Ok, only as short entry for this one. Ipoh is a former
British colonial hub. At one point I believe it was the capital of the Straits
Settlements. It is now a small city, with some nice architecture, and throbbing
heat and humidity for a couple who have just come down from the hills where
they’ve spent four days in balmy 28 degrees. It felt double that, and as not
many people stop here there wasn’t an abundance of places to stay. We decided
hell with it and after a bus into town, stayed at the Tune Hotel which is owned
and run by Air Asia. Air con. TV. Mega-clean. It was perfect. As we were too
early to check in, we left our bags and walked and walked and walked for about
four hours in savage midday heat to see every sight we could and wanted to see.
Returned as broken and sweaty messes, we stayed in the room for ages until the
sun went down.
Later we had a real struggle finding anywhere to eat. We
weren’t expecting this at all, and it took us ages until we stumbled across a
little Chinese place that did loads of dim sum, with people walking around with
trays and steamer baskets of various dumplings and other goodies. Problem was,
everyone in there was Chinese, and nothing was in English or even Malay, so we
had no idea what anything was. Managed to avoid the shark fin (which seems to
be in abundance here) as I recognised it from seeing it somewhere a few days
previously, but had some other random things, including what I though was
spring roll, but wrapped tightly in chicken skin and had a gelatinous blue core.
Jo had a stomach ache on the walk back, but sods law we
stumbled across a market, so we had a quick look around and retired.
Next morning, before checking out, we were lucky enough to
be there the one day of the week the flea market is held, and right outside the
hotel. Saw people selling everything, from worn-out old flip-flops, to air-conditioning
remotes, to homemade machetes, to penis pumps. Very entertaining!
We got some fruit, had an unhealthy breakfast that I’m so
ashamed of that I can’t bring myself to name it (although you could mistake
their initials with a football team), and checked out. I then rather cruelly
dragged Jo all the way to the bus station on foot. We then hopped on another
bus bound for Georgetown, Penang!
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