We travelled to Ipoh for the Christmas long weekend this year. We rarely travel during December— prefer to avoid the holiday crowds. I was a bit worried that Ipoh will feel very busy as well, but it was quite ok. The busiest day was Christmas; felt like everybody is out on the streets. Otherwise, we had a relaxed, short getaway. Exactly what we needed at this time of the year!
The best part was that it didn’t require much planning. We booked our flights and hotel only about 2 weeks in advance and the prices were reasonable. There are multiple low cost flight options from Singapore with a flying time of about 1 hour.
Ipoh is located at the foothills of Cameron Highlands. So, you get a nice view of hills all around. It has had its heydays as a tin mining centre and the authorities have done a good job of preserving colonial architecture from that era and promoting tourism. The local industry at present is non existent. It is pretty much dependent on tourism and it is seen as a retirement place by locals.
Day 1: We reached our hotel at about 9 am. It was very early for check in so we stored our luggage with them and went out in search for breakfast. Really liked the simple, flavourful local meal at Restoran Thean Chun in old town. We tried chee cheong fun, kai see hor fun (char kway teow soup), satay and coffee.
This restaurant’s location is great. It is right in the bustling centre of Ipoh’s Old town. The famous Concubine Lane is right opposite. Since it was a Friday morning, Concubine lane was not crazy crowded. We could walk around at our pace and explore the various little shops selling food and souvenirs. During colonial times, this lane was home to concubines of rich businessmen.
There was still plenty time left for our check in so we decided to go to Perak Cave Temple. Malaysia is home to many cave temples built in limestone caves. Perak cave temple was beautiful— very calm and serene vibe inside. We climbed 450 steps to get to the top of the limestone hill. The view of Ipoh and Cameron highlands beyond was spectacular. This was a really good workout too!
After this we went back to the hotel to check-in. Our hotel was so pretty. It was a colonial style bungalow— similar to black and white houses in Singapore— with 10 rooms. The decor inside was stunning with the old style telephones and gramophones. The wood furniture and the Christmas decor just resulted in such a great holiday vibe.
Later in the evening we had a super late lunch at Plan B and walked around Kong Heng square’s market. Food at Plan B was ok; carrot cake was the highlight of our meal.
Ipoh has a colonial past given the flourishing tin mining industry in the late 19th century. Quite a few buildings in the old town are from that era and very well preserved. We did the Ipoh Heritage trail to admire these buildings. It can be easily done on foot and took us about 2 hours with a lot of stops. This also included a detour at Book Xcess– a very cool library which was once a bank vault. There is also a museum inside, dedicated to Yasmin Ahmad, a Malaysian film maker.
We finished a very hectic day with an amazing dinner at Above Gastrobar which is right above Book Xcess. Our favourite was the sea bass with laksa sauce. Perfection!
Day 2: We started our day with a simple but satisfying breakfast at Sin Yoon Loong. We tried their white coffee, kaya toast and roast pork. The wanton mee stall is very popular as well but it was closed at that time. Sin Yoon Loong’s coffee was amazing with rich caramel notes. Apparently, it is the best coffee in Ipoh! Try the hot as well as cold coffee if you can. Both versions have very different notes. We had breakfast here again before catching our flight back to Singapore. Tried the cold coffee this time and it was perfect with kaya toast/puffs. This place is very popular with the locals and it was nice to see a lot of old folks around.
White coffee was developed by locals as a means to socialise with Europeans in colonial Malaysia. They didn’t care for the bitter western style coffee, so made their own concoction to enjoy and socialise at the same time! It typically involves roasting the coffee beans with palm oil or margarine and sometimes even sugar.
After breakfast, we set out to explore street art in Ipoh. We have seen murals in Penang by the same Lithuanian artist who was commissioned later by the Ipoh administration to paint murals. We first went to Ipoh Mural Art’s Lane which was a disappointment. It’s by a local artist but seems it hasn’t been maintained well.
Next we went to Market Lane which has some really good murals. It is a very pretty lane with hanging umbrellas and lanterns. We walked around a bit more and had Coconut shake from Baby coco to cool off.
We had lunch at Restoran Kong Heng, right next to Thean Chun. In earlier days the building was a hostel for Chinese theatre and drama artists. We tried popiah and char kway teow at Kong Heng, both of which were good.
Our dinner was the historic Durbar at FMS. FMS i.e. Federation of Malayan States was the oldest restaurant and bar in Malaysia and was a hang out place for the European miners and planters. While ownership has changed, the facade from 1923 is still intact. We loved dining here; the interior has a very old school European diner vibe with the portrait of Queen Elizabeth, lots of old pictures and newspaper cuttings. The food was really good as well!
Day 3: Ipoh has lot of hip cafés as well apart from the old style coffee shops. We had breakfast at Aud’s café in old town— simple, delicious, good quality food.
On our way back, we picked a box of famous kaya puffs from Kedai biskut Sin Eng Heong. They were quite good— very flaky pastry and not too sweet. Awesome accompaniment with Sin Yoon Loong’s white coffee. The minimum order is a box of 5 pieces which costs MYR 6. Thankfully the queue wasn’t too long.
We had decided to explore Gua Tempurung on a grab driver’s recommendation. It’s a limestone cave complex about 30 mins drive from Ipoh. We arrived there at around 1:30 pm and opted for tour 2 which is a self paced walking tour. It was raining that day, with the bright green hills covered in mist. Beautiful!
The whole tour took us about 1 hour. Walking is easy as it consists of a series of steps with well marked and well lit pathways. But it’s a really good workout because there is a lot of climbing up and down. The rock formations inside the cave were excellent. The finale of this tour is called ‘Top of the world’. It is a platform at a height of 160 metres with a view of a massive rock formation and absolute darkness beyond. It’s a pretty amazing tour and we quite enjoyed it.
Getting a Grab back to Ipoh was a challenge. We had to put pickup as Gopeng and two drop ff destinations— Gua Tempurung and then Ipoh to increase our changes. Thankfully this worked! On our way back we had late lunch at Big tree yong tau foo. The soup was very nice. Unlike Singapore, they had only fried items to choose from, no fresh vegetables.
Our dinner was at a very interesting restaurant called Purple cane. Their food is all infused with tea. We had actually queued up for Tauge Ayam Lou Wong but they got sold out. Purple cane is nearby and we decided to eat there. Food was good especially the curry noodles and the puddings.
Day 4: We had dim sum breakfast at Ming court. It’s a bit expensive by local standards but we enjoyed the food especially the prawn dumpling, pork dumpling with mushrooms, rice and the char siew bun. Again, we didn’t have to queue at all maybe because it was just the two of us.
Next, we had planned to get a foot massage but the places only open by 11 am. We decided to have some coffee. In search of decaf, we walked to Le cloud which was sadly closed for renovation.
We took a cab back to Content house reflexology (very close to Ming court). The foot massage was divine. I regret not going there everyday!
We tried Tau Fu Fah and soya milk from Funny mountain. We took the plain tau fu fah because a lot of people online had written that with sugar it is extremely sweet. However, plain is a bit too plain and needs a tiny bit of sugar to bring out the flavours. We ended up mixing soya milk into it. That way it tasted much better and it also cooled down. Tau fu Fah comes burning hot!! I didn’t realise that; somehow I felt it will be chilled. My husband liked soya milk. I am actually not a big fan so I didn’t get my mind blown by Funny mountain.
For lunch, we tried our luck again at Lou Wong. They are famous for their bean sprout chicken. While the Ipoh bean sprouts were nice and crunchy (we had tried them at Thean Chun as well), the chicken rice was below average. I get far better chicken rice here in Singapore and much cheaper. Lou Wong’s chicken pieces were not good and neither was the chili sauce. Plus it was expensive. It is clearly a very touristy place and you are better off skipping this one!
After this, we took one last stroll around the pretty old town. Later in the evening we walked a bit at the Padang.
Walking around old town is very pleasant. We generally felt safe and getting cabs is super cheap and easy. In general, Ipoh could do a better job of waste management especially during peak tourist periods.
Our dinner was a 6 course degustation at Above. We had really liked the food and decided to dine here again. However, we didn’t enjoy this meal as proportions were really off!
Our short stay in Ipoh was great. We tried a lot of local food, saw some awesome caves, temples, interesting old buildings and shopped.
While I was reading up, a lot of people had written that there are queues for all places listed above. However, the only places I actually queued up were Sin Eng Heong, Funny Mountain and Lou Wong. That too for a max of 10 mins. I don’t know if the crowds were thinner because of Christmas long weekend or we just got lucky with the timings. We were definitely having breakfast much later than peak time of 7 am. Sin Yoon Loong was much busier at that time than say 10-11 am.
I think if I go back again I will definitely revisit Thean Chun, Sin Yoon Loong, Durbar at FMS and Aud’s café.
Voyage Treasures 
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