We Don't Have a Menu

Camp WienerPohl, complete with both dads and Aunt Nicole (party of 9), headed to Ipoh this past weekend. Ipoh, about a two hour drive from KL, is known for its limestone cliffs and food. Ipoh grew in the late 1800s from a booming tin mining business. The tin mines drew a large immigrant Chinese population and the city today is ~70 percent ethnically Chinese. The resulting food is a delightful mix of Malay and Chinese, heavy on the Chinese. In researching accommodations for this trip, I stumbled upon a website similar to VRBO in which home owners may post short term rentals. As it was challenging to find hotel accommodations for 9, this site seemed great. (One catch is that a few accommodations were listed as "Malay Only", that's basically like saying "Whites Only" in the States. Yikes! In further reading, I think the postings really mean the house has a Halal kitchen - so basically equivalent to saying "Kosher kitchen" - but it was striking to see this.)

The lovely home we did end up renting for the weekend was located in a neighborhood built around the limestone cliffs. The owners were incredibly nice and said we were their first expat guests - which is kinda cool.

As the Miller Wieners hit some traffic coming up from KL, the Pohl Garibaldi's and Nicole set out into Ipoh to find the famous chicken and bean sprouts dish called 'Tauge Ayam' (roughly translated to 'chicken and bean sprouts'). We'd been directed to a corner in which a Pat's and Geno's (Philly cheesesteak) competition was going on between the two classic Tauge Ayam places. Both restaurants were packed. We ate at Lou Wong's. Oh, don't bother asking for a menu. The server said "How many?" "Rice or noodles?" - that's it. We were all getting chicken and bean sprouts as that is the only dish they make. Also no orange juice and no beer. Check out the picture of the vat of bean sprouts. When you serve one item, you need a lot of it. The food was tasty. We hit the neighboring night market and picked up an Iron Man mask (for Ty) and a watch (for Violet). By then the Miller Wieners had arrived and sat down at Lou Wong's. A quick text from us saying 'No Tiger' initiated a move across the street to Ong Kee where Tiger is promoted on their sign. Also no menu here. "How many?" "Rice or noodles?" I was excited, because it was now a Tauge Ayam taste off. Results: They both tasted like chicken and bean sprouts. (And Happy Anniversary to Ethan and Robin! - they both remembered it was anniversary half way through the meal...)

 

The Iron Man mask glows.

After dropping the kids and the guys off at the house (Brian and Ethan put the kids to bed. They insisted on sleeping together. So cute!), the ladies found a Thai Reflexology place opened until midnight. OMG - what an experience. Robin, Nicole and I all opted for the Thai oil massage. After having my feet scrubbed, my therapist led me to a room and said to undress. I was surprised to turn my naked self around to find Nicole entering the room, then Robin. Let's just say we're all a lot closer after the experience. The massage was great, complete with a Thai lady crawling all over me, twisting my joints, putting my head in her lap, and giving me a full chest rub down. Robin, so glad we got a couples' massage for your anniversary (By the way, the 60 minute massage cost 50RM, or at today's exchange rate, $17 US dollars - I heart Ipoh).

Saturday started with caving. The gorgeous cliffs around Ipoh have a number of caves, including Gua Tempurung, which provides tours to the public. There are four levels of cave visit. Levels 1 and 2 are dry walks along platforms in the lighted caves. Level 3 takes the group in an underground river. Level 4 goes deeper into the caves and includes swimming across a deep and large section of river. We opted for Level 3. The guide started out "do you have a torch (flashlight)? You should have one for about every two people or so." Yep, would not happen in the US. Also no helmets, no signed waiver. He advised us to leave all keys, phones, etc. in the lockers since we were all going to get wet. Once we got off the walkways, this tour became so, so much fun. We had to slide down a big rock. Then drop down a hole into a river. Then crawl/wiggle on our stomachs on the sandy river floor while avoiding hitting overhead stalactites. The cave was beautiful, the kids were totally into it, and the group (~10 Malaysia teenage boys) we were with was so nice. We spent about an hour in this part of the cave before emerging back in the lit area near the cave entrance. Here the river has carved out the limestone leaving a large area with smoothed white marble. The tour guide said stay as long as you want. Follow the river out. See you. Again, we're not in the States. I don't have pictures - my phone was in the locker. Nicole took some with her new Tough camera. I'll try to post these later.

From here we went to find the temples built into the caves. Sam Poh Tong, Malaysia's largest cave temple, is famous for it's beautiful gardens and turtles. The temple really is amazing - my pictures don't do it justice. Walking into the temple, we bought bags of cherry tomatoes and kangkong, a leafy green, for turtle food. The turtles symbolize something, but I'm not sure what. There were so many of them, some HUGE, in grimy green water. It was totally fun to throw food over the fence and watch the turtles race for the tomatoes. We later fed the fish around the gardens.

We headed back into town to find that Ipoh's Old Town is spread out and not a great site seeing adventure. We did find a large paint ball tournament, which Brian, J, and Tyler had to be dragged away from. Enough touring, let's eat. We found a great bar, the server was so sweet and brought the kids FOUR rounds of dessert. Violet got the band to play some Bon Jovi. Then we headed out to a couple other markets to find some dinner, stopping by a playground on the way.

The ladies again went back to the Thai massage place for the evening. I did a foot massage. Very relaxing, but I like ladies crawling on my back better.

Sunday breakfast was dim sum. I'm a novice, but I didn't realize dim sum is brunch food. We arrived at 8:30 am to the biggest restaurant I've seen in Malaysia. Huge - from across the street, I couldn't even get it all in one picture! And it was already packed. I was grateful to have Nicole, or I'd have been paralyzed in the chaos and would not have been able to order. There were stacks and stacks of steamer baskets, a ton of rice dishes, and all you can drink hot tea. My kind of breakfast.

To cap off the trip, we headed to the Lost World of Tambun Theme Park, a water park/amusement park/historic discovery park/hot springs/petting zoo. All the areas, except the petting zoo, were small scale. Still very fun, but not wild and crazy. What makes this place awesome is that it's built into the limestone cliffs. Amazing and spectacular. With no lines, we - of course - had a blast riding everything over and over again. We saw a tiger feeding (can we request less corny jokes and more educational information about tigers?) and then I reluctantly agreed to go to the petting zoo. I'm so glad the kids dragged me there. It was the highlight of the day. This area of the park was beautifully set into the cliff's various crevices. We petted a raccoon, Burmese python, rabbits, a leopard cat, and a bunch of birds. I held a peacock - they are heavy! We fed deer and saw giant Malaysian porcupines. There was an area where the kids could catch fish with nets. So, so cool. As this is connected to the water park area, it was funny that many people didn't have on shoes. There was a foot sanitation area on the way out! Again, we don't have pictures as our camera was away. After a great dinner in Ipoh, we headed back to KL!

Sending lots of love out to all our family and friends. I'll sign off with a picture of Violet and Buddha resting in the garden.

- Mary, Brian, Violet, and Tyler