The first thing that amazed me when I first arrived in Ipoh was the beautiful hills with peculiar shapes. They are scattered all over, giving Ipoh such an amazing landscape that is hardly found anywhere else in Malaysia. If the whole of Ipoh was flooded down in seawater, it’d look like the Halong Bay in Vietnam. The hills really are beautiful.
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We actually arrived in Ipoh from Lenggong Valley when it was already dark. Being totally disoriented, we had to park somewhere so that an Ipoh local friend of ours could come and show us the way.
After checking in and dumping our luggage at one of so many budget hotels in Ipoh, we joined our Ipoh friend to take a night tour around the beautiful city which was once the second largest city in the country.
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Ipoh of so many things is most famous for its food. Our friend took us to one of the famous restaurants in Ipoh at least according to him, known for its chicken rice except that there was no nasi (rice) but kueh teow (rice noodles) instead.
Again, I encountered something that I hardly found in KL which was the need to wait around until somebody leave so that you can take over his place. I might have encountered it in Kuching before but the difference is, sharing a table seems to be a normal thing to do in Kuching while not quite so in Ipoh. You cannot just sit down and pretend like everyone else at the table is not there. LOL.
Taken somewhere else
So after waiting around for almost 15 minutes, with eyes fixated on my phone just to make things less awkward, a group of people finally left and we jumped to take their place over before someone else did.
OK, let me be frank to you. Either it was me or it really was the food but I found the steamed chicken at the restaurant was a little bit too sweet for my taste. I mean, it was delicious, it really was but I just wish it was less sweet than it was.
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I later found out that most steamed chicken in Ipoh were about of the same sweetness so I couldn’t really shove my complaint at the restaurant alone. There’s a saying in the traveling world that the system was designed for the locals so we as visitors would just have to suck it up. I guess it is very much applicable in foods as well. He.
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We were lucky because our friend who was born in Ipoh was so eager to tell us all about his hometown so we actually saved a lot of money on hiring a tour guide for that purpose alone. He told us how Ipoh is known for its hot ah-mois which is why ‘are you from Ipoh?’ is such a popular pick-up line back in KL. Heh.
Ipoh as the friend explained is divided into two sections – the New Town and Old Town and they are separated only by a tiny river called Sungai Kinta. Somehow I felt like the new town looks older than the old one at least by the way the buildings looked.
He actually took us to some of the not-to-be-missed places around town when they were already all closed since it was nearing midnight so that we knew how to get there the next morning when he was no more available.
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One thing I gotta tell you about Ipoh is the tastiness of its coffees. Seriously, I don’t know what they put in their coffees but they really taste so good I actually felt like crying when I left Ipoh just for that reason alone.
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Most of the attractions are of course in the Old Town of Ipoh so we had the best of time touring around looking for places that were worth dropping by.
Of course, our first place of target was the original Old Town White Coffee which is said to be the origin point of the hundreds of Old Town White Coffee cafes all over the country nowadays. Being a regular visitor to Old Town White Coffee back in KL, a visit to ‘where it all started’ was something that I didn’t want to miss out on.
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But of course, being as popular as it is nowadays, we were not the only ones who were there hoping to leave a mark. We had to wait around for some 20 minutes or so before we managed to get a table in its alley. But then, good thing about sitting there was the full view of the people at the kitchen as they were preparing the coffee and all.
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I think the locals had made it in such a way that businesses in Ipoh depend so much on reputation. Our Ipoh friend told us of a case where a restaurant operator scolded a customer for complaining something, telling him to go somewhere else if he wasn’t happy about the way they run the things around at the restaurant. And before he knew, the restaurant was beginning to get less and less visitors and the business was then deteriorating.
I guess reputation really is the keyword to good businesses in Ipoh. A restaurant called Thean Chun has a newspaper clipping on its front bearing ‘The Best in The Country’ as its title and jeez, people seemed to be streaming in continuously even when it was already way past lunchtime. Just next to it was another restaurant serving the same dish but not a single soul was at sight.
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I wouldn’t say I was totally wowed by the taste of the rice noodles that they served me with. It was just OK (and again too sweet for my taste) but I guess the fact that somebody has declared it the best in the country on a local newspaper made it gain such an overwhelming popularity.
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We only had one day in Ipoh so we didn’t really get to cover the whole of it. It really was a food trip of some sort rather than a real visit so I am very sure we missed so many other things that Ipoh had on offer. If there was one thing that we managed to stray off from food-hunting for, it was our visit to the Kek Lok Tong temple.
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I had no idea about the existence of Kek Long Tong despite having stayed in the Malaysian peninsular (on and off) for more than 13 years. When our Ipoh friend told us about it, I knew we would go there at least before we returned to KL the very next day. He told us how it was a completely different world on the other side of the cave from the housing and development that we’d come in from.
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As I sat there looking up at the gaping mouth of the cave, I didn’t even know what to say about it. The cave itself was already magnificent so I just looked in disbelief as I traversed through the natural hallway and came out on the other side of the cave where we were welcome by the spectacular view of a beautiful garden surrounded by magnificent-looking limestone hills.
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Our friend was right. It was a completely different world. I walked further and further into the garden and the excitement intensified as more and more steps were taken. I couldn’t help but imagining myself strolling around in the garden hundreds years ago when everything was still in its natural setting. It would have made a perfect secret hideaway.
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Just as I thought I had seen it all, my jaws dropped as I strolled further into the garden and found a beautiful lake that comes perfectly together with the towering limestone hills that surrounded it. For a moment I was at a loss for words I didn’t even know what to say about it. Then I realized I had nobody but myself to talk to.
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The whole place was almost deserted probably because most of the people who went there were locals so they were not quite interested in exploring what they had already explored before. It really was such a relaxing me-moment for me. He.
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I must have spent at least 2 hours in the park when I finally decided to say good bye to the magnificent Kek Lok Tong and all the splendid beauty offered by its natural surroundings. What a real gem for something that is so near yet visually a world apart from the bustling city of Ipoh.
As much as we wanted to stay longer and explored more of Ipoh, we knew it was time to go back to where we belong. Thinking that it would be boring to ride on the PLUS highway once again, we decided to go back to KL via the old road. It was the road that they used to go up north and vise versa back then when the sumptuous PLUS highway was not yet in existence.
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Good thing about riding on an old road is the existence of so many things to see along the way. The idea of its construction was of course to connect one town to another so each town offered different things to see.
What caught my attention the most was the existence of so many old buildings in almost each of the towns that I bumped into so I had the best of time capturing what I could capture on camera while my driver continued doing what he was assigned to do. Heh.
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A journey back to KL from Ipoh via the old road would never be complete without dropping by the Pun Chun Restaurant in Bidor. Well, it does sell biscuits and many other things but we actually stopped there for its famous steamed duck.
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I’ve never been a big fan of duck but what they have here was different from other ducks that I had encountered anywhere else before.
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It didn’t smell and it was so soft and tasted more like tuna. What amazed me most was how easily the meat comes off the bones so I had the best of time peeling it off so easily with my spoon without having to use my teeth like I usually do. LOL.
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I really liked Bidor. For me it is the kind of town where everyone seems to know everyone. Small in size but everything seems to be there. It is the kind of place that I’d like to retreat to upon retirement. Very laid back and people seem to prefer cycling to move around so it’s so hard not to fall in love with this town.
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It was such an incredible trip for me. The more I explored Malaysia, the more I found out how blessed this country is. Of course, I wasn’t done with Perak yet. Two weeks later, I did my adventurous weekend escapade to Gopeng, but of course it has to be spared for another post.
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