A day in Ipoh
I decided to spend a day getting back to KL for my flight to Bali, instead of taking a direct route. Fairly haphazardly, I booked a late-night bus from Ipoh directly to KL Airport, and figured I'd let the Penang to Ipoh part of the journey take care of itself. It did: someone (K) posted on the CS Penang facebook group that he's driving to Ipoh this weekend, and he rearranged his time to Sunday evening so that I could join him. Dani tagged along, and he also offered us to stay in his Mum's house in Ipoh.
So K picked us both up on Sunday evening, and off we went. Ipoh should only be about a 1.5 hour drive... Unless you get a flat tire on the highway. We did. The car had a spare, but no jack. The highway rescue people showed up fairly promptly though, pulled a screw out of the spare tire and patched it up, and set us on our way. All part of the adventure.
We slept well in K's lovely family home, and the next day he showed us around his hometown. Three Hindu temples:
We stopped at Andersonians for tasty banana leaf, and really good chai.
A walk down Concubine Lane, which is a bustling little street full of cute shops and cafes. It houses the most famous Tau Fu Fah at Ding Feng. I tried ginger flavour, for just 1.60 MYR. It was delicious. Dani found durian cendol, her fave. (Anything with durian is Dani's fave). There were also some cool abandoned buildings, and a film crew of some famous travel vlogger seemed to show up wherever we were. There's lots of really nice street art, too.
We lounged around with coffee in Burps and Giggles, having super interesting in-depth discussions about diet and philosophy (actually this was all day). Burps and Giggles was a good place to chill for a couple of hours.
We took off and managed to get to Kek Look Tong with an hour before closing. This is a cave temple, with some nice gardens. The cave was pretty spectacular, with great rock formations. I was sad about the stalegmites that would never form because of the concrete on the ground, onto which stalegtites were dripping ferociously; we debated whether humans are interfering with nature, or just a different part of it. I suppose it wasn't really a debate because none of us are sure; just a discussion. There were lots of small intricate statues around as well.
K took Dani and I to Amanjaya bus station, which is inconveniently far from the city center. We ate curry at the food court, and Dani took a bus back to Penang. I've been sitting around for three hours, and have another two to go before my bus to KLIA. Until half an hour ago, the wifi was surprisingly functional and fast. But now it's gone. Alas. There's power here, too, and vegetarian curry and rice (and a samosa) was about 3 MYR.