A Weekend in Ipoh Perak

Have you heard about Ipoh Perak?

When people think about (Peninsular) Malaysia, they always think about Kuala Lumpur. Although it makes sense because Kuala Lumpur is the country’s capital city, but actually, there is another good option to have a weekend getaway or vacation in Malaysia. Ipoh, the capital city of Perak State, is only 200km from Kuala Lumpur. I got a chance to have a weekend in Ipoh Perak before I went back to Indonesia. And (wo)man, I gotta say, I love the city! Ipoh is a Little Penang to me! Here’s a lil recap of a weekend in Ipoh Perak. Fresh from my heart. 😛

Enjoy!


ipoh-old-train-station
Arrived!!

Ipoh is accessible via several ways, I took a train from KL Sentral straight to Ipoh Train Station on Saturday. It took nearly 2 hours 15 minutes and the trip was smooth I slept the whole trip! Hahaha. Either it was so smooth or I was fatigue. Arrived at Ipoh Train Station at around 11.15, I walked out of the station and looked around. Fell in love instantly with the atmosphere! It’s nostalgic and romantic it made me run towards a random handsome guy and put my head on his chest to feel his heartbeat! <3

Ipoh is like a little Penang! There’s an old town where old buildings lay (Of course. Because where the new buildings lay is called new town. D’uh!). They’re still in use and generally in a good condition. Some of the buildings are even opened as unique cafes. How cool is that! Not to mention that Ipoh Train Station is an old building itself but still well-preserved.

ipoh-train-station
Ipoh Train Station

Spending a weekend in Ipoh Perak is incomplete without a culinary experience. Ipoh is famous for it’s Tauge Ayam (tauge = beansprout, ayam = chicken) and as a mainstream traveler, of course I headed to one of the famous place to eat Tauge Ayam; Ong Kee!

The chicken is quite yummy! It is soft and tasty. My tongue is a bit sensitive though, I kinda feel the same taste as when I’m tasting a food with MSG (monosodium glutamate) inside. If they use MSG instead of natural flavoring, that’s such a bummer. 🙁 The sauteed beansprout is too salty to my taste bud. It needs to be eaten with the rice to neutralizes the saltiness while I like eating sauteed beansprout by itself. But the beansprout is special! It’s big and crunchy! If I could cook (in KL), I must have bought the beansprout at a local market and cook it myself. 😀 << *discourse* *don’t put your hope too high on me cooking*

ong-kee-ipoh

ayam-tauge-ipoh
Oh, drooling.. :’)

Another great selection of food from Ipoh includes the Portuguese Egg Tart, Dim Sum, Nasi Kandar Ganja, and also Lou Chu Pan. I didn’t go to Ipoh for food, so can’t really tell about all those choices. I’m a bit disappointed I didn’t try the Nasi Kandar Ganja though. 🙁

Ipoh city is small, warm, and lovely. Old shophouses give a nostalgic ambiance; the Chinese clout is strongly felt here and there through the buildings’ architecture, food, as well as language. In the afternoon, I strolled Ipoh’s road to find my way to Kinta River. A mini i-city LED Park is available at Kinta Riverfront and a series of chain is dangling at the side of the bridge, giving a space for lovebirds to lock their love and live happily ever after afterwards. *happily, like no-need-to-pay-fifteen-years-of-apartment-installment happy* :’)

kinta-riverfront
Mini LED Park at Kinta Riverfront

What makes Ipoh similar to Penang is the wall art that scattered all over the old town. It looks similar because guess who produces some of the wall art? The famous and super handsome hot OMG Ernest Zacharevic – an artist who produces the wall art in Penang! I found some of them quite interesting, tell a good story and feel close to our daily life. You know, the life of a princess. Like a princess playing a paper plane, drinking coffee, playing jump rope, or tiptoeing to get something because she’s short. NGUEEEEENGGG!!

wall-art-ipoh
Wall art in Ipoh

As a princess, there is also a castle in Ipoh. Well, not in Ipoh City for sure but when you go to Ipoh, even when you only have a half day off, you can surely pay a visit to this castle. Kellie’s Castle is located 40 kilometer south of Ipoh. It took around 35 minutes to get there by taxi. Kellie’s Castle still standing strong amid the hot weather oh my Lord, it was so hot! and very photogenic also. Read the explanation in each room as the story behind this castle is quite interesting. Also, Kellie’s daughter – Hellen – is a good writer and I think she would make a good blogger! 😀

kellies-castle
Short Princess and The Castle

hellen-smith-diary
She would be a great blogger if she’s still alive. 😉

Other good destination for a traveler who is VERY religious, of course the temples. And they are not a usual temple as they lay under the huge huge limestone! The Kek Look Tong Temple is a cave temple and it has a beautiful garden at the back. Too bad the sun was in a sale at that time, avoiding the heatstroke, I preferred to sit and have a chat inside the cave. It was quite lovely. 🙂

Other temples I visited include Sam Poh Tong and Kwan Yin Tong.

temples-in-ipoh
Cave temple with a garden at the back, oh yeah!

There are many more lovely places that can be visited in Ipoh Perak. Click here for reference. That’s the website I used to arrange my itinerary for a weekend in Ipoh Perak.

I only had a weekend in Ipoh Perak and only able to visit some of them yet I found them lovable. Will definitely be back to have another journey, more than only a weekend in Ipoh Perak.

Senyum dulu ah.. 🙂

17 Responses
      1. Rich

        As someone who’s from Ipoh, I feel a bit bad to be compared with Penang. 🙁 Ipoh is unique in its own way!

        But, I get what you mean.

        Altho, I must say, there’s also many differences. The first one being our coffee! We are the land of White Coffee! No coffee in the Penang or KL can beat that. Also our, Hainan toast is also superb! Lol! All about food!

        Other than that, they always say Ipoh has the most gorgeous girls! Well, that’s up to your judgement.

        Also. something political now. Our lime hills are being hacked down day by day, all thanks to greedy companies to use them for the construction business. Our beautiful Ipoh-style landscape ( I always think they resemble the Gui Lin mountains, or my German compared it to the Avatar) are slowly cut down by these greedy bureaucracy and the government is doing nothing about it!

        So, I’d like to borrow your blog to share this. Thanks! If you think our hills are beautiful, you may not see them in a few months anymore if they keep doing it.

        1. Hi Rich, thanks for reading and dropping a comment. Ipoh remnds me a bit of Penang in terms of its old town feeling and the wall art. And yes, when you said Ipoh landscape is somehow resemble Gui Lin Mountain, I was like YESSS YESSS!! It’s sad knowing what’s been done to it (politically) and I hope the bureaucracy won’t be greedy enough to leave none for the future. 🙁

  1. Yes, I did. When I was planning my Singapore – Malaysia trip last year, I considered Ipoh as my second destination. I’m interested in old buildings, so Ipoh did take my attention. Moreover, Ipoh is less well known for Indonesians than KL, Melacca, Penang, even Johor. So, I thought that would be nice to visit Ipoh.

    But finally I decided Penang as my second destination in Malaysia. Simply because, same to you, I’m a mainstream traveler, so I put all mainstream destinations as priority. lol 😀

  2. audrey

    Hello, hello! I happen to pass by your blog and found out you went to Kellie’s castle! We are interested in going to the site however we worry that the mode of transportation is not that quite accessible.. or not? Would you mind if you share how you can get from Kellie’s castle to Ipoh? That would be very helpful. Thank you! ?

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