Sunrise

Two images of the Bukit Mertajam hill at sunrise taken from the vantage point of the railway station. The top picture was taken with my Vivo handphone on 7 April 2019 at 7.17am while the bottom picture was taken with my old Fuji camera on 13 May 2019 at 7.35am which, unfortunately, decided to die on me about two weeks ago.

But let me tell you more about why I was at the rail station on both days. Simple: to go down to Kuala Lumpur of course! And rail travel today is the most convenient for me. Hopping on the ETS train at about 7.30am or 7.35am and arriving at KL Sentral by noon time. KL Sentral is one of the most centrally located buildings in Kuala Lumpur. From there, public rail transport is all within walking distance and can take me almost anywhere.

The only problem is that even with five ETS trains daily between Butterworth and Kuala Lumpur, the seats are usually sold out very fast. The daily frequency has not been increased to six but it is still difficult to get tickets at the last minute.

About two weeks ago, I was invited to attend the Malaysian Chess Federation annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur. Initially, I had decided to make it a day trip, that is, to take the first train from Butterworth at 5am and then returning by the 5.30pm train. But then at the last minute decided that it would be too tiring for me to wake up at such an odd hour. Therefore, I decided to go down a day earlier. Unfortunately, all the seats were sold out unless I didn't mind arriving at KL Sentral after midnight. 

So what could I do? I checked the availability of seats on the ETS train services between Padang Besar and KL Sentral, which bypasses any of the stations in Province Wellesley, and found that I could catch the 1.20pm train from Taiping. All I had to do was to find my way to Taiping separately and I could do that with a 10.50am KTM Komuter Utara train from the Simpang Ampat station. 

This was just a 40-minute journey, by the way, meaning that I had almost two hours to kill in Taiping. But it didn't matter to me. I would find things to do over there. But it was easier said than done. Didn't reckon with the blazingly hot sun walking into Taiping town from the train station. Plus, I couldn't find any e-hailing service around the station. Where were they when I wanted them?

Seeking respite from the heat, I decided to try the Hainanese chicken chop in Taiping. I had heard that there was one shop which had been around for about 100 years. Name of Yut Sun Restaurant. Just look up its location on Google Maps or Waze. It's there. And I must say that yes, the chicken chop there was delicious. Yummy! Very much better than many other Hainanese and non-Hainanese restaurants in Penang or Kuala Lumpur. I won't name them, however.