endroog

It was my second visit to Ipoh in my life. The first time was when I was a kid. So, I dont really know anything about Ipoh except it started off as a tin mining town…. and the derogatory “Ipoh mali” chant. Luckily Szer told me about it so that I dont go offending other Ipohians. Ipoh mali actually refers to social escorts/GROs that accompanied the wealthy businessmen back then.

Once I’m at her house the first thing I was asked by her mom was “Do you play mahjongg?” and I was like “uhh.. err.. but i can learn.”. Wooh. Thats bizarre. Then had some home made lam mee (very different from the one (starchy) we have here in KL). That one in Ipoh is like mee soup and of course you’ll see bean sprout in practically every noodle dishes in Ipoh. Gotta mix it with some sambal. That was lunch. Then we went out for a drive downtown and before we can get out of the housing area, I almost meet with 2 motor accidents. Gee. Too used to KL driving, when you go to some slow-driving town, you’ll get mad. Narrow escape.

Ok.. Szer took me to this Nam Heong Old Town kopitiam. The Old Town brand 3-in-1 white coffee we all see in supermarkets, produced by this coffeeshop. But according to Szer, the better white coffee is brewed opposite. Kedai Kopi Sun Yun Loong (correct spelling?) but it was closed that day. Tiu. Settled with Nam Heong and the eggtarts there were delicious. Comparable to Tong Kee in Pudu.

Then we headed to a soya bean milk/tofu fah shop where its technically a drive-in join… you park your car at the roadside, someone will come and take your order and send you the beverages to drink in the car. They’ll come and collect the bowls/cups after that. All this white coffees and tofufahs are in the Old Town.

Ipoh is divided into 2 sections by the Kinta River. Old Town and New Town. But then, how about Greentown? Haiya. I’m confused.

Still hungry. The car was hungry too and took it to a Shell petrol station to get a fix and we hit the road again. Now we went to Ipoh Garden/Canning Garden to buy ma keok (horse leg) and yau char kuai (deep fried ghost). After tapau, we went to this sports complex. I think thats the Ipoh Stadium. There we had rojak and some stale cuttlefish kangkung. Nothing special in these.

Ok. Enough of eating. We touring again. She showed me her primary and secondary schools, some prominent landmarks such as St. Michael’s Institution/Church, Fu Shan dim sum shop, Syuen Hotel, stretches pomelo stalls with hot sexy chicks trying to lure passersby to buy pomelo. Fuck. Can you imagine, pomelo (po lok) ?!

Finally, we headed to the famous Sam Poh Tong. A Buddhist temple constructed in a cave. Cis. It was closed by the time we reached there. Temples open in office hours. 9.00am-5.30pm. Remember that.

As we drove home, I realized that there’s a lot of schools in Ipoh. Every road I drove by must have at least a school. Damn fucking lots of schools for primary to tertiary education. Schools schools schools.

Then at nite, the celebration at home was nice. A lot of her parent’s friends came over for mahjongg and roast pig feast. 2 big fat roast pigs. There were beers, packet drinks, smokes, groundnuts, fried meehoons, yam pie, chicken porridge and etc. I can’t possibly remember all the food. Chatted with Szer’s uncle and his friend. Well, drinking kaki sure can get cliqued easily. Haha. ~Joking~

The clock have not even struck 12.00am , they have already couldn’t wait any longer. They started to pray at 11.38pm and by 12.00am… half of the second roast pig was gone. I gobbled some of my favourite ang ku. That nite was tired. Retreated to bed early.

Next morning, went breakfast along with her dad. Three of us had Hakka mee. But the hakka mee in Ipoh is like beef noodle. The shop is in Old Town. Not bad but still lack something as compared with Ngau Kee in Tengkat Tung Shin/Jalan Alor.

After breakfast, went home. Packed our luggage and departed Ipoh. Went to Bidor Pun Chun for lunch. Thats all. Hope you all are not bored by this crap travel story of mine.