Feb 3 - Today seems like a lot of travel for the distance we actually go. I had previously bought bus tickets for 13:00, but the bus station is so far away that it takes us 1.5 hours (with a connection) to get out there.
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It takes an hour to get to Taiping, or rather, Kamunting (30 minutes north). We pass through thick jungle most of the way. The Kamunting bus station is really quiet, I wander around figuring out how we actually get into Taiping while buckets of rain fall outside. Locate a PerakTransit bus number and we wait around for it to show up. Finally get to the hotel about 16:00.
Taiping feels like a small town, even the traffic seems subdued. Old storefronts line every street, the only modern addition is the Taiping Shopping Mall. I go on an expedition to find the local bus terminal, to orient myself in case we use it tomorrow. It is a bit dark and wet with a few people sitting listlessly on benches, but the schedules are up on the wall, written by hand.
The feeling I already have, that this town is rainy, is borne out by its topography. More than anywhere else on the west coast of Malaysia, Taiping is bordered on the immediate east by mountains (see map above). All the moisture comes from the Indian Ocean, gets backed up against this barrier, and dumps the rain on the town.
Malaysia I