One of my friends, KcLiew is living in KL, but still has a house in Taiping. He has to check regularly if everything is ok there and asked me if I liked to join him during one of his visits.
On 26/11 we left the Puduraya station in KL by bus and arrived in the late afternoon in Taiping.

KcLiew's house near Taiping. We had to do some cleaning and sweep the floor..:-)

In the garden there were some coconut trees, full of ripe coconuts, so there was work to do to harvest them.

KcLiew used to be an entomologist of international renown. His house still looks like a museum of natural history.

The next day we made a trip to several tourist destinations around Taiping. First we visited Ibrahim's fort, now part of the Taiping Museum.

In the 19th century, after the discovery of tin, Larut (as Taiping was called in those days) became a wild west town. Two competing Chinese clans were fighting for power. Ngah Ibrahim tried to control them with this fort as his headquarters.

KcLiew could not resist the temptation to have his picture taken with an elephant. The story goes that an elephant got lost in the jungle and came back with it's legs covered with greyish mud: The discovery of Tin!

In 1875 the first British Resident of Perak, James Birch was assasinated and the trial of his supposed murderers took place in this fort. Later Larut was renamed to Taiping (eternal peace).

The coastal region near Taiping consists of large mangrove forests. The Matang forest can be visited.

The mangrove forest of Matang is a well maintained nature park. These mangrove forests are harvested for their timber.

There is a nice through the forest, leading to pretty chalets which can be rented.

The interesting root systems of the mangrove trees.

We heard many birds, although it was not easy to spot them. But there were other interesting creatures.

Here a friend of KcLiew has climbed down to collect some shells from the mud. General KcLiew is giving the orders...

Boys from a nearby kampung were catching small crabs. It looks like these crabs are mutilated, but they really have only one, strong, pincer.

When you pick up the crab so that he can not use the pincer, it is a harmless creature. Needless to say, we released him after what must have been a shocking experience...

Port Weld was in the past an important harbour for the tin mines. Present-day Kuala Sepetang is a quiet fishing village.

Part of the village is situated on an island which can only reached by using a small, scary sampan.

KcLiew met an old friend there, who showed us around in the village

This is a dominantly Chinese fishing village with several temples.

Then it was time to have a nice seafood lunch

Many of the houses in this village are built on stilts, in a traditional style

The restaurant was on the first floor, where we had a good view of the surroundings.

We had fried oysters, steamed fish and crab, for four people, with a total bill less than RM 80 ( less than 20 Euro)