Taiping/Kamunting bus confusion, Taiping stay

If coming to Taiping from Ipoh side, your bus may stop at Taiping (before proceeding to Kamunting), so you have no need to go on till Kamunting. Just be alert and get down at Taiping. However, when leaving Taiping, it's best to take a taxi to Kamunting (15 min ride away), since many buses won't go to Taiping. Maybe the Taiping-Ipoh intercity bus will still go to Taiping, but direct buses to KL or Singapore or any other destinations will not.

Unless you are staying somewhere on the Bukit Laru, do not stay anywhere far from the Taiping lake, otherwise it's not worth staying in Taiping. If you are in Taiping, you need to experience its lake and wilderness at different times of the day.

Kalka-Shimla train ride

If taking the narrow-gauge train ride from Kalka to Shimla, sit on the right. However, when Shimla is around forty minutes away, from then on, left is better: you can get a view of Shimla, with its yellow cathedral conspicuous from afar. If your train is delayed so that you can get this view of Shimla after the sun has set and it's relatively dark, then all the better: the view is magnificent.

If the train is packed, overall, choose right over left (while going from Kalka to Shimla). For down journey, do vice versa.

Iran currency confusion

It will take a day or two for you to get used to understand what rate is being quoted for anything: if you get your Persian counting right, that will be helpful, since Iranian rates are often quoted in tomans, an imaginary currency! So let's take a concrete example:

If something costs 50,000 (fifty thousand) rials, the shopkeeper will tell you "punj/panj tomaan" (5 tomans). Mostly, though they will skip the "tomans": they will simply say "punj" (or "panj"). It's your common sense that should dictate that that thing cannot cost 5 rials: it doesn't even cost 5 tomans in fact! The shopkeeper means 5 x 10 x 1000 rials (you have to do the multiplying part fast to understand, interact, and bargain). Why the ten and why the thousand? A toman consists of theoretically ten rials, and the thousand is simply removed for ease in talking.

The fun starts once you get used to the multiplying-by-thousand game. A shopkeeper tells you that the half-litre mineral water bottle costs "punj saad" (five hundred). Used to multiplying, you will get a shock ... surely, the little water bottle cannot cost 5,000,000 rials (that would mean more than 120 euros). Till you understand: the shopkeeper means 500 tomans, literally (that is, 5000 rials). Since there is no thousand multiplier within 500 (of course, he wouldn't say 0.5), hence he is now quoting the price in real tomans, not thousand-removed tomans.

When unsure, ask the person to tell the rate to you in rials. Please note that there are no actual tomans out there: you will be holding only rials in your hand. So when you are holding a 50,000 rial note, it means you are holding 5000 toman: or when someone says something costs five ("punj"), then you can pay him with this particular note.

Note: Things may change with time, governments and religions.