Sheryl in Wonderland

Thursday, 26 April 2007, was a holiday in Malaysia in honor of the coronation of the latest King. Thank you, Your Majesty for the free day off :D Me, Jeff and Sher Lynn decided to use the opportunity for a day trip to Ipoh.

It will be a 2 hour drive from Penang to Ipoh, so we started the journey from Penang at 6 am. Fu-yoh! Had to wake up at 5 am. This was the view of the traffic going the opposite direction:

There was an accident ahead of all these vehicles and traffic was backed up for miles! The poor souls coming from the South! We sure were glad we were heading the opposite direction.

Breakfast was dim sum. The plan was to go to this place behind Excelsior Hotel where Eleen took me to on our way to KL a few years ago. No luck. The place was closed, so we ended up eating at another dim sum restaurant opposite. The selection of dim sum was not bad, although I didn't see my must have dessert - egg tarts. The prawns in their prawn dumplings were HUGE! I didn't eat that much, though, because I didn't think I'll need my motion sickness pills and was starting a major one by then. So after breakfast we walked around and found this pharmacy to get some motion sickness pills.

OK pills taken, we're all set for the next destination - Hospital Bahagia in Tanjung Rambutan. Yeah, we're a bunch of nuts aren't we, wanting to visit a nut house. Ha Ha! Saw a lot of nice topiaried bushes along the road. So much more attractive than the ones in Penang. MPPP please take note! Surprisingly, Hospital Bahagia was not what we expected at all. It's actually a very nice, peaceful place, very clean and well kept. No psycos in straight jackets running around the place. In fact, the only nut we saw was this old man walking down the road talking to himself.

Oh yeah, I left my crap at Hospital Bahagia. Just as we were near the exit, I had to ask Jeff to quickly find a drain. The overwhelming pressure to hurl which was slowly building in my throat since we left town was quickly coming to eruption point. Emptying my breakfast calmed it down somewhat. Note to self: on the next out of state journey, no matter how short the distance, be sure to have motion sickness pill along and for goodness sake, take 2 before starting out!

We made a short stop at Lost World of Tambun on the way back to town.

These massive cat statues welcome visitors at the entrance. We didn't go in there as the cover charge includes the water and dryland games. Not worth it since we didn't come prepared to get wet.

There is a gift/souvenir shop where we found these adorable frog dolls. Froggy (Helen) must be drooling. Aren't they cute?

As we were leaving Lost World, we spoted this gap in the fence with a good view of the Pirate Ship. Of course we couldn't resist posing for pictures.

Some people in the office wanted the famous biscuits from this particular shop. Took the picture as evidence that we actually bought them there :p The production of the biscuits was carried out behind the building.

The highlight of our trip - Kellie's Castle. I won't go into detail about the place here. It's such an interesting place that it really deserves a post on its own.

The castle was built by one William Kellie Smith. He returned to his homeland of Scotland before the contruction was finished and died there. The castle is supposedly haunted. No, there were no murders or accidental deaths here. I think it's just a matter of a place being left uninhabited for too long. It's believed that if a place has been without human presense for some time, "THEY" move in. We didn't encounter any ghosts there, though. Now that would make the whole trip more interesting.

We had some time to kill before dinner, so stopped by Ipoh Parade for some shopping. Ogawa had an exhibition at the lobby and we spent a relaxing 1/2 hour there trying out their massage chairs. The chairs really delivered everything they promised in their advertisement. The price - almost equal to that of a Perodua Kancil. Fu-yoh!

Dinner was at Old Town Cafe. Getting there was sort of a navigational challenge. We should've brought along a MS2000 to test out how accurate the technology really is :D Lucky Jeff brought along a map book so after much driving around we were finally on the right track.

Old Town was located in Green Village, quite a happening spot with a few trendy cafes and pubs. It was kind of a disappointment for me as I was expecting an old building or at least something with rustic interior decor for that nostalgic atmosphere. Instead, as you can see, it looks more like any Starbucks or Coffee Bean. So commercialized :( The food, well, they have this really kick ass laksa with lots of fish bits and spicy taste guaranteed to burn your tongue! The tomyam bee hoon we had was something of a disappointment - no spice or sour taste and very bland.

Of course, what trip to Old Town will be complete without a nice hot cup of Ipoh White Coffee. Especially when it was raining not long ago and weather outside is still cool. Cheers!

Well, that's us, the merry trio on the way back to Penang after a whole day experiencing Ipoh. The trip was an eye opener for me as I was expecting Ipoh to be somewhat of a dead town (no offense to the good people of Ipoh). Instead, it really has so many hidden charms waiting to be discovered.

One thing I missed out while there was eating "hor hee". Some of my friends turned up their noses on that as it is similar to our koay teow th'ng and widely available in Penang. Girls, you know who you are :p Well, for me, since we come all the way here, why not check out what is so unique about it, even if it IS just koay teow th'ng, and see why only in Ipoh is it known as "hor hee".

Another surprise awaited us on the way back. Turns out there is another Old Town Cafe in E-Gate, less than 5 minutes drive from my apartment. And to think, I went all the way to Ipoh to eat there!

Will there be another trip to Ipoh in the future? Definitely! After all, we didn't get to experience Lost World. And if some kind Ipoh soul would play tour guide for us, all the better!