Day 1: Singapore - Ipoh (Malaysia)

We didn't really plan to go for holiday but since hubby needed to clear his leave fast, I quickly arranged for one. To my delight, I discovered that the hotels were in low season during the fasting month. I only spent less than SGD 500 for 7 nights accommodation, which was about SGD 70 per night. It was a steal! I told hubby let's make a yearly trip to Malaysia during this period. :D

We started from home at 7.30 am, reached the Immigration around 8am and were cleared in minutes.

Immigration at Second Link

Malaysia North-South Expressway

What was usually an uneventful drive became an exciting ride when we met a group of Lamborghini speeding through the highway. There were about 50 of them in all sort of colors, I had never seen so many Lamborghini at the same time.

And to add to the "excitement", we were stopped by the highway police! We have heard many stories about Singapore car being targeted by the Malaysian Police, but this is the first time we got stopped. When talking to the police, hubby could sense that they didn't really have a strong case and just wanted to get some kopi money, so by using some trick that he had prepared before hand, he tried to talk his way out and amazingly it worked! We managed to get away without having to pay anything.

We met those Lamborghini drivers again at Ayer Keroh R&R. Saw many people taking pictures of their cars including us hehehe..., they must be damn proud. By the way, we casually asked if they were stopped by the police and apparently they did. In total they had to fork out around RM 1000+. Wow, not bad for a day's work.

Which one is your favourite?

After lunch at Ayer Keroh, we continued our drive to Ipoh. Half way through, suddenly we realized that we were actually going to KL instead of Ipoh, so we exited the highway and drove through the KL traffic to find our way back to the NS highway. We wasted almost an hour because the traffic was quite congested. Luckily once we found the highway, it was a smooth ride all the way.

When we got nearer to our destination, the landscape changed from rows of palm trees to limestone hills. It was a scenic drive to Ipoh town.

Ipoh is surrounded by limestone hills

A majestic limestone hill

Finally we reached Ipoh around 4pm after 7 hours of driving. Prior to this we always thought that driving to Ipoh directly would be too taxing, especially with a 3 year old kid. But it turned out to be okay, so now we set our sight on Hatyai, Thailand. :P

Ipoh French Hotel
Our hotel is located in the old town where all the good food is. The hotel receptionist gave us a food map and pointed out all the famous restaurants nearby.Wow... so many good food!

The hotel is small but modern, something like a boutique hotel. The rate is quite affordable too, no wonder they are number one in TripAdvisor.

Stylish bathroom

After resting for a while, we started our sightseeing. I was quite impressed with the colonial buildings, they were being preserved very well. 

The colonial style bridge at Jalan Sultan Iskandar

Birch Memorial Clock Tower

Ipoh Railway Station

Ipoh Town Hall

Actually we wanted to have our dinner at Min Zhong which is just a few minutes walk from our hotel. But they had a wedding that night, so they recommended us to go to another branch, which was about 20 minutes drive from our hotel.

Min Zhong is in the old town of Ipoh

Rainbow Seafood, another branch of Min Zhong.

Ginger chicken

Fish paste with tofu

Butter prawns

Crab in sweet and sour sauce

This place is recommended by hubby's friend who is originally from Ipoh. After the disappointment with the food in Penang, I didn't really have any high hopes but thankfully, the food was delicious and better still, it came in big portions.

Considering Rainbow Seafood is a big restaurant that caters for wedding, our meal here only cost less than RM 90 (SGD 35). For having crab and prawns in a nice restaurant, no way we could get this price in Singapore.

Yeah, we were looking forward to our next meal in Ipoh.

Day 2 >>