Ipoh, Taiping

I originally decided to take the bus to Ipoh this morning (recommended by the sofa owner and the Grab driver), but yesterday afternoon I received a letter from the sofa owner, saying that he would drive to Ipoh from Kuala Lumpur today, and he could give me a ride there. This is really the first time we met. I've been watching "Hitchhiking to Berlin" a while ago, will this start my ride journey? This eldest brother is a Malaysian Chinese who can speak Hokkien, Malay, Mandarin, Cantonese and English. He is the owner of several restaurants and even opened an Internet cafe. His Chinese name is super domineering, and he thought he was a gangster in a Hong Kong movie! His hometown is Taiping, not far from Ipoh. He has used the software Sofa for more than ten years (I didn’t know it existed for so long), but this is the first time he drove a long-distance car and let others hitchhike.

This big brother chatted while driving all the way, and he was very talkative. He said that he couldn't tell whether I was Chinese or Malaysian Chinese, as long as I didn't speak up, I could mix with the locals, probably because of my skin color, my tan was darker than before. A Malaysian girl in Cambodia thought I was from them.

At noon, he stopped by to see the restaurant’s equipment and talk about the kitchenware business. While waiting for his friends, he took me to a very popular roadside stall, including acar jelatah appetizers and salad pickles. Unknowingly, he waited for his friend for two hours. He said that Malaysians are late and there are often things to do. He said he had gone out, but he hadn't woken up yet. Later, when they were talking about business, they switched between various languages: English mixed with Malay and Cantonese, which was amazing.

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I drove north all the way, stopped to take me shopping while eating, and drove slowly for six or seven hours on the 300km road, experiencing sunny days, heavy rain, fog and sunset. Passing by Bidor Metro, Kellie's Castle, and arriving at Kek Lok Cave, we found that the gate was about to close. We said good things and let me go in last. Afterwards, I went to Ipoh, a mountain city in Perak, where there are delicious food, murals, big tits, mistresses, and mistresses alley. I ate old yellow sprout chicken, barley water and duck leg noodles. Then drive north to Taiping, the city of rain. It is said that the old people will come out at noon every day and sit outside to bet on what time it will rain.

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If you take the bus, you can arrive at two or three in the afternoon, but you will lose the fun of communicating with the locals and understanding their living customs, and the meaning of travel will be less. Now we have arrived in Taiping, which was completely out of the plan. I didn't even know about this place last night. The following are some interesting topics that we talked about along the way: 1. About sofa surfers: We discussed the potential safety hazards and information authenticity of this platform. I have never understood how this platform makes money without advertisements. He explained to me how they have become more and more commercialized over the years, and I realized that they also make money through big data such as user personal information. 2. About religion: The "Malaysian Constitution" clearly stipulates that if a person is not a Muslim, he cannot be a Malay. All Malays are Muslims. Although Malaysia is an Islamic country, the constitution also stipulates that Malaysia is a secular country with freedom of religion. 3. About travel: ① This elder brother seems to be the type of "unrestrained love of freedom". He has also been to the base camp of Mount Everest in Sichuan, Tibet, and India many times, saying that it is "clean and not delicious, but delicious It's not clean." Seeing that I was wearing short sleeves from Krabi, Thailand, he told me that he had driven to Krabi from Malaysia. The price of gasoline in Malaysia was half that of Thailand, and he finally added enough to drive there. ②In the past, one of his French couch-surfers played guitar and sang in his restaurant and worked for a month. In order to save money, he went to Vietnam to take over a youth hostel and settle down with his girlfriend. The eldest brother sent an email asking him to ask for photos of her boyfriend before, only to find out that her boyfriend died in a motorcycle accident in Vietnam, and wanted to commemorate him. 4. About music: This big brother loves to listen to pure rock and roll, and Tang Dynasty Black Panther Zhang Chu is his love, but none of his Malaysian friends know about these people. He also said that Wang Feng does not count as playing rock and roll at all. 5. About movies: He asked me if I want to watch a movie when I go to Ipoh? I said what!? What show are you watching? Only then did I realize that they call watching a movie a theater, and a movie theater is called a theater.

Brother Lin who took the car not only took me all the way to Ipoh, but also took me to stay at his house in Kemunting, Taiping for one night. He had received many sofa guests before, and it happened that this place was also very close to Penang, the next stop I was going to. He once mentioned their famous Maxwell Hill/Bukit Larut at an altitude of 1250m, which is the wettest area in Malaysia, with an annual rainfall of more than 5000mm. The mention of mountain climbing made my heart itch, so I decided to climb this morning. Originally, brother Lin who drove me there didn't get up in the morning, so I didn't want to bother him, so I took Grab. Before entering the mountain, I ate Nasi Lemak.

On the way up the mountain, I met a lot of locals who were going out for morning exercises, and I deeply experienced the enthusiasm of the locals along the way: as long as I make eye contact with me ten meters away, there will be a bright smile on my face, and I will say hello. Put me in a good mood. The locals told me that there is a shortcut in the first section that will be much faster, but it is more difficult to walk, and the other is the winding mountain road that is easier to walk. The shortcut is relatively steep, sometimes you have to use your hands and feet, and there is a rope next to it. Along the way, it felt like a tropical rainforest. I saw a monkey with two pinches of white hair on its head, gorgeous flowers and plants, and heard all kinds of strange birdsong. It took two and a half hours to get to the top, and there happened to be a group of foreign tourists who took a jeep up the mountain and were about to go down the mountain. There were still seats available, so they drove me down for free. I heard that I came from Beijing alone, and I was even more enthusiastic. up. The so-called jeep is actually a tuk-tuk like in Thailand. It takes half an hour to go all the way, and all the strangers they meet on the road will greet us warmly, which is very heart-warming.

I climbed down the mountain and Brother Lin came to pick me up in his car, and took me to Taiping Lake, where I ate at a vegetarian restaurant and charged by the plate. After that, I went to the well-known and long-standing Anton Coffee Factory to taste coffee for free. I tasted durian white coffee, various white coffee, tarik tea, southern and northern horse-style coffee, etc. Sun Yat-sen has a long history with this place. After eating and drinking, Brother Lin sent me to the bus station to Penang. Because of meeting him, there was an extra trip to Taiping that was not planned.

The bus from Taiping to Penang was really festive and bustling. As soon as I got in the car and sat down, the big brother behind me spoke a lot of words to me in Malay. How much do I look like a local? I said let's speak English, so we chatted all the way. He was surprised when he heard that I was traveling here as a girl. I was about to get out of the car, and he also gave me a bottle of oil for healing muscle soreness and bruises, saying that he was in the health business. I wondered before that he asked a bunch of questions about whether my parents were in Beijing and whether I would return to Beijing after my trip. It turned out that he insisted on giving me another bottle to bring to my parents. I said my bag was too heavy and it was full, so I insisted on not taking the second bottle. Then I gave him a Chinese paper-cut bookmark to express my gratitude. I have only been in Malaysia for a few days, and there are only so many good people who have helped me on the way. The bookmarks I brought may not last long.

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