Ipoh (Malaysia)

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Sat 14th:
We get up early, check out of our hotel (Banchoafa) and get the minibus from Krabi down to Had Yai/Hat Yai setting off at 6am. About 11.30am we arrive at Had/Hat Yai.
There the information desk at the train station tells us that it's impossible to get a train to Ipoh. We know it's not, it's on the Main 'Singapore to Bangkok.' trainline and has times, train numbers and prices all listed on their website. But, even armed with all that info the guy won't sell the ticket. So, we talk to a girl that sells the bus tickets. Again, no Ipoh. After explaining and showing her a map with the road number on she finally gets the point, and we have a ticket to Ipoh. Of course as is the case with every other day in thailand - "Today is a special day, day after New Year, So ticket costs more." Good little farewell present.

Nightmare, we book tickets but can't pay. Why ? Because the bloody ATM has decided it is having an 'Error in Communication.' 'Transaction Failed.'. After a mad dash to 3 or 4 other machines, we finally find one that works. Phew.

So about 2.30pm or 3pm we get on the bus. Stop at the border. The queue is massive. After waiting an age and a day we finally get to some guy that deals with departure cards. Of course with it being a special day, it costs 10 Baht each, but the trouble is, not wanting to have a load of money we couldn't use we stocked up on water, Oreo's, Ley's and the like. and only have 19 Baht between us, we need 20.
So Matt played it all innocent until some do gooder tries to help by explaining why we have to pay 10 Bahts. Matt then makes some joke about the money going straight in the guys pocket. He doesn't look impressed but takes the 19 Baht (He also looks unbelievably camp in his fitted CHIPS style uniform). And then we board the bus again.

The bus stops about half a mile down the road and we go get our visa's, noting that it is illegal to bring cosmetic products into the country, bizarre.

Then we board a new bus, it's now about 4pm ish. The bus is actually a Kuala Lumpar bus and the girl in the office that sold us the ticket hasn't bothered to tell him that he needs to stop at Ipoh, although we don't find this out till about 30 miles after setting off - the same driver guy also checked our tickets - muppet. So being on the 'New Road' instead of the 'Old Road' The driver says he can only drop us off at Ipoh Highway. Good enough we think. Naive as we are. Also on the bus we start chatting to 2 lads, (one from Borneo originally but now a hairdresser in KL, the other a computer programmer) that to non-white people the ticket from Had Yai is only 300 Baht. We paid 750 Baht for half the distance.

Anyway, we arrive at Ipoh Highway. To put this in perspective imagine 2 foreigners visiting England, they buy a bus ticket to London and are charged more than 3 times the price an English person pays, and then instead of being taken to London, they get dropped off at the side of the M25.

So what did we do ? Panic ? Cry ? No, did what you should always do in a travelling disaster - look for the Golden Arches. After finding out where an ATM was, which was a task, we can tell you - (it seems the recruitment policy for table cleaners at McDonalds is the same worldwide) We ate our meal, and it was bliss - except that every second person kept leaving their meal to ask us if we were okay, if we were lost, did we need help - very friendly people Malays.

Note also that all McDonalds here are Halal, although to Matt's dissapointment there is no McHalal burger, they do however have a McWrap which is basically a McDonald's Kebab!- Genius, Sheer Genius. And they let you smoke at the tables!

So fully gorged we walked to a place where taxi's just rest for a while, payed 5RM
(6.5 RM aka Ringgit Malaysia = 1 GBP), so about 1 pound 50p, and got to Sun Golden Inn. This is where we realize that whoever wrote the Lonely planet guide to Malaysia in 2006 was almost certainly on some kind of mind altering drug. it says clean, safe etc. All lies.
The room is fine, although we have to pay 45 RM (Book quotes 35 RM) because the only room they have left is one that sleeps 4 and has air-con. But at about 10pm, in a strange city where most hotels offer cheaper 'Day rates', 'Spa Massages' or 'Hourly rates.' it's our best option.

Sun 15th:
Matt is annoyed today, he's avoided using a squat for nearly 3 months, but it happened. The fear of them was increased after Leanne's incident in Phnom Penn. The toilet here (Shared tiolet, and bathroom) is a squat. Violated, a former colony and no flushing tiolets. So we checked out, and got a better hotel, almost the same price (at 55 RM) but the bathroom is inside the room, it's cleaner although a bit smaller. great room though.

So off we head up to see Kellie's castle. Basically this Scottish dude made loads of money out of tin mining, he couldn't get his wife to move over so he built her a castle. She moved over but decided the castle wasn't good enough, so he got a load of Hindu workers to build an even bigger better one. Some of the workers died, so he had a Hindu temple built for the workers, in return they put a statue of him (Pith helmet and all) on the temple next to the gods. So the building continued, and guess what? They poor guy never managed to finish it. The poor guy died some time in the 20's trying to buy a lift/elevator thing in Lisbon. Poor sod.

To get there we take an arduous walk to the City bus station (With about 5 bus stations it can be quite a task figuring out which one goes where). We got the bus to Batu Gajah where we need to get another bus to Gopeng and get off halfway between the two towns. After waiting in Batu Gajah for a while we opted for the taxi option, so for 5 RM we got a driver to take us up to Kellie's castle. He stopped just before it and explained about the Hindu temple and then drove on to take us to the castle. He kept saying that William Kellie disappeared mysteriously, which isn't quite true, he died in Lisbon, the driver was probably confusing him with (Another Brit Ex-Pat) Jim Thompson who went missing in the Cameron Highlands after single handedly reviving the Thai silk industry, and making himself a millionaire in the process (MI6 guy, just got up and went for a walk oneday leaving his watch and wallet on a cafe table, never to be seen again.)

Anyway, so we got to the castle, paid the 4 RM to get in and walked round taking lots of photos, before going to get a drink and an ice cream to allieviate the sweltering heat. During our ice cream our taxi guy turns up again and offers to take us to the Hindu temple for free (it's only about 500 metres away). Also because the town was low on business, and after the guys at the temple had told him about the nearby tin mine that Kellie made his money from, he wanted to go see the tin mine himself, having never seen or heard of it before, and non of us were in a rush. So we took a slow walk around the old mine, which is basically a massive machine in a mini man made lake and got chatting to our driver called Aziz. Turns out the guy is about 65-ish, has a son at Uni in Manchester doing Law, and has himself just had a blood transfusion becuase of a stroke. He then decided to take us back to Batu Gajah for free, and gave us the name of a friends hostel in Tanah Rata (Our intended next stop, Cameron Highlands) where his friend would give us a discount. Nice bloke, just seemed to be taking life slowly now though, as he said "I have my Mercedes now.", so we said our goodbyes and waited for our bus back.

While waiting we got some drinks from a shop and while Leanne was in the shop some guy asked Matt if he was going to Ipoh, Matt said yes, and the guy offered him a ride on the back of his motorbike, but obviuosly there were 2 of us so we wited for the bus. Typical of Malaysia hospitality though, very friendly people. So after a short bus trip were back in Ipoh, and about 20 metres from our hotel some man and his wife in a car pulls up. asks us if we are lost and gives us his mobile number (they are called hand-phones here) and tells us that if we get lost just ring him and he'll come and pick us up. At this point he's holding up traffic, but nobody seems that bothered.

Later we decided to shun the western fare for a night and go all local. We went to a China Cafe, and after a long translingual session finally ordered Nasi Lamek for Matt, Sweet and Sour chicken chop for Leanne and two of the biggest watermelon shakes you've ever seen. The sweet and sour was nice, but the Nasi Lamek - basically an Ammonia smelling curry, some dried fish,
peanuts, boiled rice and the worst most boney parts of chicken imaginable. So Matt was still petty hungry and off to the hill top cafe we went. 10 pieces of the best, most tasty chicken Satay ever known to man later and we were both pretty stuffed.

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Photos

On top of Kellie's castle.
The view of the Cameron highlands is really something.

Ruins of the first castle.
Destroyed during World War II

Hindu temple.
They're a lot more colourful than the Buddhist ones we've seen, but now we can see how Angkor Wat was a mix of Buddhist and Hindu styles.

Top of Hindu temple.
As you can see, that William Kellie dude he's right up there with the Hindu gods, having a right shindig, Pith helmut and all.

The tin mine.
Just abandoned by the British after Kellie's death. Aziz asked if we would take it back to the UK. We explained about excess luggage charges, he seemed to understand.

Aziz's car.
His pride and joy, a Mercedes.

Ipoh shopping scene.
Not sure if it's an official outlet or not.

On top of Kellie's castle.
The view of the Cameron highlands is really something.