Ipho but pronounced Epho

I arrived in Ipho by train on Monday, it took about 3 hours and it's north of KL.  Ipoh is in the state of Perak, it's know for its colonial era buildings and it has a big Chinese population which has played a disproportionate role in development of Malaysia.

The hotel I stayed it, called The Grand Station Hotel, is still actively used as the railway station with the upper floors converted into a budget hotel.  Locally it's called The Ta jMahal which becomes self evident if you look at the picture. To be honest the hotel isn't so grand, the rooms are OK but they don't provide internet, you can feel the springs through the bed, and there is not phone in the room.  With a nicer bed you can see the appeal of staying here when phone and internet didn't matter.  It's got a great view to sit and so I enjoyed sitting here having my morning coffee (Ipho white coffee) on the veranda.   

The second day started at 8:30am which was later than I had hoped but there was nothing I could do since they had no phone in the room thus no wake up call so I inadvertently slept in.  I had to get some laundry done, this is was the first priority since I had only one weeks worth of clothing and it had been about a week.  I couldn't use the hotel laundry service since they would could 100 ringgits which is abut 33 dollars so I did what the locals do.  You droop it off at a laundromat where they wash and dry it by the kilo so my cost was 15 ringgits.  Next cash some travelers checks;  note don't bring travelers checks as most banks have ATMS which allow you to withdraw money from your own bank account; this took a good 45 minutes.  I was hoping that I would have enough time to get to the bus station to catch the bus to a city thats 2 hours north of Ipho which was a city built by the Sultan of the region and contained royal palaces and stuff.  The idea was to spend the day there and come back by night but I didn't make it to the bus so I kind of wondered around Ipho.

OH NO Nazi's in Malaysia...No...it's a Chinese/Indian temple?  I know the swastika was an Hindu peace symbol  taken by the Nazi''s with the ends sharpened and rotated 45 degrees.

local Mosque

Across from my hotel, it's a colonial building which now houses the local court.

Old colonial era neighborhood.

Malaysia is full of old colonial era renovated buildings that are now banks or offices.

On the 3rd day in Ipho I got my laundry back and caught the bus to Cameroon Highlands.  Cameroon Highlands are 2 hours west of Ipoh and not in Perak and it's up in the mountains.  The big attraction here is the weather, which stays between 52 and 75 Fahrenheit all year round, and the great view.  So this place is in perpetual spring so crops like strawberries, cabbage, and other spring only crops grow year around and the flowers bloom all year long.  After being in 88 Fahrenheit weather with high humidity for over a week it was refreshing to have some nice cool weather.

I really should have skipped Ipho and just stayed here.  The highlands has some of the most picturesque views that I have ever seen, large mountains covered in steamy jungles with wild flowers and water falls everywhere and down in the valley there is gushing stream running through the rocks.  Deep in the jungle also grows the largest flower which I think has a diameter of 2 feet, it takes two hours of trekking through the virgin jungles to get there.  Man I should have stayed here for a couple of days.  I went with a travel company so we visited a strawberry farm, a butterfly farm, a bee farm, and a tee estate.  I hope the pictures do justice to this place.

Tee as far as the eye can see.

Tee garden.

I wish that I could show these pictures in it's original size but it makes the blog look ugly so this size will have to do.

Well I am off to Penang which is 4 hours north of Ipho so that makes me 16 hours north of Singapore and 8 hours north of KL.  Getting very close to the Thai border, now if only the flooding stops then I can take the train to Bangkok.