I called my sister from Taiping, a city of 100,000 people in the state of Perak in northwestern Malaysia. Now most people with any sense of geography know that Malaysia is located south of Thailand and the whole country is very tropical, by virtue of being so close to the equator.

Now my sister is not ignorant by any means, having earned a B.A in Sociology from UC Berkeley and having worked as a social worker for a good part of her adult life. Furthermore she has traveled to such diverse tropical places such as Mexico, Hawaii and the Caribbean. Yet I had found it very difficult to refrain from laughing out loud, when my sister innocently asked me “Is it very tropical?”

I answered her in rather stern tone “Yes, Taiping is very tropical. It is considered the rainiest city in Peninsular Malaysia.” Excuse me for being such a smart-ass!

Funny thing is that it rained relatively little during my brief five day stay in the Taiping Area. Shortly after I checked into my hotel in downtown Taiping, there was a rather fierce torrential downpour with thunder and lightning which lasted a brief 7 minutes. And I loved every minute of it!.

Outside of this brief deluge, there was only some moderate rainfall - during day three of my stay, there was some steady rain sometime late in the afternoon, and on my departure day, there was some light rainfall throughout the state of Perak. Oh well….