The adventure begins with a 6am drive from Penang to Taiping
After meeting Toh Puan Norisha and Taiping ladies at Kaki Bukit, paid our dues for breakfast, jeep ride and lunch, we clamber onto the jeep and we are off!
After 108 twists and turns up 45 degree gradient, we dropped Toh Puan Norisha off. She is going to cook us breakfast while we travel further up.
For a dollar more, we off load at Tempinis. It's a hill bungalow that is clad in 1970s interior.
Outside, these bell-shaped flowers are as poisonous as they are pretty. The sunlight creeping from behind the giant borders gave the flowers are translucent diaphanous aura.
In front of Tempinis, between the fir and the stone, is a lovely peep of Taiping and beyond
The best view is perhaps at the top of the boulder that can be accessed by a metal ladder.
View of the surroundings, and the little people down there below.
Amidst boulders as old as time . . . this is where I scratched my trousers and made a hole at the knee
Enough of the beautiful view, and we are on the jeep again, going down for breakfast. The jeep had to circle the highest elevation round-a-bout in Taiping, as well the the smallest (!!!) to retract our path.
Pretty flowers greet us outside the cafe. I took up Toh Puan Norisha's invitation at my last visit. She wanted to show me more of Taiping, with her as personal guide, with promises to go off the beaten track. This is turning out to be a most wonderful treat!
What a morning!
Just that indescribable sense of space, freedom, and close to the heavens.
What beauty of God's creation!
A lilac bouquet of hydrangeas planted earlier this year by PWIT.
That's the layout of the breakfast prepared by Toh Puan Norisha for us! She reminds me of mom, letting her girls go play and explore while she labours over the stove to feed us. How kind!
Breakfast prepared by Toh Puan Norisha. Here are the ladies, enjoying beehoon goreng, curry puff, fresh jambu and rich frothy teh Tarik.
Adventure awaits beyond these gates!
The conifer trees are rather unusual up at Maxwell Hill. This one just bushes out at the ends.
A living Fossil. The cycads, perhaps dating o the Cretaceous periods when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Their look-alike ancestors have been around 280 million years and have survived several mass extinctions.
In contrast, this bungalow is named 'Angkasa', Space.
This is what's beyond 'Space'
Reminds me of those 'lost in the enchanted woods' movies (imagine unnerving background music) as this mossy beard, suspended in time and 'space'
Spectral. Outré. Creepy creepers
Now, who arranged this amazing floral bouquet?
Back through the gate. And beyond.
Giant bird's nest ferns arranging themselves splendidly on tree tops.
Forest lost in time.
I sat under an ancient tree for hours, admiring God's creation, bathed by bouts of cool breeze.
I could sit here forever.
Took a walk through the downs
An intriguing little cabin
Sunlight, flowing downwards in streams of tender warmth
That's Toh Puan Norisha, wife of the Orang Besar Jajahan chieftain of Selama-Taiping, descendant of Ngah Ibrahim . . . after cooking breakfast for the ladies . . . with a bag of cuttings. She goes about getting her fingers in the dirt, digging and planting flowering shrubs and plants on the hill to pretty it for visitors. Probably the most unusual, if not outstanding Toh Puan there ever was, and ever will be.
Acorns!
Here is another of those strange conifers that lives on this hill. Putting out bushes of pines at the tips of each branch.
What tender colours.
What gentle lines.
Looking out to the look-out.
View from the little cottage Toh Puan acquired for her PWIT ladies
The kitchen
Toh Puan Norisha is repairing, renovating, refurbishing this little cottage at her own expense, for her ladies to use as a retreat.
I spy spiders everywhere.
This mushy mossy furball is soft and springy. Makes a good pet.
More spider web.
That should fit 9 of us.
Mist rolling in as we rough and tumble speed down the serpentine road
Here's a BIG bowl of ice-kacang at the Taiping Club. It uses gula Melaka syrup.
Over lunch Toh Puan (smiling in the background) extended an invitation to another excursion - to Tanjong Tualang next, eagles and dolphin sightings, Seafood lunch, and then when it is dark, a night boat ride to view the glowing fireflies on beremban trees. How tempting is this?
On my way out of Taiping . . .
I stop by this little forest cafe to rest, and thenwork on my story, surrounded by trees and greens, palms, and Sabah rainforest tea options. But I choose the iced latte.
8December 2017