No Rest for the Sunburnt!

Well, with Perhentian past us we had to get on with the rest of our trip; 2 hours of sleep later we were on our way to Ipoh! Both of Lena's parents hailed from the food conscious city so this was a family visit in addition to sightseeing.

Having had such a brief sleep on both bus and mattress I found myself getting to Ipoh really fast, sleeping the whole way really helps. Even though Lena's grandparents are in their 80's I was the one who felt sluggish; no sooner had we arrived than we were whisked off to lunch in town. If I thought KL was cheap then I was in for a shock. Everywhere was ridiculously cheap and filled with foods I hadn't tried yet.

I had been warned that the best (possibly only?) thing to do was eat and it certainly looked that way in the car, so many restaurants, cafes and roadside stalls. After having a quick lunch (Unlimited satay on demand, Popiah, and Kai See Sa Hor Fun - Chicken soup noodles - Ipoh's Specialty. Apparently water from the limestone mountains surrounding Ipoh is the secret behind the silky smooth noodles! MUST TRY!) at the Khong Heng Coffee Shop we headed off to one of the most known landmarks in Ipoh, the Perak Caves.

The Caves themselves put the Batu Caves to shame for the shear number of steps to reach the nosebleed inducing peak dwarfed its rival. The caves themselves are primarily limestone, something common in Ipoh and is thought to be the reason why Ipoh's noodles have such a distinctive taste compared with other Malaysian cities. Thankfully the caves were cool and damp with some areas exploiting aerodynamics to offer a wonderful, natural, fan system; pure bliss!

After our treks through the mammoth cave system we were on our way back home, or so I thought. As we made it back into Ipoh I was given a tour of the local area and some of its rich history, such as Concubine Lane where all the rich men kept their mistresses. As the story goes Lena's great great grandfather had a mistress out there and his eldest son took an interest - one day while he was with the mistress his father came a knocking forcing him to flee through the back window; what a rascal!

I have a confession to make, I've been neglecting my posts and have had to write these from notes I made and those notes are sadly quite poor when it comes to what we did for dinner and sadly my poor, humidity saturated brain can't quite recall it either. If Lena can remember then hopefully she can enlighten you!