Ipoh is a city in northwestern Malaysia known for its delicious food, cute murals, and cave temples. It’s not as touristy as some of our other stops in Malaysia, so we were excited to check out this off-the-beaten-track city that sits below the Cameron Highlands.
We arrived by bus, which dropped us off a bit out of town. We were able to share a Grab with Mackie, our Australian friend from the Cameron Highlands, to our hotel, Starvilla Kinta.
Immediately we realized that we had left the nice cool weather up in the mountains, and we were back to hot, humid Malaysia.
Our exploration of Ipoh began the next morning. We walked to the downtown core, where murals and street art add beauty and charm to the area.
Ipoh’s buildings reflect its rich history and cultural heritage. The city features a mix of styles, including colonial, Chinese, and Malay architecture.
We loved that in several spots, they combined murals with physical elements that make the art interactive.
In the heart of Ipoh’s Old Town is a narrow street called Concubine Lane. It is the most famous of three lanes in the area: Wife Lane, Concubine Lane, and Second Concubine Lane. They are named for the three wives of an affluent Chinese businessman from the 1800’s who was said to have gifted each street to each woman.
Now it is known for its vibrant street art, pop-up stalls, and specialty cafes.
We enjoyed the area and then decided it was time for us to go explore one of the cave temples Ipoh is famous for, Sam Poh Tong Temple. Looking on Google Maps, it clocked the walk there as just over an hour. “Easy!” we said.
Not so easy.
The entire walk was on the on shoulder of a highway, with cars and scooters whizzing by in the hot hot heat of the day. Why did we not just realize our mistake and call a cab partway through you might ask?
Honestly, I don’t know. The thought didn’t really occur to us. Slightly delirious and blinded by the salty sweat that our brows and lashes weren’t able to hold off, we pushed on.
The road to Sam Poh Tong Temple actually has 2 other temples before it. We hadn’t heard much about them, and when we pulled off the highway to the first temple, Ling Sen Tong, we immediately understood why.
I’ll let the images speak for themselves…
We walked among these works of art for a little while and then walked up the road to the next one, Nam Thean Tong Temple. There wasn’t much to see at this one, so we carried to our goal.
We pulled up to the Sam Poh Tong Temple only to find the gates locked and bolted. Confused, we checked our phones. It was listed as being open until 4pm, and it was only 2:30.
However, we checked the most recent reviews and someone had posted that they were kicked out early not long ago.
Our long arduous 2-hour journey in the blazing sun was for nothing (unless you count all the gorgeous statues we got to see — which we obviously do)!
Defeated, we were about to call a Grab to take our sweaty bodies home, but we realized that we weren’t too far from another attraction: Tasik Cermin or “Mirror Lake”. Our friend had actually gone earlier that day and said it was nice.
We checked maps and realized it was only a 20 minute walk up the road! “Easy!” we said.
I’m sure you can imagine how this went.
It was an even worse stretch of highway than we had been walking on earlier. The shoulder was even thinner and crowded over by bushes and weeds which forced us out onto the road. It was quite stressful, but we pushed on.
Finally, we arrived at the lake entrance. We paid the fee and walked through the limestone tunnel to get to the viewing dock.
Perhaps if we were less dirty, hot, and exhausted we would have felt differently, but it was quite underwhelming. To be fair, it would have had to be pretty spectacular to make up for our fail of a day.
They did also have an option to rent a boat and do a little loop around the lake, but we were extremely tired and unwilling to pay the extra fee, so we took our silly little pics, and then went out to call a Grab to bring us home.
The ride cost us a whole $2. Thank god we didn’t splurge both ways though, right? Right???
The next day we opted for a more relaxed itinerary walking around Old Town Ipoh and taking in the beautiful murals, colourful buildings, and cute streets.
We got a taste for why its sometimes referred to as “Eat-Poh” with some truly scrumptious middle eastern food.
We considered taking a Grab to the other cave temple, Perak, but it was already 2pm and we didn’t want to risk going all the way out if it was just gonna be closed like the one yesterday so we headed home.
As we were walking home near the Kinta River, we looked over and saw an enormous lizard-type creature, over 3 feet long, dipping towards the river: “WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?!”
We alarmed some nearby Malaysian men who looked over us startled. We explained to them what we had seen and they told us it was probably a “Biawak”, aka an Asian Water Monitor. It was the first we’d ever heard of such a thing!
We walked towards the water to look for it and we spotted it swimming. It moved like a snake underwater.
It disappeared under a tunnel thing, but Wini flew her drone and we spotted another one — a baby! It was much smaller, but so cool to see.
We went home and packed up our bags, ready for our bus to Georgetown the next morning.