Thursday 2 October 2008

Bukit Larut 3 Oct 2008




Bukit Larut is Malaysia's oldest hill station and is founded in 1884. It is located just ten kilometres from quiet Taiping in Perak. Formerly it was called Maxwell Hill. Bukit Larut is approximately 1250m above sea level.

We started walking up the Bukit Larut tar road at 9.50 a.m. after we were advised that the next available 4WD service would be at 3 p.m. Apparently, all the 4WDs had been fully booked that morning.

The walk was rather uneventful except for several occassions when we took shortcuts by scrambling up steep slopes. Along the way, we met locals having their regular walks and spotted colourful birds and noisy monkeys.

We reached Bukit Larut early at 12.30 p.m. because we managed to hitch a total of 30 minutes ride from 2 kind souls.

Heavy rain came while we were having our packed lunch. When the rain abated, we had a quick look around and made our way downhill at 2.30 p.m. and reached the base 2 hours later at around 4.30 p.m.

I must add that the air quality at Bukit Larut must be very good in view of the existence of lichen beard (Usnea lichen) at such low attitude of 1000m. This sounds logical because Bukit Larut experiences the highest rainfall ("air cleansing") in the country.


For the photographs, please refer to http://happytrekker.shutterfly.com/pictures/4525.

5 comments:

  1. is definitely a good and refreshing place to hike, walk and enjoy the nature :)

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  2. Really worth the efforts.
    So many flora n fauna to see.

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  3. 3 hrs walk up hill is quite a long one.

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  4. You people are terrible ! Blue bottle butterfly is named Raja brook. Leaf monkey is named gibbon. But I must say you people have the guts to learn by putting a ? so others can tell you. Bye, happy tracking. When I was in Taiping, last time, the sign board was under construction. Now I can see the sign board is up and also added many new features. For people who are not familliar - it is best to book the jeep to and fro trip, don't go during the school holidays, public holidays. If you must than book well in advance. And if you don't stay overnight you have missed the best part after loosing so much energy and money. Because you can encounter kissing the foggy mist and come face to face with a no-harm ghost or maybe seeing a phanter or python crossing the road.

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  5. Ha! Ha! Ha! I thought it was a leaf monkey but the write-up on Bukit Larut did mention about gibbons and not leaf monkeys. I looked up the internet and noted that gibbons also have white face patches. So what to do but to put a question mark and let the experts figure out...

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