December 7, 2016
We woke early and began our travel day by walking to the ferry port. The ferry (free returning to the mainland) delivered us almost directly to the train depot in Butterworth. The ETS intercity electric high speed train is one of the smoothest fast trains we have ridden, traveling at up to 140 km per hour. The train station completed 1917.
The development in infrastructure in peninsular Malaysia is apparent, as is the GDP per capita that is three times that of Indonesia.
We stopped for the afternoon at the city of Ipoh, the capital of the state of Perak. It was a economic center of a major tin mining area. Many colonial buildings and shop houses dating back to the early 1900s still remain. Malaysia experienced a major disruption to its tin mining and rubber production during the Japanese occupation during WW11. The city contracted economically, but it also escaped the high-rise building craze experienced by other cities.
A number of interesting murals have been painted on the walls here.
Ipoh is also a popular branching off point for tourist visiting the tea plantations of the Cameron Highlands.
Two of the mosques in town.
1968
1898
In the late afternoon we boarded another train to Kuala Lumpur.
On the back of the free tourist pamphlet they make sure to remind you that drug trafficking is punishable my death.
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