Ipoh

We took the bus from Penang to Ipoh. We took a ‘Grab,’ the company that bought out Uber last year, to the bus station near the airport. The station consisted of 12 bus bays and the actual station was up a long flight of stairs. Suddenly I regret my little suitcase....I cannot, prefer not to climb with my new suitcase. Bobbi watches my things while I climb to the top floor. There is an air conditioned room with monitors and several bus company shops. I scan for our company with no luck. But, there is a tv monitor with our bus...it says 13/14. With confidence, I walk downstairs and begin looking for bay 13/14. No such thing...I go back up, approach a hijabbed woman, and she points to window 13/14 ....

At any rate, we finally got our bus and made it to Ipoh where we were nearly mown down by automobiles as we tried to catch our Grab to the hotel.

We walked to Ipoh Little India for dinner, where the meal was served on a fake banana leaf platter. Food was just fine, everything in Malaysia seems to be South Indian.

‘Fake’ Banana Leaf Restaurant 

An abandoned colonial house .... 


Our Indian meal...

Ipoh has three major Buddhist cave temples on the outskirts of town, which ended up being the beginning and the end of our sightseeing. We hired our Grab driver to take us around for the day. 

A monkey outside the cave

Gua Kok Look Tong, view from temple exit...the tin mine in the distance ruins it for some.

The happy Buddha

My favorite marble Buddha inside Gua Kok Look Tong cave.

There were two other cave temples, both much more crowded and chaotic than Gua Kok Tong. One had a Bhutanese temple where the monks were throat singing.

Lovely cave painting 

Our happy Buddha