I think this place would be one of the hidden and unknown gem to a lot of tourists that is looking to travel to the northern part of Malaysia, apart from the other famous places like Cameron Highlands, Fraser Hill and Genting Highlands. Below is some quote taken from the wikipedia post.
“Maxwell Hill was named after William George Maxwell, who was the British Assistant Resident in Perak”
Direction to Bukit Larut (Maxwell Hill) via Google Maps
Direction to Bukit Larut (Maxwell Hill) via Wikimapia
It’s also known among the locals that this place was once known as “Kopi-Sua” (Coffee Hill). But you could hardly see any coffee related plantation on the top except for cozy resorts.
Panoramic view from top of the hill.
Some of the floras. Head on and click on read more to look at the hidden beauty of this place.
To go toward the top of the hill, you can choose to, walk or take a trip up with the jeep. The price for each ticket would be approximately around R.M. 6-8. But there is a limit on how many person can go up at a time due to the limited space on the jeep. Total of 8 person can go up at a time. And there’s a schedule attached at the ticketing counter of the frequency of the transport. Sounds inconvenient? Wait until you are on the road which would take approximately around 30 minutes to go uphill. Why so long? This is a known fact that Bukit Larut remained the most under-developed resort with a very dangerous cliff for unexperienced driver. That is why no one is allowed to drive their own transport up there.
Of course if you choose to walk up the hill, it would take up to 4 hours!
\
Well if you have read up to this part, you might start to wonder what is up there besides, flowers and lizards?
Absolutely Nothing. So if you are looking for a quiet and serene place to meditate or just a getaway from the city. This would remain one of the best place. Worry not, you will still get full reception on your phone coverage.
If you choose to walk down towards the slope from where you arrived, you would then get to see a clearer panoramic view of Taiping town.
And there’s a mini-watchtower than you can climb up to, beware of the steps, it’s quite steep and narrow and I literally hit my head on the top (ledge?) while walking down.
And there is this hanging bridge.
An incomplete stitch.
Burning coals?
While there is nothing much that you can explore in terms of new knowledge on the hill, perhaps if you head down right towards Kuala Sepetang (location at Google Maps), you can start to smell the taste of burning coals along the way as it’s filled with massive amount of what we known as “Pokok Bakau” in the local language that is used to create coals.
A lot of logs right outside of the factory can be seen.
Perhaps I have no idea what these “coal-making” factory is called. But these are all hand-built from scratch.
If you walk right-in, you can see there’s a big dome inside, probably more than one usually, which they use that to prepare coal under intense heat and pressure.
The front of the dome, which according to the owner of the facility, permit is mandatory to operate these domes.
The owner of the facility, explains that when the dome is burning the logs, there wouldn’t be any exit for people to come-in and out of the dome, until they deem the coals are ready.
Inside of the dome with all the logs prepared.
On a different set of dome, you can see the heat of the flame is so intense that it’s hard to get nearby.
The ashes.
The devoted workers.
And if you’re wondering how do they transport such huge amount of items towards the facility, you can take a short walk outside/behind the facility and see there’s a long tail boat nearby.
And from a raw log is prepared, they removed the bark from the trunk.
Coals that are ready for sale.
High quality coals.
Are you can see the owner is holding a bottle of water, no it’s not an isotonic drink, but are those water that came as steams through the dome. It is so acidic that it cures certain ailment that the doctor claim it’s impossible to do so. Believe it or not?
When poured onto the ground.
Few minutes after that. And yes, it’s acidic. According to the owner as well, cosmetic products such as As-Keh-two and alike uses these magical “water” and preprocessed it again to make thier liquid looks white as opposed to what you see above, which is brownish due to the hue of the tree’s bark and trunk.
And not too far away from the facility, if you travel down towards Kuala Sepetang, you can take a trip down to the mangrove area that has a lot of these similar trees.
One of the oldest one in the area.
Related information on this place :
You might also like this :
