Lanka) are quite a close knit group and form associations throughout Malaya (Peninsular Malaysia). There are Ceylonese of Christians, Buddhist and Hindu as well as Muslim background.
In Taiping, you can see many large buildings of Chinese clan and association buildings for the "sinkeh" or new comers who came from Southern China to open the tin mines or run coffee shops or sundry shops to cater for the tin miners.
Seldom you will see the "Peranakan" or "Baba Nonya" or early "Straits Settlements" style buildings commonly found in the older Chinese settlements of Penang, Melaka and Singapore.
So quite a surprise to see this beautifully restored Peranakan style building in Taiping. Taiping is historic and full of surprises.
When you walkabout Taiping, you will come across many old streets that have been unchanged with trees still lining the middle of the road to provide shade from the tropical heat.
There are many popular local coffee shops in many of these old streets where you can have white coffee, hot or iced, and sample local noodles or spring rolls called "popiahs".
You may wander into an old watch repair shop or one of the new "2 Ringgit Only" stores.
In most towns, you will see old colonial Chinese businessmen mansions turned into open air restaurants with food stalls.
Here in Taiping, this Malay style mansion caught my eye. At night, it is turned into an open air restaurant selling Malay food stalls. During day, it is quiet.