Birch monument, Taiping

Do you know that there is a commemorative stone for Birch, up Maxwell Hill, my friend Wan Amril asked me, when I met him in Taiping, May 2017.

Of course I knew about J.W.W Birch, the first British Resident of Parak, appointed 4 November 1874 after the Pangkor Treaty and assassinated 2 November 1875. I knew that there was a memorial clocktower for him in Ipoh, but I had never heard about a monument in Taiping.

Wan Amril, who is very knowledgeable about Taiping and its history, had seen a photo of the monument in 2009 and had visited it in December of the same year. Here is the very readable report written by him about what he called a mini-expedition: The Forgotten Memorials .

He was willing to bring me to the monument and of course I accepted his invitation. Aric and I were staying in the Nest, enjoying the hospitality of Suet Fun and Peter, together with another friend, Law Siak Hong, president of the Perak Heritage Society.

From the Nest bungalow it is less than 1.5 km along the tar road to where the trail starts. The tar road ends at the Cottage, the first bungalow of Maxwell Hill, built in 1884.

It is easy to miss the trail. And you must be prepared for leeches.

After about 200 meter you reach the monument.

This is the text on the monument: THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO CLIMB THIS HILL WAS MR T.W.W. BIRCH. FIRST BRITISH RESIDENT OF PERAK IN 1875 . In 2009 Wan Amril had already noticed the mistake, the T should have been a J.

Next to the commemorative stone, there is a metal plaque, not easy to decipher, Wan Amril gives: LAWATAN PERTAMA KALI D.Y.T.M. RAJA MUDA PERAK KA BUKIT INI PADA 23.7.73 JAM 8.02 PAGI. Translated: Inaugural visit by His Highness the Raja Muda of Perak to this hill on 23-7-73 at 8:02am

An interesting monument, leading to several questions. When was it placed here and by whom? Who was responsible for the spelling mistake and why was it never corrected? And of course the most important question, did J.W.W Birch indeed climb Bukit Larut during the short period (less than one year!) that he was the Perak Resident? If he did, for what purpose? Adventure? Looking for a possible hill resort 🙂 ?

Back home in Petaling Jaya, I searched Google for more info and discovered that Birch had kept a journal during the period that he was Resident of Perak! In 1976 an annotated edition of these Journals has been published, out of stock, but the National Library of Malaysia has copies!

I visited the Library in December 2018 and found the book with the help of friendly library staff.

I coud not borrow it, so I sat down and soon found the passage in which Birch describes his visit to Taiping. I made photocopies, here they are. Interesting reading, this is Birch’s private diary and he doesn’t always mince his words :-). Click to enlarge.

Here is a summary with some comments from me

Birch arrived in Taiping from the Dindings on Wednesday 30 June 1875. He met Captain Speedy, had discussions with Campbell about surveying matters and inspected the construction work on the road from Sempang to Qualla Kangsa. Spelling in those days was often different from the present one.

He also meets the Mantri, Ngah Ibrahim, at Bukit Gantang and has to settle Chinese disputes. About Sunday 4 July he writes: A large party of Europeans have come over to see Capt. Speedy and the place is quite lively with upwards of 30 elephants also collected. Do I detect some disapproval here 🙂 ? Not surprisingly he is rather critical about the flamboyant Speedy.

On Tuesday 6 July, he starts the expedition to Gunung Hijau. Not looking for adventure or a potential hill resort, surveying is the target. Campbell and Speedy accompany him and three more Englishmen. Plus of course porters, the plan is to stay overnight at the top of Gunong Huji (Gunung Hijau), so besides surveying equipment also material for a temporary shed has to be transported up the mountain.

After “a very steep and troublesome climb” they reach the house of a “Chinaman” at about 1700 feet, where they stay overnight. The mines are very good there with lots of water around, Birch writes.

The next day they must have started early, because at 9am they reached already some Malay houses/huts, at an altitude of 2500 feet. Also here the (tin) ore was very rich and “… an enterprising man may make a fortune here in a very short time …

The Chinese house, the Malay huts, at least the lower ranges of Bukit Larut were inhabited, so there must have been reasonably clear trails. For the upper part, I think the (orang asli?) guides who undoubtedly brought Birch and his team to the top, chose basically the route which now leads to the Hill Station (at 6th mile) and continues to the Cottage on top of Caulfield Hill. Here is a topo map of the upper part of Bukit Larut. Left the Hill Station at an altitude of 3400 feet. Gunung Hijau is at 4750 feet.

Caulfield Hill is what mountain hikers call a “false peak” at 4500 feet. You think that you have reached the top, but you have to go down first and then climb up again to the real peak. Frustrating, I speak from experience 🙂 In this case the saddle between Caulfield Hill and Gunung Hijau is at an altitude of 4300 feet.

After breakfast, they continue, and Birch writes: “after getting considerably higher, we had to go down a dip of about 500 feet, and then ascend again, but at last reached the top” If I am right about the route they followed, he is more or less correct, they had to go down about 200 feet and climb up again 450 feet.

At the top it is cold, there is mist and a strong wind, but there are also splendid glimpses of the land below and the sea. A shed is built, there is intermittent rain and at night it is very cold.

The next day Birch and Campbell wake up early to do their surveying work. They used instruments similar to these two, left an aneroid barometer and right a theodolite.

First they determine the height of Gunung Hijau. Probably everybody will be familiar with a barometer as an instrument to give information about the weather. Notice that the inner scale gives the air pressure (in inches Hg) and also weather descriptions, From Stormy (28 inch) until Very Dry (31 inch).

But a barometer can also be used to determine height, using the fact that the air pressure will decrease when you get higher in the atmosphere.

Birch had measured 29.42 inch for the air pressure at Mrs Marple’s house (where he was staying in Taiping) , and now he found 25.15 inch. He had also measured the temperature at both locations.

With these values he was able to calculate the difference in altitude between the two locations and found 4425 feet. Estimating the altitude of Mrs Marple’s house at 60 feet, this would give 4485 feet for the height of Gunung Hijau. And that value is not correct, more than 250 feet short, the actual height of Gunung Hijau is 4750 feet ! In an Appendix I will give more details about his calculation and about a possible explanation of the discrepancy..

The next step was to determine the actual location of Gunung Hijau. They used the Admiralty Chart number 1353, where the location of the mountain was given and also the location of several island in the Straits, Pulo Jarra, Pulo Rima, Pulo Kandy and Pulo Tellong. Is the location of Gunung Hijau on the map correct? Now the theodolite is needed. With this precision instrument you can measure angles, both in a vertical and a horizontal plane. The procedure is as follows. The theodolite is pointed to an island, and the angle is measured. Using this angle you can draw a line on the map. Repeat this for the other islands. Where the four lines intersect, is your location. In principle two lines are enough, but more will be better. Result of these measurements : “ … we found that Gunung Hiju was in correct position exactly

The view is magnificent, from the Dindings in the South to Quedah Peak (Gunung Jerai) in the North. Penang is clearly visible. Apparently they can also see Taiping, deep down, the prison, roads etc. About the view Birch writes “It is one of the prettiest bird’s-eye views I ever saw, and beats the view from Penang Hill all to nothing“.

All this during the morning hours, because at 12pm, they pack their instruments and start the descent, another 3000 feet down, to the house of the Chinese at 1750 feet, where they stay overnight again.

The next day, “with a good deal of pain in our muscles ” they descend the last part where elephants(!) are waiting, who bring Birch back to his lodgings at Mrs Marple. That night he has a fever, but the following morning he feels well and fresh again and starts works with Campbell to plot the results of the expedition .

It is his last day in Taiping, in the afternoon he goes to Bukit Gantang, on elephant, where he meets Ngah Ibrahim and has a discussion with him about debt slavery and other matters. He stays overnight in Bukit Gantang and continues the next day to Kuala Kangsar.

It is 11 July. Ten days later, on 21 July, in a meeting of Sultan Abdullah with the Malay chiefs, it is decided that Birch will be killed, not poisoned but stabbed to death. Because he has no respect for Malay culture and tradition, some say. Because he wanted to abolish “debt slavery.” other historians say.

One question about the monument has been answered. Yes, Birch climbed Gunung Hijau in 1875, together with four other Englishmen. When and by whom the commemorative stone was placed at what now is called Birch Hill, will probably remain unknown forever.

I am thinking about climbing Gunung Hijau myself during one of my following visits to Taiping. Of course not starting from the foothills 🙂 There is a trail starting near Caulfield Hill and from there it should take about one hour. Probably there is no view anymore, but I want to check out myself. Anyone likes to join 🙂 ?


Appendix

Atmospheric pressure depends on altitude, as you get higher it will decrease. In my university it was a standard experiment for physics freshmen to determine the height of the laboratory building, using a barometer.

So I was interested how Birch determined the height of Gunung Hijau. Here is the passage in his Journal again, where he does the calculations

The formula he uses is H = 60.000 (log R – log r) K , where R and r are the barometer readings in Taiping and on the top of the mountain, and K is a correction factor depending on the temperatures, measured at the two locations.

Where did Birch find this formula? He mentions Ranbines and Molesworth. Googling for Ranbines gave no results, but Molesworth did. A lot of hits, it must have been a popular handbook for engineers in the 19th century. First edition in 1863, here is a photo of the 19th edition, published in 1879.

The pocket book has 788 (!) pages and can be found online here. I was lucky, I only had to scroll to page 12 to find what I was looking for 🙂

We have to take the logarithm of the two pressure values. Nowadays we use a pocket calculator, but in those days you had to use logarithm tables, which are included in Molesworth’s Pocket Book. By the way, during my own high school days, I still was using a logarithm table! Here are the logarithm pages in Molesworth.

Mainly for nostalgic reasons, but you may try to reproduce the values given by Birch 🙂 Actually I did. Taking the logarithms of the pressure values, I noticed that he gives them in 7 decimals. The tables have 5 decimals, interpolation gives the 6th, but not a 7th. My guess is that the tables in Rambines have 6 decimals, so interpolation gives the 7th. Not that it makes much of a difference. Subtracting the two logarithms, Birch finds a value of 0.0681047, while I find 0.068109, one decimal less, using the Molesworth tables.

The final part of Birch’s calculation is a bit surprising. Birch takes logarithms again ! But there is no need for that, just fill the values in the equation for H, given above

H = 60000 x 0.0681047 x 1.083 = 4425.4 feet (with my value, I find 4425.7 feet).

Of course it is true that using logarithms you replace multiplication by addition, but at the cost of using tables, and the two (long) multiplications are basically primary school stuff.

About the difference between the 4425 + 60 feet found by Birch and the actual value of 4750 feet, the most probable explanation is a change in atmospheric pressure (weather conditions) during Birch’s trip. At least two days between the measurements at Mrs Marple’s house and the top of Gunung Hijau! Look again at the dial of the barometer. “Very Dry” and “Stormy” have a pressure difference of 3 inches!

To see the effect of a small variation in r, I redid the calculation for r= 24.95 inch and found H =4651 feet.

This is a well known disadvantage of the barometric method to determine altitude. Both measurements should be done at the same time!

Nobel Prize Physics 2019

The Nobel Prize for Physics has been awarded this year to Jim Peebles for ” theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology” and to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for “the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star”.

It happens regularly that the Nobel Prize is split, but in this case there is hardly a connection between the two topics, and the Nobel committee must have realised that,  by adding that the prize this year was won for “contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth’s place in the cosmos”

In this post I will concentrate on Jim Peebles, maybe in a later post I will write more about the discovery of the other two physicists.

The scientific career of Peebles is closely associated with the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation, so I will first explain what it is and how it was discovered.

According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe came into being 13.8 billion year ago. Incredibly tiny, hot and dense, it started to expand, while cooling. In the beginning it was a soup of gluons and quarks, but after a few minutes (!) the temperature had dropped so much that “normal” matter, like protons, neutrons and electrons became stable and even some light elements like deuterons and alpha particles could be formed. But it was still a plasma for many thousand years, until after around 380.000 years the universe had cooled so much that electrons and nucleons could form neutral atoms, like helium and hydrogen. From that time onwards until present photons could travel freely, the Universe had become transparent.

In the 1960’s Dicke and Peebles at Princeton studied this Big Bang theory, which was still not universally accepted at that time. If the Universe started with a “primordial fireball” , remaining radiation of this fireball should still be present. But the Universe has expanded about 1000 times since it became transparent, so the wavelength of that radiation has also increased 1000 times! No longer visible (reddish) light, but microwaves with a wavelength in the order of cm/mm’s, corresponding to a temperature of only a few Kelvin.

To detect this kind of radiation you need a microwave radiometer , and two colleagues of Dicke and Peebles, Roll and Wilkinson, also at Princeton, were building one. Then they learnt that two scientists at Bell Laboratories, Penzias and Wilson, only 60 km away from Princeton, were actually working wich such a radiometer and had found results they could not explain. Here is a photo of the Holmdel Horn Antenna, used by Penzias and Wilson.

What was it they could not explain? Well, measuring microwave radiation is not easy, because there is much “noise” from many sources, which you have to eliminate or take into account. What they found was that there always remained a background corresponding to a absolute temperature of 3.5 Kelvin. It did not matter which part of the sky they pointed the horn to, and whether it was day or night, there was always this background. They even cleaned the inside of the horn, removing pigeon droppings!

When the two teams came together, the solution was immediately clear. Penzias and Wilson had inadvertently discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation, predicted by Dicke and his team. “Well, boys, we’ve been scooped “, Dicke supposedly said.

The two groups decided to write separate articles for the Astrophysical Journal of 1965, referring to each other. Cosmic Black-Body Radiation by Dicke, Peebles et al. and , very modestly titled, A Measurement of Excess Antenna Temperature at 4080 Mc/s by Penzias and Wilson.

In 1978 Penzias and Wilson received the Nobel Prize for Physics “for their discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation” Of course many in the scientific community found that the Nobel Prize should have been awarded to both teams. But (old fashioned) Nobel Prize rules made that impossible, teams can not get the Nobel Prize, only individuals (maximum three).

Roll and Wilkinson continued with their experiment and published the results the next year in the Physical Review Letters: ” Cosmic Background Radiation at 3.2 cm-Support for Cosmic Black-Body Radiation. Searching information for this post, I found a fascinating article, written a few weeks ago by Peter Roll, now retired of course, about his perspective on the 1965 discovery of the CMB. VERY readable, also for non-physicists.

I have written in some detail about the discovery of the CMB radiation because the importance of this discovery can hardly be overestimated. It changed the Big Bang theory from a controversial hypothesis into the standard model for the evolution of the universe. Here is another very readable article in Physics Today, one year after the discovery: A Bang, not a Whimper?

Of course there were still many questions. If the radiation was really thermal, it should have a well-defined spectrum. And it was of course very convincing that the radiation was the same at each point of the sky, but actually there should be minuscule differences, how else could stars and galaxies have formed, if the early universe was completely homogeneous?

The best way to investigate these questions, was to launch a spacecraft and observe the radiation outside Earth’s atmosphere. And that’s what happened. In 1974 NASA asked for scientific proposals and in 1989 the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) was launched. Two main experiments, FIRAS by John Mather, to determine the spectrum of the CMB radiation and DMR by George Smoot to measure the miniscule differences (the “anisotropy”) of the CMB.

Here is the spacecraft. Dimensions (without solar panels) ~ 4,5 x 2,5 m. The experiments are indicated, the Dewar contained liquid helium to cool especially FIRAS to near absolute zero temperature.

Here are the results. The CMB spectrum fits so perfectly the shape of a thermal source (“blackbody”) that it received a standing ovation when it was presented to the American Astronomical Society in January 1990.

The temperature of the CMB is 2.728 K, but Smoot found indeed tiny differences, depending on the location in the sky. Here is a map of the sky, with the temperature differences indicated in red (slightly warmer) and blue (slightly colder). When these results were published in 1992, they were frontpage news in the New York Times and Stephen Hawking in an interview called it “the greatest discovery of the century, if not of all times”.

In 2006 Mather and Smoot received the Nobel Prize for Physics “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation”

Through the CMB we are looking back to the very young universe, 380.000 year old, before stars and galaxies were formed. Exploring these temperature differences, may help us to understand the evolution of the universe. But then a more detailed map of this anisotropy is needed!

In 2001 the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was launched. Until 2009 data have been collected, resulting in maps like this one, much more detailed.

And in 2009 the Planck observatory was launched. The instruments on board were cooled until 0.1 Kelvin, making it the coldest object in the universe..:-) Here is the Planck map, even more detailed.

You may wonder about the shape of these maps. It is called the Mollweide projection and it minimises the distortion you always get when you project a sphere on a plane. For comparison, here is the Mollweide projection of Earth.

There are two other discoveries in cosmology during the past 50 years that I have to mention, before I can finally come back to Jim Peebles and his Nobel Prize 🙂

The first one was the discovery of Dark Matter. In the 70s the American astronomer Vera Rubin studied the rotation of galaxies like the Andromeda galaxy and found that the outer regions of the galaxies were rotating much faster than expected, based on the visible matter of the galaxy and Kepler’s laws. An explanation could be that galaxies are surrounded by a halo of invisible (“dark”) matter. The existence of this Dark Matter has been widely accepted by the scientific community, but we still do not know yet what it is. According to many physicists, she deserved a Nobel Prize for her research, but she never got it. Because she was a woman? She passed away in 2016, Nobel Prizes can not be awarded posthumously. Here is a necrology: Vera Rubin, invisible to the Nobel Committee.

The second discovery was made in the 90s by two teams of astronomers who were studying the expansion of the universe. The Big Bang theory predicted that the expansion would slow down, because of the force of gravity. The crucial question was: will this force be big enough to stop the expansion, followed by a contraction, ending in a Big Crunch, or will the expansion go on forever. The result of their research was shocking: the expansion is not slowing down, but accelerating! There must be a repulsive force, which was called Dark Energy. Also here we do not know what it is. In 2011 the leaders of the two teams were awarded the Physics Nobel Prize “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae”. I wrote a blog about it: Physics Nobel Prize (2011).

So, what did Jim Peebles discover? Nothing actually, and that may have been a reason that he received the Nobel Prize so late in life (he is now 84 year old) as the Nobel Committee has a preference for (experimental) discoveries.

But Jim Peebles rightly deserves the Nobel Prize because he has been instrumental in developing the theoretical cosmological framework for what is called physical cosmology. In 1982 he published a groundbreaking article about a cosmological model with dark matter in it and in 1984 an article in which he added the cosmological constant Λ (now called dark energy) to his model. This model , the Λ CDM  model, is at present the standard model of cosmology. For this work Peebles could (should) have been awarded the Nobel Prize many decades ago! Well, better late than never 🙂

With this Λ CDM model, using the properties of the CMB radiation and other experimental results, it is possible to determine how much normal matter, dark matter and dark energy there is in the Universe. The best fit to the (Planck) CMB data is obtained with the following values:

  • Atomic matter 4.9 %
  • Dark Matter 26.8 %
  • Dark Energy 68.3 %

Probably most of you will have seen this result. Everything we observe around us, our earth, the sun, the planets, the galaxies, it is only ~ 5% of our universe. About the other 95% we know basically nothing. Astonishing and mind-boggling.

Let me finish this post with two images. Below is an overview of the Big Bang expansion. The CMB is seen to the left, called the Afterglow Light Pattern. To the left you see “Inflation” and “Quantum Fluctuations”. The present theory is that in the first ~ 10−32 (!) second, the universe expanded exponentially. I don’t feel qualified to write a post about it, see the Inflation article in Wikipedia.

When the universe became transparent after 380.000 year, there were no stars and galaxies yet, the universe was dark, except for the afterglow! It took hundred millions of years, before the first stars were formed. More info in Wikipedia’s Chronology of the universe.

In 1980 Peebles published a book Large-Scale Structure of the Universe and that has always been his primary interest. There are about 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe, are they just randomly distributed? The answer is no, they are part of what nowadays is called the Cosmic Web. They are concentrated along filaments, with huge voids in between. In this artist impression, each light dot is a galaxy. Another mind-boggling image. 🙂 .

In 2013 I have written a post : Largest Structure in the Universe discovered, very readable if I may say so 🙂

APPENDIX

How is it possible to extract the values for dark matter, dark energy etc from a map of the sky with minuscule temperature differences?

The first step is to “translate” the temperature differences into what is called a power spectrum. The CMB map has cold and warm patches in various sizes. A power spectrum gives the intensity of these patches as function from their (angular) size.

Here is the power spectrum of the PLanck CMB map. The largest temperature fluctuations are found in patches of around 1 degree. Notice that the angular scale runs from left (large patches) to right (small patches). The red dots come from the CMB map. The green line is the best fit from the Λ CDM model, using the parameters given above.

Here is an instructive video, how the different parts of the power spectrum correspond from left to right to increasingly detailed structures.

The calculations are complex and need powerful computers.

In this simulation: Build a Universe you can play around with the various parameters. To run it on your computer, you need to have Flash installed. Not everybody will have Flash, so I have taken two screenshots. The first one, shows the “fit” for a universe with only normal matter. The second one uses parameters like given above.

Taiping, October 2019

This time I visited Taiping to see the Nine Emperor Gods Festival. About the procession and the fire walking I have written a separate post, Nine Emperor Gods Festival . But during my 4D3N visit there was enough time left to walk around Taiping, visit friends and enjoy the food. Here is a report.

After the procession and lunch on Saturday 5 October , I decided to walk to the Amelia Earhart mural at the junction of Jalan Abdul Jalil and Jalan Taming Sari. On my way I passed the Central market and had a look inside. In the morning bustling with activity, but now quiet. Good news: plans for renovation of this iconic building have been accepted and a dilapidation survey has started. The “modern” clocktower in front of the market is quite interesting.

Here is the Amelia Earhart mural. A large mural to commemorate that she landed at Taiping airport on 20 June 1937. The problem is, she never did, as I have explained in two blog posts, Amelia Earhart and Taiping and Amelia Earhart and Taiping (part 2)

The mural is well done and her plane accurately depicted, but the text captions are wrong. She did not land at the Taiping aerodrome, but flew directly from Bangkok to Singapore on 20 June 1937. And the Taiping aerodrome may have been the first one in the Federated Malay States, but definitely not in South East Asia. Read my posts for more background information.

Walking back to my hotel, I passed two buildings that epitomise Taiping for me and actually are a reason that I love the town so much 😉 . The contrast between attractive old buildings and ruined structures appeals to me.

The building of the Ceylon Association is another example of successful restoration. And continuing my walk, I could not resist the temptation of a cendol at Ansari 🙂

Last month I have published a post Taiping Bandar Warisan about two ruined buildings along Station Road, the Rest House and the Perak Railway Buildings. I ended this report with:

Finally the Perak Railway Building and the Rest House have been fenced off. Let’s hope that this is the start of a positive development!

I am afraid that I was too optimistic. The Rest House looks fenced off quite well.

But you can still enter easily, as one of the entrance gates is unlocked

I was rather shocked when I saw the fencing of the Railway buildings. Only the front facade is fenced off, the side facade is just open as usual! My friend Yeap gave the explanation. Merdeka Day, 31 August, was celebrated this year in Taiping and the parade was passing the buildings along Station Road. The partial fencing was to cover the eyesore from view! Shame on MPT if that is true.

The main entrance (left photo) is “locked” in a very provisional way. Notice how the fence ends.

But from the other side you can. The fence is a solid construction, but completely useless this way. I entered from the side facade and took several pictures. I took care not to wake up the squatter who was living there and sleeping 🙂 !

I have sent my report about these two buildings to the Taiping Municipal Council and to the Perak Exco for tourism, arts and culture. No reply (yet).

Next two large scale murals. one related to the Central Market, the other one to the Port Weld railway. Well done by the same artist, apparently sponsored by Koridor Utara and MPT. You can find murals nowadays all over Malaysia, good that Taiping seems to “specialise” in large ones.

Almost back in my hotel, I crossed one of my favourite food courts, opposite the Taiping Mall, where I had enjoyed my Chee Cheong Fun breakfast earlier that morning. It seems that in the past, this was the place where they held circus shows. No idea who came with the idea to “add value” to this relaxed place by erecting a useless I LOVE TAIPING .

After a rest in my hotel, it was time for my usual walk in the Lake Gardens . I had taken my umbrella, because the sky was threatening. But with the sun still present, the result is enchanting.

It was a Saturday afternoon, people were enjoying their boat rides, as I was enjoying my walk.

Just a few more photos of plants, flowers, fruits and fresh leaves. Life is good in Taiping.

I have walked numerous times in the Lake Gardens, and never noticed that there is actually a dinosaur near the lake side! After part of the Circular Road became the pedestrian Raintree Walk, people can use it for their exercises.

In the evening I went out for dinner. First I walked to the Casual Market, forgetting that they are not open in the evening. Walking back, passing the nicely illuminated clock tower, I went to another favorite food court of mine, Prima, where I had my Char Kuey Teow.

I was not the only customer 🙂

The next morning I had breakfast with my friend Yeap in Lian Thong, eggs on toast and coffee. Another nicely restored building.

I had rented a bicycle from Furama hotel, because I was planning to visit the Taiping Aerodrome. But first I visited Mrs Long, the sister of my Singapore friend ST Lee. She is the wife of the late Mr Long, headmaster of King Edwards VIII and it has become a tradition to have a chat with her in her beautiful house at Barrack Road. She is a very good story teller.

When I was doing my research about Amelia Earhart and her supposed landing at the Taiping Aerodrome, I became interested in what was left of the aerodrome. I found a so-called aviation map of British Malaya (1935), with a detailed map of the Taiping Aerodrome. Compare it with the Google Earth screenshot. The left corner of the airfield has been developed already and there is concern that the rest of the airfield may follow. Protests have been hold, until now successfully.

Here is a view of the airfield. It would be great if a destination could be found in line with the original function of the field. For example an airfield for glider planes, or a skydiving school. Bus as you can see on the GE map, the field is now surrounded by residential development, so there might be safety issues.

Not much is left from the original buildings. This might have been the control tower.

A few more pictures. Could the building in the bottom pictures have been a hangar? First I thought that the concrete track in the top right picture could have been a runway, but on the GE screenshot you can see that the runway ran diagonally across the airfield (and has been been extended later, after the 1935 map was made).

On my way back to town, I stopped for a while at another mega-mural, near Antong’s coffee mill. Well done, but not a very good location, not many visitors will come and see it.

Back in town, I visited the Taiping city gallery, where I met Puan Jamilah, who still recognised me from an earlier visit. The planning is that this nice building should become a tourist information center for Taiping, but there is a lack of funding. Pity.

I met Yeap again for lunch, now in the company of Halim. After our lunch we visited the antique shop of Kapitan Tan, where Halim of course had to try the old Vespa 🙂

In the afternoon I took a rest in my hotel . Later Yeap picked me up and together we went to the Tupai temple for the fire walking. Here is the link again: Nine Emperor Gods Festival.

The next morning I had breakfast with Keseven, a Taiping Heritage Society (THS) member who like me is very interested in the Taiping Aerodrome and rather upset about the Amelia Earhart mural. Taiping is a small town, so it was no surprise that we met there Neal, another THS member. Of course we talked/gossiped about Taiping and THS 🙂

Halim was free that morning and willing to drive me around Taiping. So I walked back to my hotel, passed the dobi lines, always a colorful spectacle, packed my stuff and checked out.

Halim has been very active in tourism, so we made another stop at the Taiping city gallery and talked a bit more with Puan Jamilah.

Our next stop was at the pillars of the former Residency with the ruins of the ruined Casuarina hotel . Six years ago I have published a report, Shame on Taiping! , about this location. Nt much change, but of course more decay.

A few pictures. Halim told me that he and his wife had managed the restaurant of the hotel when it was still operating, about 12 years ago, so this visit was a kind of nostalgic experience for him.

Halim is quite adventurous and wanted to explore the first floor of the hotel, now resembling a jungle.

He was even more adventurous when we visited the New Club swimming pool, our last destination.

Before dropping me at the station, we had lunch in the Old Railway Station with Mee Rojak and Cendol.

Then it was time to take the ETS train back to Kuala Lumpur. A very convenient way of traveling!

It was a very rewarding trip. Thanks to all my Taiping friends. Looking forward to come again.