Driving from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh

On our last morning in KL, we were up early and all packed by 9am, ready for our journey to Ipoh. We had hired a car from Pacific Rent A Car, which cost about $200 NZD for 4 days. We were pleasantly surprised to find a very new Perodua Bezza 4 door sedan waiting for us, as we had been expecting some rent-a-dent type car for that price. The car was no frills compared to Shaun’s usual drive cars from work, but it was perfect for our needs. We set out with our trusty Google maps directing us, and managed to take a wrong turn out of the car park, resulting in us circumnavigating the very large shopping mall once before we managed to get on the motorway! After that initial hiccup, with Google and me navigating, and Shaun carefully following our instructions, we made it through the multitudinous spaghetti junctions of the KL roading system to the main Expressway to Ipoh. Shaun did pretty well amongst KL drivers who seem to believe that fluid and sudden lane changes (without any indication) are the key to no congestion. We were glad we had bought and pre-loaded our Touch and Go card for tolls the day before as it made toll stations seamless. Once on the Expressway, we stayed on the same straight road for about 140km…easy peasy. From there and all the way to Ipoh, the rest of the drive was a piece of cake compared to navigating KL streets!

Ipoh

Ipoh is a fascinating mixture of historic and modern Malaysia. It has a strong Chinese and colonial influence, evident in both the buildings and the culture, especially in the Old Town. The town grew up around the Chinese miners seeking to make their fortune from tin mining in the 1800s, and there is still a large Chinese population there today.

Chinatown

When we booked our Airbnb, we knew it was walking distance to the Old Town, but didn’t realise it was in the heart of Chinatown. On our first evening here, we enjoyed a delicious meal of beansprout chicken and rice (a local specialty) from a nearby hawker restaurant. The kids really enjoyed it…the chicken was so tasty, tender and flavorsome. Afterwards, we wandered through the main street market, exploring the street stalls selling various knock-offs of anything from bags to jeans to sneakers to hats.

In the shop behind us, we stumbled upon chicken curry inside a bun that looked very appetizing. We had this dish on our second evening in Ipoh and it was delicious! In hindsight, we should’ve bought two of them because the kids ate most of the bread, but lucky we always keep 2 minute noodles on hand for food emergencies.

A Poolside Conflict

Shaun….

“I had an argument with a pool guard this afternoon and caused a scene.
After we were done, I sulked off to a sun lounger and plopped down on it too hard…..it fell backwards and tipped me head over heels in front of everyone!
Not my finest moment but Amelia still getting good mileage out of it.”

Shaun’s message to our family chat group 28/05/23

He didn’t hurt himself, except his pride. It was one of those wicker recliners with a very ergonomic shape and Shaun sat too far back in it, so it rolled backwards, but he stayed on it. I was walking behind him when it happened, so I quickly helped him to push it upright. It actually looked pretty funny 🤣 The building (The Imperial Majestic Tower) was largely populated by Chinese people, and the poor people sitting next to Shaun didn’t know what to do when the chair flipped up! At the time, I was intent on checking that Shaun was ok and quickly returning both him and the lounger to an upright position, but once I got back up to our apartment, I got the giggles and couldn’t stop laughing. Shaun also saw the funny side, and we both ended up crying with laughter!

I don’t think anyone really noticed Shaun’s discussion with the pool guard…it was over his swimwear…men are only allowed to wear spandex in the pool in this building, but we saw a couple of men swimming in their underwear and a woman wearing board shorts, yet the guard stopped Shaun from entering the pool. Shaun rightfully took exception to the clear case of discrimination, asking “Do you really think anyone here wants to see me in spandex?” In the end, the guard conceded that Shaun could swim in his underwear if he had some like the other men! Obviously Shaun refused…I mean, how is underwear more hygienic than board shorts?

Exploring the Old Town of Ipoh

Leo was not keen to do a self-guided walking tour of the Old Town (see photo evidence above)…and was very vocal about this…until he saw the amazing array of market stalls in some of the little alleyways…and talked us into buying a new RP card game, Dungeon Mayhem, which has become great family fun for all of us.

The Cameron Highlands

Our second day in Ipoh was supposed to be a theme park day, but when we got in the car to drive there at 11.30am, we discovered that it didn’t open until 6pm on Tuesdays. We did a quick adjustment of everyone’s expectations and changed the plan to exploring the Cameron Highlands for the day. The kids were pretty annoyed, especially since the CH were two hours drive away! This drive time turned into 3 hours once we were on route 59, due to ridiculous traffic snarls around the super touristy, somewhat ugly resort towns that have sprung up along the route. At least Shaun as the driver got a good look out the window as well, because we were stationary for a lot of the journey!

After a roadside lunch at a small streetfood stall, we ended up arriving at the Boh tea plantation around 4pm, half an hour before closing. Still, we managed to fit in a quick tour to see the tea manufacturing process, have a cup of Boh tea, and take some photos of the beautiful tea valley.

Unfortunately, Shaun’s street food lunch tuned out to be the first meal that was a miss rather than a hit…lucky for the rest of us we ate something different and lucky for him the first episode took place in sight of a loo. The second episode was not quite so pleasant. He had to quickly pull over and urgently crouch next to a steep ravine, hiding behind the car on the side of Highway 59. Meanwhile, the kids shrieked with laughter at poor Shaun, while I had to keep telling them to stay on the other side of the car and give him some privacy! That is until a large hornet type insect flew into the car, and they both leapt out of the car in panic until it flew out again. Ah…golden travel moments.

“Is Daddy really doing a poo, right there, on the side of the road?”

Anna 29/05/23

Aside from the lush large-leaved tropical flora, the rainforest in the Cameron Higlands looks remarkably similar to NZ because that there are tons of tall tree ferns very simliar to our NZ ponga trees. Shaun also saw what he thought was a small orangutan on the side of the road on our drive home, because it had patchy, red colored hair. The climate is cooler there as well, which was a welcome break from the scorching heat and humidity.

The Lost World of Tambun

We spent our last day in Ipoh at a Sunway theme park and water park called The Lost World of Tambun. We all thoroughly enjoyed this recommendation from our friend Oliver, as it was fun for the whole family and a great day’s entertainment. We were also quite impressed at how reasonable the food prices were compared to other theme parks we visited, especially since we weren’t allowed to take in any of our own food or drinks.

Lost World of Tambun Rides Ranked

by Leo

The Lost World of Tambun was fun and had no bad attractions, so I am going to rank every attraction there (note that I will not include the rides I didn’t go on, or the shows and pools).

19 Malayana Rainfortress

It was hard to choose a worst but the Malayana Rainfortress takes the cake. It is big don’t get me wrong but it is just a foot deep pool with a couple of slow slides.

18 Adventure River

The only reason this didn’t get last place is because it is comedy gold. It said “4D dragon’s lair” but they didn’t give us 3D glasses! So, we went through and it was just a lazy river with no waterjets pushing us along up until the end when we went in this room which had this cave and we heard some audio that was recorded on a potato chip speaker (no joke that is a real thing- search it up) and went into the next room when we saw a dragon eat a fish. It had worse CGI than cats (BTW I actually watched that movie the other day, and I’m surprised I’m still alive) and went back out into the river.

17 Marmoset Island

The Marmoset Island had marmosets that you could barely see since they were so far from the path. The only thing that saved this area was the monitor lizards.

16 Tarantula Alley

This one wasn’t bad it was just not as good as most of the other ones so am putting it at 16th.

15 Rock Canopy

A small area that had parrots… that’s basically it.

14 Ruby and Friends

This was an area when racoons walked along a branch and got fed. This would be higher if we had bought the food.

13 Bird Paradise

It had lots of little birds and was pretty big. But the best part was the turtles.

12 Giddy Galleon

A pirate ship ride when you went round in a circle. It was pretty fun and Anna loved it.

11 Storm Rider

You got on a pirate ship and went back and forth for a while (ok I have to stop saying TWSS).

10 Rabbit Wonderland

It had capybaras and crocodiles. It also had really cute otters who were putting on a show for us. But we didn’t see the rabbits.

9 Tortoise Kingdom

It had lots of tortoises and turtles. My favorite was the snapping turtle.

8 Serpentarium

This had lots of snakes. We saw pythons, tons of little snakes piled on top of each other and a blue tongued skink you could pet.

7 Tiger Valley

This was really cool but all the tigers were hiding and we only saw one, but overall, he was pretty cool.

6 Haunted Chambers

I don’t know how the dragon was an attempt at being scary, when this was horrifying! There are jumpscares round every corner plus there is this old dried-up dry bones Mario woman chasing you. What did I just say. But anyway, it is really fun and scary.

5 Giraffe and Friends

This one is super cool and you get to feed the giraffes and pretty sure zebra but we only fed the giraffe (F in chat for zebra).

4 Tube Raider

This one was a fast and fun set of four slides. Two were the same but the other two were different. This one was really good and me and Anna went on them four times.

3 Hippo Kingdom

This one was when you saw hippos, crocodiles and flamingos and there was even an underwater bit where you can see hippos and crocodiles. We only saw crocodiles though; we were lucky enough to be there on a day when they had a baby there called baby Jahgu and we fed them melons and bananas.

2 Lupes Adventure

This one was amazing – it was a roller coaster you went round twice and I went on it three times. But this wasn’t very good by rollercoaster standards so the best one was…

1 Cliff Racer

Me and dad went on this one, and it was so fun. It was super-fast (mainly because of my dad’s weight). And it went down a slope and went all the way up into the sky in order to slow it down. There were even bumps at the bottom that splashed you when you went down. Overall, it was incredible and almost perfect.
That was my ranking on The Lost World of Tambun. Thank you for reading and goodbye.

Anna’s Ipoh Highlights

Locked out!

After our big theme park day, we went out for a street food dinner of yummy soy sauce noodles, char siu pork and greens as our last dinner in Ipoh. We needed to go home and get packed up after this for our early departure the next day, as we were driving back to KL to return the rental car and then flying to Bali.

When we arrived back at our Airbnb, we used the swipe card for the elevator and exterior security door. When I went to input the code, I asked Shaun to read it out to me because I hadn’t brought my phone. He looked at me in horror and said he hadn’t brought his phone either! It was a dreadful realization that we were locked out of our apartment. We attempted to remember the 8 digit code, but after a few unsuccessful attempts, Shaun went down to talk to security to see if they could help. The lovely security guy offered us his phone to get into my email, but of course it was a completely different IP address and all the security checks kept directing us back to our own phones for OTPs or security links!

By this stage, poor wee Anna was in tears, distraught that we might be homeless for the night, so we had to keep very calm and reassure her, whilst inwardly I was stressing out big time. We found a phone number for our Airbnb host Ivy, who thankfully picked up and gave me the password over the phone once she had asked me a whole lot of questions to check it was actually me. Thank goodness for kind security guys and responsive Airbnb hosts!

Packing our bags was a delight that evening, given the relief of actually of actually having everything back in our possession.

We left the next morning for KL Airport…….and that afternoon we flew to Bali…..