Photos! Ipoh Taiping Penang.

This is me, on Day 1 of the trip with Guang Hong and YKent, at Ipoh, after having the original Oldtown White Coffee, against a bright orange stretch of wall, holding an auntie clutch purse and having the original Oldtown White Coffee stain on my shirt.


Random facts about Ipoh - ipoh is actually a poisonous plant, and the orang asli (indigenous people) use it in their darts. Also there's a widespread belief that girls from Ipoh are beautiful =D Hence the guys, throughout our short stop in Ipoh couldn't stop scanning the crowd for pretty girls.

And this is at the Ipoh Railway station, a really old building with an old hotel and an old lift which is like 100 years old. GH and I went up the lift, but YKent was too chicken to. Here's a golden Indian temple beside the railway station. The railway station has been refurbished and looks very modern, compared to the hotel.

After Ipoh, we went to Kellie's Castle, I've already blogged a bit about it in the previous post (on pretending to be a classic bike biker and not paying for the entrance fee), so the following two pictures are on Kellie's Castle:

And these three are of the Lake Gardens of Taiping. Very nice and tranquil. Good for dating, as you can see.

And looky here, of a photo of legs of me and He Who Declines To Be Named.

In Penang we visited the Tropical Spice Garden.
The Spices.
The Cool Grasshopper.
More coming up.

Ipoh Taiping and Penang

Two more hours till my birthday ends. So far most wishes have been through sms, and my phone has been acting up by an occasionally malfunctioning joystick.

I'm at a cybercafe now, right across Banana New Guest House where I'm staying. The place itself is alright, for the price we're paying (RM45 per room per night) I'm not complaining. We're staying in a triple room, with a double bed and a single bed. The room is very dimly lit with the windows sealed, but it is airconditioned and everything looks clean in the dim lighting. Toilet's relatively clean though it's perpetually wet since the shower is for some reason put in close proximity with the toilet bowl. And it's really noisy at night because our room happens to be right beside the road, but since we're all really tired at night we don't really mind. Walls are paper thin and someone kept knocking my side of the wall last night.

Yesterday we set off at 7am, stopped by Ipoh for the real white coffee and went to Kellie's Castle to have a look at the ruins. Coincidentally the Malaysia International Classic Bike Festival (or something like that) was held in Kellie's Castle, so we just blended into the crowd and didn't pay the entry fees =P Some bikes were really impressive btw, there was one that was number-plated 1920, didn't even have alphabets in front, so it should be like, the 1920th vehicle that got a license plate in Malaysia. Cool.

Then after that we went to the Lake Gardens in Taiping, which is wonderful really, very well-maintained and litter was virtually inexistent, which is quite something when you look at tourist attractions in Malaysia. We did pick up a couple of plastic bags but that's all. The Lake was originally a tin mine, then it was the first recreational park to be developed in Malaysia, even before the 1900s I think.

My uncle recommended a sotong bakar + tomyam stall in Kamunting, opposite Regimen 3, but we couldn't find it. So we headed straight for Penang, where all the good food is anyway.

Met up with Melissa Sim and all was good. We went to the Tropical Spice Garden (relatively new, I think less than 3 years old) today, got a wonderful guide named Choo who was equally happy about our attentiveness that he gave us a super long tour, twice as long as what the tour was supposed to be. He's a crazy nature lover who got a degree in Electrical Engineering but ended up being a nature guide at the end. Travelled to all sorts of places, and even been in the army before. Crazy. The Spice Garden was nice. If you ever travel there, look for Choo as a guide.

Next stop is Kota Bharu, I'm looking forward to seeing the Temenggor Dam tomorrow. YKent is sick, hope that he'll be fine tomorrow. Too much heaty food in Penang and he's been driving almost the whole journey, poor lad. So probably Guang Hong or me will take over driving tomorrow, to KB.