One Week Malaysia Road Trip – Part 2 of 2

Wow, this took me longer than I thought. Time to recap my trip.

I last left off at Cameron Highlands. From there, we went to Ipoh. I would have gone Penang if given the chance but Ipoh is really nice too and the food is sooooooo good!

(If you are looking for part 1, go here.)

Day 4: Cameron Highlands to Ipoh

At Ipoh, it is all about the food. Basically, you can’t say you have been to Ipoh if you have not tried these:

• Beans Sprouts Chicken Hor Fun
• Salt baked Chicken

Since it is likely you will arrive around dinner time, it is the best time to have some Beans Sprouts Chicken Hor Fun. The best Beans Sprouts Chicken in Ipoh debate could go on for days but there is two things I’m sure about: They are best in Ipoh, not anywhere else and Cowan Street Ayam Tauge Koitiau is the best I’d tried so far. Lou Wong or Onn Kee might be more accessible and have their fair share of crowds and fans, but braving the roughly hour-long queue at Cowan street is definitely worth it.

COWAN STREET AYAM TAUGE & KOITIAU
44, Jalan Raja Ekram,
30450 Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia

Day 5: Ipoh to KL

Ipoh is just a couple hours drive away from KL so we can afford a few stops before reaching KL Damansara region.

• Funny Mountain Soya Beancurd

• Salt Baked Chicken
• Kellie’s Castle

Funny Mountain is only open in the day, and after 10:30am, when the morning sun is at its strongest. Therefore slurping down a hot bowl of beancurd is not really the best thing experience unless you like hot beads of sweat trickling down your face, but for us, it has become something of a tradition to have it every time we are in Ipoh. It is similar to Singapore’s Rochor Beancurd in terms of flavor and texture.

Funny Mountain Beancurd 奇峰豆腐花
50, Jalan Mustapa Al-bakri, Taman Jubilee, Ipoh, Malaysia
Opening Hours: 10.30am until sold out (Mon – Sun)

Before setting off for KL, we stopped over at the Salt Baked chicken (Ayam Garam Aun Kheng Lim) to takeaway some of the delicious chicken to enjoy for lunch. It is so delicious that one chicken isn’t nearly enough for all 3 of us but we got only one anyway.

Aun Kheng Lim Salted Chicken宴琼林盐焗鸡
24, Jalan Theatre, 31400 Ipoh, Perak

Our next stop is Kellie’s Castle.

Kellie’s Castle
31000 Batu Gajah, Perak Malaysia

This is definitely one of the oddest attractions in Malaysia as the “castle” do not seem belong or fit in to the culture. However there is a long colonial history in Malaysia so this relic of the past has been preserved for tourists to visit.

The castle is actually a mansion built privately by a Scottish planter named William Kellie-Smith and was never finished due to his premature death from pneumonia while travelling.

History aside, it was fun to explore the castle grounds as it was quite large and you can get to nearly every level, even the roof terrace. It was an interesting attraction and like an abandoned castle, and strangely attracted quite a large crowd, This being Malaysia, the noon sun and high humidity was too much to bear and our energy was sapped in just an hour.

So around 1pm, we started our drive to KL, capital city of Malaysia.

Day 6: Kuala Lumpur

• KL Damansara Shopping
• Kidzania (for Grace)

I have to be honest, we don’t like to go to KL too much. In our 10 years of traveling in and out of Malaysia countless times, the times we have been to KL can be counted all on on hand, with a finger missing.

If you have read my other travels, we avoid metropolitan cities like the plague. It is just not “Us”. However since it was a family trip, and we wanted to indulge Grace a little, we decided to make KL our final stop before going back to Singapore.

What’s there to do in KL? Basically: Shopping and eating. Grace got to go to Kidzania for once in her life and she quite enjoyed it. We basically walked and walked and walked until it legs could not carry us anymore and we walked some more. I can’t say it was enjoyable as we wanted to explore the cluster of malls as much as we could in a day and we were dead tired by the time we retired to our hotel room.

If shopping is your thing, this area isn’t too bad. There is a large variety of shops and restaurants and your child (or children) will certainly find some things to enjoy.

That concludes our trip to Malaysia! I’m eager to embark on our next journey and share it with you. Thanks for reading and being patient!