A Tale of Two Cities: Part 1 - Ipoh

Also known as the City that Tin Built or the City of Millionaires, that’s Ipoh, my hometown, although frankly speaking, I dunno any of the millionaires in Ipoh, don’t even know who they are. Ipoh used to be rich (it still is, maybe) because of the rich tin deposits lying beneath and around it. Now, that nobody knows what tin is needed for anymore, Ipoh has become somewhat like a retirement home. Not that I have any complaints, less traffic jam, less people queuing up for movie tickets, cheaper food, cheaper accommodation, hmm bliss…


Just outside the Ipoh High Court

Here’re some pictures of Ipoh, mainly for my foreign friends (not that I have many actually hehehe).

Ipoh is a very unique city, full of identity (not that I’m boasting just because I’m from Ipoh). It is unique because:
- It has its very own variety of hawker food, hardly found anywhere else in Malaysia, e.g. hor hee, chee cheong fun with mushroom sauce (or other types of sauce as one sees fit), chicken & bean sprout hor fun, hakka noodles, just to name a few. And it’s cheap and in manageable portions compared to the bloody expensive huge portions that you get in KL or further south…
- It is pretty clean (for a Malaysian town) and its flora is well-maintained (that’s why it’s also known as the Garden City, never knew a town with so many nicknames huh?)
- It is surrounded with beautiful limestone outcrops (and hence, cave temples) and hills (but how long it’s gonna be like that, depends on how fast the quarries and cement factories take to blow up all the remaining rocks). But then again, if we don’t blow up all those limestone, what industries would Ipoh have huh? Oh yeah, we can build more cave temples, or cave mosques, and why not a cave church?
- Most of its inhabitants do not know their own addresses (or street names to be more precise), …thanks again to our highly efficient and nationalistic City Council who have a knack for renaming street names mainly to rid Ipoh of its colonial past. Ipoh used to have really catchy street names, such as Hugh Low Street, Brewster Road, Anderson Road, Tiger Lane, …just to name a few. Now, it’s err… forgive me, I don’t really know now anymore.

What used to be called Brewster Road and is now called Jalan err... beats me man!

- It has embraced modernization with zeal (never mind those old buildings of yesteryears, they’re just in the way, …err why not whack down that colonial building and replace it with a cube of concrete and blue glass amidst all those grand old colonial buildings huh? To see this landmark, now named Public Bank, visit Ipoh old town).

View from the Ipoh Padang. Notice that square white concrete block of a building jutting above the old shop houses on the left, just next to the minaret? That's the back view of Public Bank

- It is dead quiet and peaceful at night, …compliments again to the City Council for kicking out with gusto, the many food stalls lining the streets of Ipoh. Now everybody can save some money on unhealthy supper, and sleep earlier at night.
- It's idea of cleaning up a popular tourist attraction like Kellie’s Castle (known for its haunted house looks), is to give it a bright new coat of paint, manicured garden, tourist booth, ...bravo, what a bright idea (why don’t we just convert it into an amusement park? and forget about all this haunted house concept)

I have a lot more examples but I better stop before I go overboard. If you wanna know more about the uniqueness of Ipoh’s or Perak’s town and tourism planning, please drop me a word, and I can definitely describe more.


Ipoh Railway Station