The original plan was to leave KL early, get to Bidor for breakfast, visit Teluk Intan and Felda Residence Hot Springs along the way and then arrive in Ipoh in time for a late lunch and a walk around Ipoh's Old Town.
When the morning of the trip came around, we woke up late and the kids wanted to have breakfast with the grandparents. So, we didn't manage to hit the road until pretty late in the morning. No breakfast at Bidor - bye bye duck thigh noodle......
I had wanted to visit Teluk Intan a small town with Malaysia's rival to Pisa's famous leaning tower. The 25.5m high tower was built in 1885 as a portable water storage tank. An underground river had caused it to lean though the guide book said not quite as much as Pisa. Geoff thought it was too much of a detour for just one sight - I don't think he quite gets the idea of a road trip!
So, we drove striaight to Felda Residence Hot Springs in Sungkai. There is accommodation at Felda Residence Hot Springs so if you wish you can make it a holiday destination in itself. We arrived at around noon and there was not much of a crowd as it was not school holiday season - Yipee!
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| The "hot springs" pool was not too hot, water temperature felt only about 40C. However, don't forget this is Malaysia, the outside temperature can be over 30C. Why would anyone want to visit a hot spring in Malaysia??? |
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| Although the pool was not very hot, after being in there for a while, you'll need to cool down |
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| Sure had fun cooling down! |
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| It was off peak period, so most of the time we had the whole pool to ourselves. If you wanted to avoid the crowd during peak times, you can pay RM75 an hour for a private jacuzzi |
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| After the hot springs pool, we moved to the "Egg Pool" where you can boil your own eggs! |
And finally, we found a large pool of cool water and much to the kids' delight - water slides! This was definitely more fun than the hot springs pool.
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| Geoff teaching the girls "chi gong"??? |
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| Me, relaxing on the side. Note to self - this is Malaysia, bring swim suit not bikini. The Malay ladies were in special-made head-to-toe swim suits and the Chinese ladies were not much better. Felt totally naked in my bikini......prefered to just sit and watch..... |
After Felda, we drove to Ipoh hoping to get to Thean Chun Coffee Shop to sample the 雞絲河粉 before it closes at 4.30pm. Even with the GPS, Ipoh's Old Town with all the one-way streets is a difficult place to navigate. But we managed to get there at 4pm! Phew!
We had planned to walk around the Old Town after lunch but the rain continued to pour. So, we went to check into our first (and only) budget hotel for this trip.
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| Had a family room with a bunk-bed (Drea was highly amused by this). Basic and clean-ish. At only RM168 a night, I am ok to try it out as a stop-over |
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| Continued to rain so we did some sight seeing in the car - the rain stopped long enough for us to take a couple of photos at the padang |
Unable to do much due to the weather, we decided to have an early dinner at
Restaurant Lou Wong to try the famous chicken with ho fun and bean sprouts, then have an early night. Hope for better weather tomorrow.
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