Family trip to Kuala Kurau

Kuala Kurau is a small seaside village in Northern Perak, but it’s very close to Penang. It makes for a very interesting day trip from the island, as you can reach Kuala Kurau in about an hour from both Penang and Taiping. On the northern outskirts of town is this telur masin (salted egg) factory that has been operating since the 1950s. Their shop here sells their own creations: freshly made duck eggs covered with burnt rice husk. A small factory to the left side of the shop is open to the public and has friendly workers who are willing to let you peek at the whole process. The eggs are first weighed and separated with a funky old-world metallic machine, and are then passed on to another where they are smeared with a mix of salt and tanah merah (red earth) —essentially, the eggs are covered in fresh mud. Right opposite Joo Hong Chan salted egg factory is another of Kuala Kurau’s industrial backbones, the Kilang Beras Hai Hin, which started operations at the end of 1943 during the Japanese occupation of Malaya. A small museum at the entrance still conserves the old tools used in the early production, such as the metallic stamps employed to print Hai Hin’s logos on the rice sacks.