New hiking trails in Malaysia wind through lush rainforest, past waterfalls, to a mist-shrouded world of abandoned colonial bungalows
- The three new trails on Maxwell Hill, a 1,250m-high rise in Taiping, Perak state, range from 8km to 14km in length
- Old British-style bungalows at the top provide rough-and-ready accommodation, with camping allowed at designated areas
The reopening of Malaysia’s borders on April 1 after two years of travel curbs aimed at preventing the spread of Covid-19 could see Taiping claim a place on the tourist map.
The second biggest town in Perak state, and its capital before 1937, Taiping is an hour’s drive south of Penang island but gets only a fraction of its visitors, despite having many historical and natural attractions.
In March 2019, at the International Tourismus-Börse travel trade show in Berlin, in Germany, Taiping was declared the third most sustainable city in the world, behind Ljubljana, in Slovenia, and Vancouver, Canada. But it was unable to capitalise on the honour because, a year later, Covid-19 shattered the dreams and expectations of Taiping’s business owners.
Taiping prospered under British colonial rule thanks to its booming tin industry. Its name means “everlasting peace” – a tribute to the end of brutal conflict between immigrant Chinese clans in the early 1870s.
The town was an important colonial administrative centre and boasts many firsts, including British Malaya’s first prison, lake gardens and commercial railway – to Port Weld (now Kuala Sepetang) – which opened in 1885 to transport tin 16km (10 miles) to the mangrove-draped coast.
