Exploring Perak’s heritage
Story and pics by
Sharon Chan
At the break of dawn
on the last Sunday of September 2013, 70 eager participants from Taiping
embarked on a tour of Perak’s heritage sites. Organised by the Taiping Heritage
Society, in collaboration with the Ceylon Association and Inner Wheel Club, this
heritage tour covered six locations in Gopeng, Kampar and Batu Gajah.
After breakfast at Gopeng Pasar Food
Court, we explored two small museums, the Gopeng
Heritage House and the Gopeng
Museum housed in refurbished prewar shop houses. We learnt about how
the tin mining and rubber industries were started here and how they helped to develop
the town and its surrounding areas.
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| Gopeng Heritage House |
Then it was just a ten minutes drive to Gua Tempurung, the largest cave complex in Peninsular
Malaysia. I was in one of two buses on this tour group and my bus of 40
passengers had 22 seniors over 60 years of age with us! These golden cistizens received
a good discounted rate of only RM3 each when the rest had to pay RM9 entry fees
for the Top of the World Grade Two package.
As we trudged along an endless series of steps, we were shown fascinating
limestone formations of stalactites and stalagmites, some joining up to form
towering pillars. Many of these formations which had taken 250 to 400 million
years to form, resembled animals and humans and we had a fun time picking out
these resembles. Rosli, our caving guide, used his torchlight to point out
these images as well as limestone crystals, wave walls, potholes and many
amazing structures. What a spectacular natural heritage Perak possesses and all
Perakians should be proud of Gua Tempurung!
Twenty-five out of 40 made it to the end of the tour, climbing a total
of 640 steps reaching an elevation of 120m! That was quite an achievement!
Syabas! to all, especially a sprightly 77 year old lady who was not even
breathless climbing all those steps.
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| We made it! Gua Tempurung's Top of the World |
We took lunch at Kampar New Town and
then had a great time in Jalan Idris, buying lots of the famous Kampar
biscuits, cookies, pastries and curry bread. Then it was off to the Kinta Gravel Pump Tin Mining Museum.
The surrounding grounds had replicas of dulang washers panning for alluvial tin
ore and a wooden sluice with water flowing down it used to trap the heavier tin
particles. A number of heavy machinery used in excavating for tin in the 19th
century were displayed inside and outside the museum. The air conditioned
interior was a welcomed respite from the heat outside.
A brainchild of Tan Sri Hew See
Tong, former tin miner and Kampar MP, the museum was set up at a cost of RM2
million and is really worth a visit from anyone interested in the tin mining
industry. Look out for a replica of Larut, (the famous pet elephant of territorial
chief Dato Long Jaafar) who got lost and when found days later, was covered in
mud and tin ore! So Larut led to the discovery of tin in Taiping in 1848,
resulting in other tin fields found all over Perak.
The next heritage site we visited
was Kellie’s Castle, a
Scottish rubber planter’s dream gone awry. In 1820, William Kellie Smith
arrived in the then Malaya at the age of 20 and over several years, built his hugely
successful business empire in the rubber and tin mining industries. He married
his Scottish childhood sweetheart, Agnes, and had a daughter Helen and many
years later, his son Anthony. To celebrate the much awaited birth of his son
and heir, Kellie started building his castle, reminiscent of his Scottish
roots. But tragedy struck shortly after WW2, when the endemic Spanish Flu killed
off many of his imported Indian labourers and craftsmen. On a short visit to
Portugal in 1926, Kellie himself also died, leaving behind a dream unrealized
and uncompleted.
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| Heritage tour members at Kellie's Castle |
Today, Kellie’s Castle is a major
tourist attraction in Perak, a structure of alien architecture, shrouded in
mystery and a romance won and lost. Its corridors are reputed to be haunted and
there are undiscovered tunnels and concrete staircases leading nowhere. Plans
to build an indoor tennis court and roof top gardens to entertain the local
royalties and the foreign planters’ communities were left unfulfilled. Look for
the elevator, caged in metal meshes, because it is the first lift ever built in
Malaysia.
Our last destination was the
Gaharu Tea Garden near Gopeng.
David Ho Kwan Meng, Managing Director and 75% share holder, was at hand to
welcome us. He shepherded us into a meeting room where he gave us an
informative and humorous 30 minute briefing of the efficacy of his gaharu
products and many testimonies of real life healings. Also known as Agarwood or
Eaglewood, gaharu has featured for centuries in Chinese and Arabain cultures to
promote longevity, good health and beauty. It has taken Ho, 21 years to build
up his gaharu empire, which is now a thriving business venture and tourist
attraction. He has also built the Great Wall of Gopeng surrounding his 120ha
gaharu plantation, which now has 200,000 agarwood trees.
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| Briefing by owner Mr David Ho |
Visitors can buy a wide variety of
gaharu products at the gift shop of the Visitors Centre, from teas and perfumes
to biscuits, instant noodles, aromatherapy oils and various concoctions that
are claimed to be anti cancerous, anti ageing and a cure for all sorts of
ailments.
What a successful heritage tour of
some major historical sites in Perak we have embarked upon! It was with a sense
of achievement that we arrived safely back in Taiping at 7.30pm, rejoicing in
the fact that we had visited so many interesting places in just 12 hours.
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| At Gaharu Tea Valley, Gopeng |
Contacts
Taiping Heritage Society:
012-5382743 (President Yeap Thean Eng)
Gaharu Tea Garden:
012-5886999 (Managing Director David Ho)
