TRANSCRIPT:
Good morning and welcome to the beginning of Mystery Malaysia Tour day 6. We’re here in Ipoh, still staying at the Regal Vista Hotel. I thought I’d start today’s video where all days actually start. Sitting here on my bed, I would normally fire up my little kettle to make a cup of coffee. In this case, I could fire up the hotel kettle to make a cup of coffee, but they actually serve a buffet breakfast here. So, I’m going to head up, no, head down. I think on the first floor they have the breakfast area, the restaurant. I’m not sure. I haven’t scouted it out yet. So, I’m going to head down there, have a cup of coffee. My traveling companions will probably reach out when they’re ready for breakfast, and then I’ll already be there, and then they can join me, and we can have breakfast. But I’m going to start with a cup of coffee.
We don’t have exact plans for today. This is the mystery tour of Malaysia after all. So we don’t have a fixed itinerary or anything. But last night we were talking about, after breakfast, going to see one of the many cave temples here in the area. There are lots of limestone karsts all around the city, lots of cave formations, and of course, where there are caves, at some point in history, somebody is going to build a temple inside the cave of one kind or another. There are many spectacular examples of that around. I think the biggest one, the one that is the most impressive and most people talk about, I forget the name of it now, but it is closed for renovations inside. So, you can’t actually go there. We are going to what may be the number two cave temple in terms of the scenery called the Perak Cave Temple. I think a Buddhist temple there, I believe. There’s a temple down at the base of this limestone karst. I don’t know if it is actually a cave temple now that I think about it, but there must be a cave portion. But then there are steps going up to the top of the karst, and then you’re supposed to be able to get views of the city. So that’s where we’re going first.
I have my eye on a mining museum right inside Old Town. I think there are a number of tin mining museums here. That’s where I would normally start. Like if I go to a new city, the first place I want to go is to the local history museum. Then I get the lay of the land. Then as I’m exploring the town, I understand what I’m seeing better. But it didn’t work out that way this time. We went out into Old Town yesterday when we first arrived. Checked out a lot of the heritage trail, the old buildings, things like that. Concubine Lane and the street art lane, all places like that, had a classic white coffee. But I didn’t go to a museum. So, I hope maybe today to go to a tin mining museum. My traveling companions may or may not join me for that. May not be in their wheelhouse. I’m not sure. I think Habib will come in with me, take a look around. After that, yeah, there will be some food on the horizon, I guess, and maybe going to the Little India part of Old Town Ipoh. We didn’t see that part of Old Town yesterday. Who knows? Mystery tour. Anything could happen.
But yeah, this is my room, by the way. Bed, of course, very comfortable bed. My gear spread out beside me. A little bit less gear than normal because a lot of it is still down in Port Dickson waiting for my return. Nice TV. Got a window over there. Really nice room. I guess it’s a bit on the smaller side if you’re talking about a more of an upper-level kind of hotel. It’s not a low-budget hotel obviously, but it’s very well-appointed. Everything works beautifully. Electrical outlets galore, light switches beside the bed, all those conveniences. Your own kettle and hair dryer, which I did not use, as you can see. Doesn’t even use an electric hot water heater. It’s got a water tank somewhere, so you just turn on the shower, and hot water just comes pouring out. The fan, as I demonstrated yesterday, the ceiling fan, even comes with its own remote. You can turn it on and off from the comfort of your own bed.
Funny thing is, right over there, they have an advertisement in my room taking up a big chunk of the wall talking about all the facilities here. It has like a sauna and jacuzzi and things like that down at the bottom, but that’s not actually in the hotel, but they have a free shuttle service from this hotel to that spa and sauna place. So, they have a deal going with those people. But yeah, beautiful little room. Very comfortable. Slept like a dream. Now it is time for a cup of coffee. Look at all those switches in my own personal telephone beside the bathroom. Yeah, the hallway here. See how the rooms are marked? The elevators.
I made a mental note of where breakfast was, but then I forgot. But they have a nice sign to remind you. Morning breakfast buffet first floor. So that’s where we’re heading to. Done. Here’s the breakfast buffet. Yeah, large seating area. It’s a big hotel, I guess, so they need a big seating area. Lots of food. So, just a quick look around. Salads and fruits. Some pasta. Make your own. Kind of cool. Coffee, orange juice, toast, cereal with milk, some kind of porridge. Oh, and then all kinds of hot dishes. Ooh. Oh, scrambled eggs, baked beans, rice, of course, and all right, so let me grab some coffee.
Just a quick update. Breakfast is over. I couldn’t really record the breakfast itself. There was a lot of loud music playing, loud pop music. It was very nice music. I enjoyed it, but that meant I couldn’t record anything. My traveling companions were in the car there. We’re heading to the Perak Cave Temple, 7 or 8 km up the road there. Oh, by the way, happy Malaysia Day. I’ll talk about that when we get to the cave temple. I said I would talk about it when we got to the cave temple, but since we’re just driving there, maybe I can chat a little bit about Malaysia Day here.
So, today, September 16th, this is the actual holiday. So, this is the national holiday called Malaysia Day. Malaysia is a lucky country because they sort of celebrate the country two times because we already had Merdeka Day, and that was on August 31st because on August 31st, 1957, the Federation of Malaya became an independent country. So the August 31st Merdeka Day celebrates like independence from colonial rule. But then in 1963, on September 16th, 1963, Malaysia as we know it today, almost as we know it today, came into existence. Sabah and Sarawak and Singapore and the Federation of Malaya, they all came together and formed the modern country of Malaysia. So like it gets a little bit confusing because everybody thinks of 1957 as Malaysia’s independence day, but it was actually the independence day for the Federation of Malaya, and Malaysia, that country didn’t really come into existence in its modern form until 1963. So that’s what we’re celebrating today, Malaysia Day.
Interestingly, for a long time, Malaysia Day wasn’t really celebrated as a big national holiday like it is now. Everybody celebrated Merdeka Day, but Malaysia Day was not really a big public holiday. But then Sarawak and Sabah were pushing for Malaysia Day to be given equal importance to Merdeka Day because of course they’re now part of Malaysia, and they just want to be recognized as such. So then Malaysia Day, September 16th, became an official public holiday the same as Merdeka Day. Anyway, it’s a very complicated country in terms of its history because even 1963 wasn’t the end of the story because after that in 1965, Singapore left Malaysia to form a separate country. So in fact, the Malaysia that we have today in its modern form didn’t really come into effect until 1965. So that’s another day, the day that Singapore left the union. So anyway, the short story is that today is Malaysia Day. It’s a holiday here in Malaysia, and we are out here celebrating it in Ipoh. We’re starting the celebrations by driving out to the famous cave temple, Perak Cave Temple. There’s like three or four hundred steps climbing to the top of the limestone karst. Hopefully we get a nice view of the valley here, the Kinta River Valley and Ipoh.
Of course, this is day five, no, day six. This is day six of the mystery, the Malaysia mystery tour. We’ve been really lucky with the weather, I think, considering everybody keeps talking about the monsoons coming, but we’ve had beautiful blue skies almost all the time, including this morning. Look at that. We’ve arrived. Yeah, it wasn’t that far away. Got here a lot quicker than I expected. I was talking about the Malaysia Day celebrations, and yeah, we just got here before, almost as soon as I finished telling that story. So, here is the main temple, and there’s the limestone karst. I was just reading about the place that was founded in 1926 by a couple from China. They got permission to found a temple here in this natural setting, and it’s dedicated to Guan Yin. I have a special feeling for the goddess Guan Yin. She’s, I guess, the goddess of mercy, but in Taiwan, I think she’s also associated with Matsu. They’re like Guan Yin and Matsu, I think, are the same. Just a different name. But Matsu is the goddess of the sea and sailors because Taiwan being an island nation. So there’s a statue of Guan Yin.
I think we’ll be looking at the cave. There’s a large Buddha statue inside the cave. Then we’re going to try to climb up there. At least Habib and I will be. I think his wife will stay down below and wait for us mountaineers to get to the top. We’re in the shade of the cliffs now. You can see just how the cliffs tower over the temple, almost like leaning over the place. The incense burning, of course. This is the entrance to the cave temple. So easy to see why someone would have the idea in all of these caves to install a temple of some kind. It’s almost like an instinct to see a cave like this. Wow, perfect spot for a temple. That Chinese couple in 1926, that was their idea.
Wow. I like the wall murals. I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like that before. The size and the scale of these, like painted right on the cave walls there. Then behind or on the left and right of the statue, you can see the paintings over here as well. Even the cave floor has been covered. So there’s really no real natural setting at all anymore. It’s like a polished floor like in a building. There’s even a little cave behind the Buddhist statue that you can sneak through, a little tunnel.
One thing I always find interesting about Buddhist temples, of course, is all the ways I wasn’t expecting this at all. There’s more to the cave. It goes deeper. That’s a beautiful rock formation. I was just going to say that at a Buddhist temple, there’s so many ways for a visitor or temple member, community member to donate to the temple. You’re asking for favors, and you can buy offerings, light incense, light candles. These are all ways for the temple to make money to keep up the place. Like a little money box right there. People can leave money. There’s tables around the cave here where people are collecting money from visitors like over there. Yeah, there’s a real thriving economy in these temples.
It’s a beautiful cave. Nice and cool in here, too. I saw some steps up there that they had a sign saying there was like a limited time that you could begin the climb on the steps. There’s a man there with a donation box. I’m not sure if those steps go all the way to the top of the karst, like is that the beginning of the hike, or does the hike begin somewhere else? I asked him, but he didn’t speak any English, so I’m not quite sure. Yeah. I thought that opening, like the first part of the cave with the large Buddha statue, I thought that was the whole cave, but it goes quite a bit farther.
I haven’t seen any signs specifically referring to the climb, the trail, or the stairs going all the way to the top. But there are these stairs behind me, and it does have a sign there that says if you have high blood pressure, heart disease, don’t attempt this. So, I’m thinking this must go all the way to the top. But, yeah. So, we’re going to see. There’s the stairs there. Going to see how far it goes. Yeah. Climbing time from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. only. Last trip 3:30. So I guess we’re not talking about a major climb. It only takes 15 minutes, half an hour.
Beautiful cave though. Very accessible, too. Just one reason it’s so popular. You’re not going to have to go through any tiny tunnels and risk getting stuck hanging upside down or any sort of cave disasters like that. Huh. Much more developed than I thought. I thought it would be like a trail but not stairs the whole way. Yeah, it’s kind of cool. Yeah. So, it looks like that stairway was the way to get to the top. Starting to climb up a little bit.
Yeah, that may be, who knows. It’s like any mountain, you always look and say, “Oh, that must be the top.” It turns out it’s a false peak, and it goes up and up and up. Habib has thrown in the towel as well. So, I’m heading on to the top on my own. I’m sure I’ll be okay. Oh, another trail. I guess that’s the main trail continues. So, there would be the top top. Oh, yeah. It’s hard to know. The trail does split in different directions. This might be an intermediate lookout point. So, I’m going to go up there and then continue to the top.
Some views starting to emerge. A surprising view. Something I wasn’t expecting at all, but it makes sense. That looks like a gravel processing center right there. Industrial sort of thing. They’re doing a lot of mining of these hills, the karst hills for gravel and rock, which really surprises me. I see a lot of that in Malaysia. I’m not sure whether that’s shortsighted economically or not. How many of these hills can you cut down for the gravel and then retain the attraction of a tourist attraction? Because it’s all about the beauty of this area. I guess they can’t cut down all the hills, but oh yeah. So, this is an intermediary lookout point, and the top top would be up there. Okay, I spotted a sign down here that said top half. So, that might mean this is the midway point.
Oh, look at that. There’s even stairs. It’s a little bit of a maze here. If you can’t read the Chinese, you don’t know which way to go. Maybe those stairs are a shortcut to the top, but I don’t think so. It’s a lot further up there. So this would be a sign, telling you where to go, but it’s all in Chinese. But hey, it’s not hard to figure out if it’s going up. That’s all you need to know. They tricked me again. There’s no, this doesn’t go to the top. Yeah. Goes to a very nice lookout point. Yeah. Looking out over the Kinta River Valley and Ipoh. Very industrial area. I have no idea what all of these warehouses are for. No clue, but something industrial. Then you can see all the surrounding karst limestones and the hills. Beautiful area. I’m sure there’s a lot of hiking all through there if you have the time and the energy. But yeah, these are the end of the stairs.
I assume we can go up there, but we’re going to have to find another way. Coming up this way, there’s one other direction I could see that I could go, or maybe two actually. One is that staircase tower, and I don’t know if that leads to the beginning of another trail, but we’re going to find out. It’s a bit of a maze here at Perak Cave Temple. It actually has the English here, too. To top view. So, I was thinking I’m going to try Google Translate on the Chinese characters, but I don’t need to because down there it does say to top view. So, this is the secret pathway. When I was reading about this place a little bit, I noticed a lot of people were disagreeing about how many steps to the top. Now I understand why. Everybody has a different experience. They think they’ve reached the top when they haven’t, or they take so many different routes. So, oh, going up, up, and up.
Very steep steps for this last portion. Each step is a significant step down or up. Your knees get a workout here. Yeah, it’s not quite one way. Two people can get past, but with a big crowd of people, yeah, someone has to step to the side and let people go by. As always, all I think about are the people who built this. All these bricks carrying them up here, all the mortar, all the cement, the water. But yeah, I guess this temple is almost a century old, having been founded in 1926. So, they’ve had 100 years to build these stairs.
Yeah, here’s the view. Yeah, maybe all this industrial area is connected to the gravel somehow, but I don’t think so. Maybe just a variety of factories building all kinds of things. Just can’t tell from up above what they do. You’re faster than me. Can let you go. Could be the top. I like this sign. Meant for people in glass houses. Action will be taken by the police against those who throw stones because yeah, way up here, it’s odd that they need a sign for that, which means they must have had cases where people did throw stones. I imagine we must be overlooking the entrance to the cave, so the stones would go straight down on top of the people down there, and you don’t want that.
Oh, here we go. Oh, and a trail goes off that direction. But I think this is the official lookout point that you see from down below. I think it’s hard to say. Or maybe that’s the one that I could see from the parking area. Yeah, that’s probably it right there. Beautiful up here. Second floor of this lookout point. Looking out over the industrial area again. Then from up here, you get to see both sides. Nice. Yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s more the residential area of, I don’t know where Old Town is exactly from here. I’ve lost all sense of direction. I don’t have any landmarks for that. Maybe it’s on the other side of this hill in that direction. We’ll have to look at Google Maps and get oriented. But I think we can follow a trail and get to there. So, that might be the very last point. Yeah, over here. I see another trail. I’m assuming it goes over there. But really, that’s just an assumption. I don’t know. Where else could it go? Right.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it looks like it’s turning in that direction. Yeah, you’ve got to have good knees for going down long steps at every step. So, you need to stay balanced here. Hold on to the handrails when you can. If you fall, of course, number one rule, protect the GoPro at all costs. You sacrifice your body as a YouTuber to save the camera. Yeah, these limestone karsts, they’re no joke if you’re out here climbing around. I mean, without a pre-made trail, how in the world are you getting from here over to there and climbing up there? You’re just not. Basically, you just aren’t. Unless you’re Spider-Man. It’s quite the engineering feat even building this little trail. Up and down, up and down.
Here we are. That’s the big one over there. That’s where I just was. You walk along this ridge to get here. So, you can enjoy this view. It’s actually quite nice here. It’s more open. So, there’s a real strong breeze. Much cooler here than up at the top. You can sit here for a minute, dry all the sweat. When I was looking at Google Maps, it was telling me that this is looking towards Ipoh Old Town in this direction. Though lately, my Google Maps pin often shows me an incorrect direction. The pin is at the right place, but the directional component is malfunctioning. It’s often pointing in the wrong direction. So, I can’t really tell where I’m facing anymore until I just have to start walking, and then I can see the blue dot moving, and then I can figure it out. But standing stationary, I can’t trust it anymore.
Beautiful day. I don’t know how the lighting is going to work out here in the shade, but this can give you a sense of the perspective. I guess the scale of me and the city down below. Yeah, I think in order to go back down, I have to follow the same trail. I thought maybe there’d be an alternative to get down to the bottom, but I think I have to basically backtrack, go down the same trail that I came up. All right, one last look out over the edge. Scan the horizon once again. Marvel at gravity. Like, I mean, come on. Look at the road down there. That’s as far as I’ve come up. Like, barely any distance at all. Yet, to move my body from there to where I am, ah, it was an effort. A sweaty, tiring effort. So, yeah, gravity, man, it’s a beast. Beautiful up here. Look at that greenery. Looking at my GoPro screen, the green I’m seeing on the screen is exactly the same as the green I’m seeing with my eyes. That’s not HDR or oversaturation or anything. That’s exactly what it looks like. Yeah. All right. Time to head back. I’m not going to document the entire hike down. You’ve seen it on the way up. But yeah, I like this little trail.
So, here’s the really steep portion of the climb up. Yeah. So, you need some spring in your steps and in your knees to go down. I just realized I’m sweating. I’m sweating a lot, and I was talking with some people up there, and then while I was talking to them, the sweat just came pouring out. I realized I have my other microphone underneath my shirt. That’s what destroyed my first microphone because this wind muff acts like a sponge, and it soaks up all the sweat from my body, and then runs it all inside the microphone, and that destroyed microphone number one. So, I just realized I thought because I’m just in Ipoh, I could put the microphone here, and it wouldn’t matter. But today, I’m sweating so much. I thought, “Ah! Oh, no. Ah, I’m going to destroy this microphone.” So, yeah. I think I’m going to remove the wind cover because that sucks in the moisture like a sponge. Yeah, like that. But I think it’s safer if I leave it exposed.
But then if I put it under my shirt, you can hear the shirt scraping against the microphone, and it makes noise. So all the things you have to think about when you’re shooting video. But the most important thing is to don’t get so involved in the camera that you forget to look where you’re putting your feet. Got to look here. That’s for sure. Oh yeah, there’s the staircase, the tower. That’s the key to this whole operation. When you get halfway up, look for the tower. Then you climb up the tower to get to the very top top. Here we are. This is the midway point right here. This is the last section or the first, depending on which direction you’re going. It leads down it back into the cave itself, the stairway.
It’s about 1:00 in the afternoon now. We’re back in Old Town, Ipoh, because I was interested in checking out this mining museum. It was on my list of things I wanted to do while I was here. We’re just sort of hoping that it’s open because of the Malaysia Day holiday. You just don’t know what the hours are going to be. Closed. Yeah, I guess we should have done more research. I should have done more research, but yeah, I guess you have to scan this QR code and make a reservation, but I think today it’s closed anyway. Oh. Oh, there are people inside. So, I guess we had to make a reservation.
Turns out there’s hope. The sign on the door said closed. Everything was locked. Then other people standing around were telling me, “Oh, you have to make a reservation in advance.” There was a QR code there, but they said they’re fully booked until Friday the 19th. I peaked through the glass door, and I could see people on the inside. But then a tour group came out, and then the tour guide, I asked him like can you sneak us in, can we do a tour today, and after some back and forth and some looking at some schedules, he said yeah, so we are actually going to get a guided tour, a one-hour tour of the museum, so I guess it’s not a walk around on your own kind of museum, you get a tour, and I asked him if I could put a microphone on him, he seemed hesitant because he didn’t quite know like what are you talking about? But I think I’ll be able to clip a mic on him, and we can hear a little bit of the tour as well.
Habib and Shenaz, they’ve gone looking for something to eat. Yeah, they were quite hungry. Me, I can go for a very long time without food, and the hassle of going out right now in this heat looking for food. We only have a few minutes. It’s too much for me. So, I said, “Yeah, they can go find food if they want. I’m just going to grab a cold coffee.” So, I got an iced coffee here. Yeah, very scenic place. Very nice. They have a seating kind of upstairs there as well as down here. I got their classic Ipoh flat white coffee. I’ll enjoy this until the tour starts.
Okay, for our guests on my left side here, can please move to the front. I want you all to be able to see the background behind me. For those who are sitting on the antique chairs, please sit with tender loving care. Remember, one chair for one person. Once seated, don’t move. Handphone on silent, please. Now, pay attention to this great-grandfather’s clock here. We shall start the tour when this clock says so.
Okay. Hey, very good afternoon to all of you, and welcome to this Hakka Miners Club, and first of all, thank you for choosing this museum as one of your places of interest to visit in Ipoh. Now the name of this Hakka Miners Club is called Han Chin Pet Soo. What does Han Chin Pet Soo mean? This is not a petting zoo. No dogs, no cats inside the building. The word pet soo means villa. It’s a big house, is a mansion. What about Han Chin? Han Chin means relax. So this is a place for you to relax and have fun, formed in the year 1893. So this club is 132 years old. Who are the members? The members first must be Hakka. Hakka is one of the Chinese ethnic groups. Second condition, all the members must be the owners of the tin mines. We call them the towkays, a Malay word. It means bosses. This is the gentleman’s club. Those days, wives and children not allowed to enter.
Okay. My name is Leong. I’m from this company called Ipoh Works in Perak, a non-profit-making company. We rented from Han Chin Pet Soo in the year 2013, and then we turned into a museum in February 2015. So this is a museum about 10 years old. Took us one and a half years just to restore this place. Now for your own safety, later when you walk around this building, please be careful because the floors inside this building, they are not even anymore. Our staircases are very steep. Along the way, you may take pictures, just that no flash, no food and drinks, no smoking. Our entrance is based on your donations to support us for us to upgrade this building. The main door right now is already locked. So you’ll be leaving this building after the tour ends. That’s, I promise.
This is the main hall that you’re in right now. This is the place where the members dine and wine, have fun, have meetings. The furniture and fittings here, basically, they are originals. The side chairs over here that you are sitting right now and the infinity mirror, at least 132 years old, and what I call infinity mirror. Have you seen your image? There’s no ending. There’s no stopping. Never-ending images all the way. That’s why it’s called infinity. In those days, you expect to find all these types of eating utensils. We call this the enamel utensil. So if this enamel plate drops on the floor, it won’t break. Only the surface will chip off.
Okay. Now we introduce the founder of this club, Mr. Leong Fee, also called Leong Fi. Leong Fee came from China, Guangdong province, a district called Meixian, in the year 1876 when he was 19 years old. He became a very successful tin mine owner in the late 1880s. His tin mine was in Tambun. Do you know, Tambun, Lost World of Tambun, and also the place now selling pomelos? In the year 1893, Leong Fee built this two-story Hakka Miners Club. He also built this whole double-story shophouses. Leong Fee passed away at the age of 55 in 1912. He has four wives and two concubines. After Leong Fee passed away, his son Leong Yin and a few others, they continued to sponsor this club from 1912 until 1927, and then he sold this up to the existing members those days.
So once the members took over this building, the members rebuilt this whole building from two-story, initially by founder Leong Fee, into three-story villa in the year 1929. So this building structure right now was since 1929. It’s a 96-year-old structure, and the members here can gamble legally. This is the license to gamble, issued in the year 1897 by magistrate Kao, and it’s still valid until today. So later we can gamble on the first floor. We need to go all the way to Gopeng.
Now the name was given by this fourth British resident of Perak, Sir Hugh Low, in the year 1879. This word was named after this poisonous tree called Ipoh tree, whereby those days the natives used the poisonous sap for hunting using the blowpipe. So with this also means wisdom and power. Ipoh today is so popular is all because of tin. That’s why we call Ipoh is the city that tin built. Ipoh created many millionaires those days. Ipoh is located in Kinta Valley, which was the largest tin producer in the world. Now please look at this timeline. In the year 1890, it was recognized as the tin capital of the world. So many people in the world wanted to come to because of tin. 1892, there was a great fire in Old Town. This is Old Town here. More than 200 wooden houses burned down. 1893 became a town status, and so was this club born in the same year.
Beside the great fire, we also had a great flood in 1925. Do you know that behind this building we have this river called Kinta River that caused a major flood those years in Old Town? Because of this flooding, when the members rebuilt this building in 1929, the members purposely raised the floor higher in order to avoid the flood water from coming in. That’s why just now out there you need to climb a few steps, right? The thing is, after raising the floor higher, the flooding stopped because at the same time also the government then deepened the river and also extended the riverbank higher, which is a good thing. Comes to 1942 when the Japanese invaded, Japanese turned Ipoh into the capital of Perak, before there was Taiping under the British, and it was from town to city in the year 1988. Okay. Now from here till the end, I will tell you more about tin mining activities. Come, let’s start walking this side.
Okay. Come, you stand here. Look on my right showcase. Come, boy, stand here. Okay. Stay there. Stay there. Okay. Girls, stand here. Come. Shorter guests, come in front of you. Stay there to get to the back so that everyone can see, so you can stand at the corner. They’re quite tall. It won’t take long here. Come closer. Come closer. Come closer. Okay. On my right showcase, this is a Wana and Torn Hakka ladies’ hat dated back to the year 1910. This was given by this Chinese lady who came from China to Ipoh. She works in the tin mine over the hill.
Now look at the middle shelf. This is all about testing the ground because we need to check the location down there, whether got enough tin or not. Then only we can open up the tin mine. So we need to pick a location, and then we drill into the ground manually more than 100 feet down. Oh, every 5 feet along the way, we will pick up a sample soil and put inside this bamboo container. You see inside this bamboo containers, these are sample soil denoting every 5 feet down under, and later we send it to the expert to test how much tin down there. If the percentage is high enough, then we can open up the tin mine. This will surely save time and cost.
Okay, look at this bottom corner here. We call tin monies from the 14th century until 18th century. During these centuries, there were no coins, no notes, no currency in Malaysia. So all this inside here, these are real monies. You can use to exchange for food and other stuff. We call barter trade. You can also search souvenirs as your ornaments, and we also believe all these tin monies will also give you good luck. Come, let’s move on this side over here this side.
Okay. Children, girls, boys, come, come closer to me. Okay. All the girls, girls. The two sisters behind. So, can come closer. On my left side, this is the first stage of tin mining we call prospecting. These two workers here, we call them the prospectors. In fact, it should be more than two, around 10 of them. Together they will turn the drill into the ground and then pull up to pick up some sample soil and sand for testing. So these are the people in the year 1930. The income of each prospector was $1 a day. This is called Straits Settlement dollar during the British colonial period. $1 a day income in the year 1930s. This was a very big $1 those days. You can use this $1 in that year 1930s to buy 100 sets of meals a day. That means one set of meal cost you one cent. In that set, you can get a plate of Hakka noodle, a piece of yam cake, and a cup of Chinese tea for 1 cent. Wow. Today’s prices, that set will probably cost you around 20 to 30 ringgit. They are considered highly paid those days. But the risk of the job also extremely high because they going to places where they have not been before, like big jungles. They don’t know what to expect, or they may suddenly come across situations like landslide, rock, and surely bump into many dangerous animals like tigers, wild boars, crocodiles, some bitten by snakes, by mosquitoes, and even some die inside the jungle too. Okay, let’s move into this small room inside here.
Okay, on my left side, we have one, two, three, three pieces of real tin ingots for exports, and they came from different years. On my left corner here, this one from year 1850, weighing 17 kilos. Tin, among the minerals, considered very heavy. This middle one, year 2019, weighing 30 kilos, and that corner there from year 1910, weighing 37 kilos. The content of tin inside tin ingot, they’re above 90%. The purest one, this middle one, year 2019, from the color you can see, pure silver color, and our Perak state is also known as the silver state. On my right side now, this is used in the electronic industries to make chipboards for your PC, for your smartphones, and this to make solder for soldering. Inside this solder, beside tin, there are copper, silver, bismuth, and tin until today is known as one of the best metals to be used in the semiconductor industry.
Now please look inside glass showcase. You see on the top shelf, all these canned food already started since 1810 in Malaya, and those days inside the canned food were coated with tin because tin can prevent rust. Second shelves are pewters, above 90% the contents inside the pewters contain tin. So they can say pewters are tin. That’s why pewters are so expensive. Third shelf, we have some kitchen items and some toys also coated with a bit of tin. The bottom shelves are tin sheets used in the mechanical industries. Come, let’s continue, and once out there, please stand along the narrow walkway and look at the mural paintings right in front there. I shall talk about the paintings.
Okay. Okay, this is an open-cast tin mine. My open-cast means open air or surface mining. There are a few methods of mining. The method we are showing here, we call this the hydraulic pump system. I will tell you how this system works. Can you see my green light pointer right now? Yeah. Please follow closely. Now the workers here, they are using a pump which can release out very powerful jet water. This water can crush the hillside and then flow down, carrying the mud with tin ore towards this gravel pump house. This pump house or pump, the mud into the pipe all the way up to this wooden structure we call palong in Malay, English we call sluicing. The water carrying the mud with the tin ore, once reach this section here. Now tin is heavy. It will sink in. It will sink in. It will sink in. It will sink in. It will sink in. You can see the workers up there. They are picking up the sunken tin into the buckets and bring it down. Now the water will still keep on flowing non-stop, eventually carrying the waste out from the system and drop into the pond, and some of this water here managed to escape out into the river.
So when it comes to the river, you get to meet up this ladies workers here. We call these ladies workers dulang washers. Dulang is a Malay word. What is dulang? This is dulang. It’s just a simple wooden tray. So these ladies, they use dulang to wash in the river, trying to collect the leftover tin ore escaping from the structure. In the year 1930s, now there were about 7,500 dulang washers in Kinta Valley, and each one of them must carry a permit, cost them $1 for the permit, valid for one year. They are all ladies, no guys, because the guys are stronger, they have to work in the mines, and we call these ladies the freelancers. We need to save whatever they earn belongs to theirs.
Inside here, this is the final stage of tin mining. We call tin smelting. This is the place where the workers need to wash up the tin concentrate, dry up, and later pack inside the tin or bags, ready to be shipped out to Singapore for further smelting. Okay, let’s move into this kitchen fine side here. The front will be the children. Okay, come in front. Okay, standing. Come, boy, you stand here. You stand there. Good. Stay there. Good girl. Stay there. Stay there. Stay there. All right. So, you can stay there. Stay the rest.
Okay. Now, this kitchen, trying to teach you to cook the Hakka way. But before, they must know how to start the fire. So, let me show you. Look down here. You can either use wood or charcoal, and they put inside these holes here. You still need to start the fire by blowing blowpipe. So, what’s the fire starter inside this coat? Her name is Ah Niang. She can cook nice Hakka dishes with this big wok here. You see the wok, really big, more than enough for all of us here. What do you call big wok in Cantonese? It’s called Thai wok. When people say you’re in Taiwan, means you’re in big trouble.
Okay, look at my right corner here. Let me show you a few old kitchen items. You see, this is the meat grinder. So once you crush the meat, the crushed meat, you put inside this sausage pump to make Chinese sausage, we call lap cheong in Cantonese. This is a small kerosene pump. This is a mosquito pump to kill mosquitoes. This is the wooden rice bucket to store your rice. This is the wood for to wash your clothes in the river. On my left side here, this is called the kitchen cupboard. Some call this a pantry, some call this meat safe. You see, those days, there’s no fridge. So if you can’t finish your dishes, you can store inside here. Can last you probably a day or two. It won’t go rot. That is easily. Why? As you can see, there are plenty of good ventilations. This is made of wood. So it makes the environment not a bit cooling. Plus the weather those days, not as hot as now. Down here, each leg is placed inside the ceramic pot. From the pot, there’s a small drain where you’re supposed to fill with water so that ants cannot reach your food.
Okay. Now we shall go back to in the year 1950s. Now, mind your step, please. Once out here, look on my left side, mural painting. Okay. Ready on my right side. A picture showing you another method of mining, we call dredging. This whole piece here, we call the tin dredge. Look, this tin dredge is just a normal big factory and always floating on top the water. This water is a man-made pond. It’s not a natural pond. The most important part of this tin dredge will be this far end here. We call this the chain of buckets going deep down to the water. Pick up the soil to the factory, tumbler wash, pick up the ore inside, and all the waste will be channeled to the other side of the land. So you see here, we have three buckets of waste. We have no more stock of tin concentrate. The color, the texture, and the weight of this waste is actually quite close to tin concentrate. All these buckets here, we call rubber buckets, which can withstand the weather, rain or shine. Rubber buckets those days also used as toilet buckets before the flush system.
This is just the model tin dredge. Right down here, you can see the chain of buckets. The highest number of tin dredges was in 1940, reached up to 123 units. If you wish to visit the last tin dredge still floating around, you have to go to a place called Tanjung Tualang, and the name of the dredge is called TT5 dredge, no longer in operation. Now it’s been converted to become a tourist spot for you to visit. It’s very simple. Just Google TT5. You can see the location. Less than 1 hour journey drive from here. It’s worth going there because you get to see the real thing. We call this the monster of the mines.
Malaya, those days, already a multi-racial country. Please look at piece of danger sign. You see, there are so many languages. Today’s sign out there, the most you can find probably two, which is Bahasa and English. Those days, for this dangerous sign, we have, from bottom up, this is read as bahaya, kathara, this is a Punjabi language, kali abayam, this is an Indian language, Tamilian, Chinese Mandarin, danger English, this is Arabic language, Jawi, is read as bahaya, this is God’s language from Zeus. You see, those days, people cannot write, cannot read, but they can understand this God’s language very well. Now from this danger, there’s one very important language missing, our national language, Bahasa Malaysia. Okay, now Bahasa Malaysia only came in after Malaysia achieved its independence in the year 1957. This sign-up was earlier before that.
But let’s come over. This is a lovely Hakka dulang washer. If you want to see her permit, you can see her permit here. Cost $2 in the year 1951 for one year. Price increased already. Today, she managed to collect some tin from the river. Now she’s on the way to sell to all this tin dealers. In a good day, she can easily earn up to $2 a day, which is good money. Can feed the whole family. But her job doesn’t stop here. From here, she needs to go back home, does house chores, clean up, cook dinner for their family, and also she needs to get up early hour in the morning to prepare breakfast for their family as well. I would say Hakka ladies those days were the toughest. Not only that, Hakka ladies those days, they don’t bind their feet. Once they bind their feet, means they cannot work in the field, they cannot support their family.
Okay, now from this section, we shall proceed our tour to the first floor, and remember when you climb the staircase, everyone, please be careful, watch your steps. Come, please follow me, thank you. Everyone can see this board. Okay. Now this board will tell you those days, if you go out there in town, what kind of activities that you may come across. You can now see on this board. Today, we call the four evils, but those days, these were not evil at all.
So let me introduce the first evil, secret societies, gangsters. There were two big gangs those days. One gang is called Hai San. The other gang is called Ghee Hin. These two big gangs based in Taiping. So when they meet up, they will surely fight. Each time, we need to recruit more new members. When the new members join the group, each one has to go through a ritual. What is the ritual? Pricking their fingers, drop their blood on this bowl of chicken blood. From the same bowl, the new members drink to become blood brothers and sworn brothers. After drinking, each new member will be given certificates and diplomas as a recognition of which gang they are in. Each camp has their own individual passcode. You must remember your passcode because anytime the leader goes to the passcode, please keep the correct one. Never, never give the wrong one.
Okay, let’s come to prostitution. In the year 1920s, Ipoh has 180 Japanese. From this 180, 50 were Japanese prostitutes. But why Japanese? Because in that year 1920s, the economy in Japan was really bad. So many of the Japanese left their country to Asia. For the Japanese ladies who became prostitutes, they are called karayuki-san in Japanese. That time in Ipoh, we have one lovely Japanese prostitute. Her name is Okiku-san. If you wish to know more about her story, please scan this QR code to get to know her better. If you are lucky, you may see a contact number too. Next to her, this photo showing a group of Japanese prostitutes that were praying for the dead sisters during this festival called All Souls Day, known as Qingming in Chinese. This Japanese cemetery still exists in Ipoh until today, a place called Buntong. They are bad times too. During bad times, they couldn’t find any customers. But then they still to eat to survive. So what else can they do? They cannot do anything else besides becoming beggars on the street. You can see the same lady, Okiku-san, over here. She’s begging now for opium.
I’m going to teach you all to smoke opium over here. Come. Okay. Children can stand in front this showcase. Come stand. I teach small opium. Come. Come standing. Okay, ready. Opium, just like any other drugs, cocaine, morphine, if you use it properly, can help to control pain for the cancer patients nowadays. But those smoking opium was an entertainment. They will keep on smoking until they became addicted. Then you can see their body becoming thinner and thinner, and the worst case, this drug will kill them if overdose. Inside here, we have five different types of opium pipes. Look at this larger container pipe. This is where supposed to store water. If you use this pipe to smoke, it feels very cooling. All these smokers here, they all very high in the semi-conscious state. If they get thirsty, they want to drink. They cannot afford to pour the tea from the teapot into the tea cup. Just spill all over. It’s very simple. They do it. They just pick up this whole teapot and directly point to the mouth without spilling a drop. They have so much phlegm and mucus which we need to spit out. Each smoker is given a personal spittoon for them to spit out.
Now opium came from this flower called poppy flower. Right down here, we have a photo. You see, the purple color petal will drop off, leaving behind the center green color poppy pod is as big as a ping-pong ball. So down here, this is the enlarged photo, the poppy pod. So at this stage, what do you do, like rubber tapping, you take the poppy pod, you take a knife, and you cut lines on the outer layer. Later, you can see this white sticky liquid we call sap slowly appearing on the surface. From the photo, can you see the beige color liquid stick on the surface? Those are opium and ready to be consumed.
Okay, this bottom connect display, four different types of opium pillows. We have the wooden pillow, rattan pillow, leather pillow, and porcelain pillow. People will love this porcelain pillow so much. But why it’s so hot in the first place? Okay, first thing, when you sleep on, you feel cooling. Secondly, you may feel like giving you a bit of massage on your neck. There’s one more thing, only on one side of this porcelain pillow. There’s one big hole. You can see here, there’s one big hole, and that’s the purpose of this hole here. This is where all these smokers, before they start smoking, is for them to keep their monies inside and then sleep on it. So this is the only way for them to protect their money because they know once they start smoking, means what? They’re going to fall asleep, and they don’t know what happened at all. You see, right now, there’s no response when I touch also.
Come, let’s move. This is the final evil inside the VIP room. Welcome inside this room. We showcase four different types of games. This middle table here, this is a game we call mahjong. In fact, playing mahjong is very good for your brain. On my left corner table here, this game is called Chinese domino. On my right corner table here, this game is called 13 cards, Russian poker. Over to this table, this game is known as Fan Tan. F A N T A N. Fan. Okay. Now, please come close, your teacher. You play Fan later. You can go back to your hotels and play. Ready? Ready? Ready?
Okay. On this table, this is a bunch of river stones in random numbers. The numbering stated in Chinese on the table, we have number one, two, three, and four. That’s it. 1, 2, 3, 4, and no other numbers. The next thing you do, you pick up this bowl and randomly you cover a bunch of stones. Ready? Follow me. Okay. Now you can start to bet which number from 1 to four? I need four volunteers. God of gamblers, sir. Just pick one number. 1, 2, 3, four. You pick one. Okay. Good, sir. Left. What? Two, three, four. You pick two. I pick three. You pick three. So four, baby. Oh, sir. Four. Four. Oh, okay. Lucky number. All right. Now I remember number. That’s your bet. So once you place your bet, this bowl is then removed.
The rule is very simple. Just find a long ruler. Every time you take away four stones, there has to be four. No more, no less. So what you remaining, the balance. Ready? Follow me closely. Go for the time. Ready. Four. Four. And last four. So remaining is two. This is number two here. So this is a winner. Okay. The rest all lost their money. Number two here. Okay. Ah, who is number two, sir? Wow. Congrats to you, you won the game. You are so lucky today. Wow. You’re not going back empty-handed. I’m going to give you a reward better than money. Since you bet here, you can stay here two nights. Two nights free on your own. Don’t worry, you won’t feel lonely after 12 at night. Kidding.
Okay. Now from this section, we shall proceed our tour to the top floor. Hakka people is called Hakka for a reason. This word Hakka has a meaning. The hak means guest. Ka means families. So they are one big family of guests. But why they are called guest in the first place? They all started in China. This is a map of China. From the 4th century until 19th century, altogether in China, there were five big migrations. Starting from the north, this red line here, the 4th century, and down to the south in different color, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Now, why there were migrations? Because during these centuries, China was a very turbulent country. There were so many fightings. There were so many wars. So different color line denotes different dynasty in a different century. It all started in this northern China in the 4th century. Because of the war, this one big group of Han Chinese, they migrated down south here. The locals here call them guest. In another century, also because of the war, they migrated down south here. The locals here called them guests again. That’s why they are forever called guest family Hakka until today. Because of this migration characteristic, we like to call Hakka as the Jews of Asia. Oh, because the Jews themselves also migrated in the European countries. Yeah. Up to the fifth migration in 19th century, which is under the Qing dynasty, many Hakka left China, some to Malaya for tin mining, some to Australia, and some to USA for gold mining. You can see picture, this Hakka community over here. This lady here, she’s holding this piece of guava stick. So in the middle of making this Hakka dish, we call lei cha in Chinese, English we call thunder tea rice.
Now let’s come over this board here. Okay, I’m going to tell you the story about this gentleman. His name is called Poon Tai Ching. He started his journey in the year 1926 from China, Shantou, and then by sea all the way to Singapore. Took him 6 and a half days on this Chinese steamship. He has a mission. Why came all the way to Malaya? Because he wanted to look for his mother. His mother has left him when he was young in China. This was his own handwritten personal diary about his journey, and those days, if someone can write, means he’s an educated person. Inside his diary, he mentioned that this 3,000 tons of steamship was packed with more than 1,000 Chinese migrants like sardines, and they are shares. Along their journey, some of these migrants were sick. Some of them died, and those have to be transferred to the sea for sea burial. No choice. End of the day, Mr. Poon managed to meet up with his mother in Papan, Perak, and he did not go back to China. He ended up becoming the first headmaster of this primary school, and the school is called Sam Chai Primary School. A top school in Ipoh until today.
Inside here, we showcase the rich man’s toys. What are the toys? Motor cars. Please come in. Okay, we stand over there. Look at the board behind me. Okay. Boy and girl, you sit down here. Sit down. Look, look at this board here. Okay. In the year 1896, Singapore was the first place in the region that has cars. The first car that came into Ipoh was in the year 1902, bought by this Towkay Yau Tet Shin, the founder of Yau Seng. He bought his car for the price of $5,000. Wow. Wow. To him, this 5,000 is nothing. Even been to Kellie’s Castle, the person who built Kellie’s Castle over here, William Kellie Smith from Scotland. This photo showing William with his lovely wife Annis and his beautiful car. Sadly, before William can finish the whole castle, he passed away. This is a lovely Rolls-Royce owned by this Towkay Chong Tai Ying, son of gangster leader Towkay Chong Yee. Those days, for car horn, which was like this, the trumpet with the rubber ball. After World War II, the first car that registered in Malaya was this car A1 from Perak. Before the war, Perak car number start with PK. PK stands for Perak, not Pay.
Now please showcase right down here. We to show you the real car horn. See the real trumpet with the rubber ball, and the rest, we have grease oil, we have gear oil, and see the brands still around. We have Castrol, we have BP on the wall. These are the tire brands. We have Continental, Dunlop, Michelin, still exist until today. Okay, look at the signboard. Those days, you can find there were pony rides that were rich shores. Now what is this signboard? This is not tiger balm. This is an engine oil company. The company name is called Standard Oil Company New York. Today, this company, major, the standard one of them is called ExxonMobil or the brand Esso.
Okay, let’s move out, careful, boy. Yes. Okay. Before I start, you may want to take a photo of this Hakka menu here. So that’s an easier way to go out there later and order your dishes. Okay. When the Hakka people cook their dishes, they cook with plenty of meats. Hakka people, they can cook pork, they can cook chicken, they can cook beef. All these dishes here, there’s one dish which is very popular among the Hakkas, which is yam abacus. Suan pan, from the name, it states yam. All this stuff here, this all made of yam, and you see the shape, each one looks like the abacus beads. The Hakka say, after eating this dish, that would know how to count, more money to come. Another Hakka signature dish will be this star being, known as Hakka yong tau foo. Every time during big festival, this dish will be served on the table, where pig trotters, vinegar, and drunken chicken. These two dishes are especially good for the ladies after giving birth during their confinement period. It’s for them to recover faster. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. About the dishes here, this is the only dish without any meat at all. It’s called hippo lei cha. English, we call thunder tea rice. This is a dish that the lady upstairs was making just now, holding the guava stick. This is a very healthy food. This green soup here, the ingredients inside comprising basil leaves, mint leaves, herbs, nuts, and seeds. The taste is also very strong. Either you love it, or you hate it. As for me, I hate it. Too strong for me. In fact, I prefer something not so healthy. This is my favorite, steamed belly pork cow. The fatter, the better. Better, better. Also my favorite, slice pork represent, must also the fatter, the fatter. Now this dish here called stuffed oyster. This is not common. This one, you have to do it yourself. It’s actually similar to Hakka yong tau foo. Instead of stuffing the pork meat like yong tau foo, you stuff oyster meat. Make sure you love the oyster taste. This dish here is not common in Ipoh. You see the whole body of chicken inside stuffed with sticky rice. Now the closest version you can find in Ipoh is that sticky rice stuffed with more piece of chicken inside, we call.
Now let’s come to the final part over here. If you look at our front architecture, you will find it unique, outstanding, so beautiful. You can see the name of the club on top here, which means relaxing villa. Oh, in Chinese characters, is read from right to left. The window structure, we have restored to the year 1930. Out there on the pillars and on the walls. You see all these green tiles here, total in number is 18, and the number 18 to Chinese means lucky star. All this greenhouse here, these are all peacocks, and why peacocks? We believe all these peacocks came from the heaven. It resembles the phoenix. In this club, this peacock has special meaning. It means dignity and beauty. We have geometric window design. They all here, unique and beautiful. Oh yeah. Don’t forget our floor tile since 1929. All this stuff, they’ve been stepping so far, at least 96 years old, is hard for us to find any replacement. Yeah. Yeah. So make sure some lovely picture of house and your feet as well as a memory that you have been here.
Now, last but not least, this is very important to us, and you must not miss this one. You see this corner here? That red post was a donation box. So with that, I end my tour here. Thank you for coming. Have a good day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Yeah. Sorry, it’s closed. It’s closed. It’s no more already. Can I ask you your name? My name is Leong. Leong. Yes. How long have you been doing the tours here? Since the tour, since 2015. 2015. We start, open up this as a museum from then onwards until today. Okay. Do you have a background in acting or performing? You seem like you have a very flair for the dramatic. Along the way, I need to practice, change a bit. No. Yeah. Try to make sure the audience, they are entertained. Entertained. Most of all is entertained. Yeah. But even your hand gestures, I find very engaging. I have to practice a lot. Yeah. Oh, that’s great. You did a great job. Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to meet you. Oh, thank you, sir. Doug. Doug. Douglas. Douglas. Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you again. Hey, this one. Yeah. I better take that from you. Yeah. Thank you so much for that. Enjoy. I enjoyed it very much. Yeah. Bye-bye. Okay. Bye-bye.
Presentation. End of the tour. Very enjoyable. I really had a good time. I was speaking with the guide at the end there, and I complimented him on his performance because he wasn’t just giving information. He was entertaining. He had very dramatic hand movements. He held on certain words to make sure the meaning was driven home. The flow of the tour from topic to topic, room to room, I thought was excellent as well. Very well-paced. Absolutely enjoyable. But I guess to do this properly, you do need to sign up in advance. So, this is the name of the place, Han Chin Pet Soo. I guess that if I can get very close to it, you can look it up online, but that would be the QR code. That will probably take you to their website where you could make a reservation. The tour in total was about 1 hour long. We were quite lucky that they squeezed this in at the last moment. Even though I was such a dummy, I didn’t realize I had to make a reservation. I just thought it was a standard museum. But yeah, it’s a non-profit, so it’s based on donations. At the end, they have a donation box, and you can just donate as much as you like.
All right. Oh, here is the heritage trail sign for this place and the QR code for that. Yeah. The Han Chin Pet Soo Club was built Art Deco style as is a club for the Hakka miners, founded by Towkay Leong Fee in 1893. So in 1929, it was renovated into a three-story building. It is the only club that has been exempted from registration under the exemption. The first club to be given a gambling license, and according to our guide, that gambling license is still valid right up until today. So as he was joking, we could gamble while we were on the tour. Yeah, beautiful building, gorgeously redone, renovated, and in keeping with the ethos of the five snack challenge, I spotted this place, and I became curious about it. So now I have to get something, a coconut shake. Hello. Could I have a coconut shake, please?
Yeah, all the fancy drinks here, they’re not cheap here in Old Town. So, my coconut shake, nearly 13 ringgit. Coconut or, oh, coconut mango. Look at that. You get a combination. But I’ve had a lot of mango ice cream lately. So, pure coconut this time. I lost my traveling companions. I don’t know where they went. There it is. My treat after the museum tour. Very thick, very heavy. Nice. Yeah, it’s very natural. You can, there’s all kinds of like coconut meat pulp in there.
Just to check the area out a bit, we’re now in Little India. I just saw it marked on Google Maps that Ipoh Old Town had a Little India. So, we walked here, and before you know it, like you just feel like you’re in India again. Well, not like you’re in India, but what I mean. You suddenly, the clothing starts to change, the style of the shops. You see sari shops and things like that, and suddenly it’s like, oh yeah, here we are. We’re in Little India. I imagine there’s a large Hindu temple tucked away in here in this neighborhood somewhere, but I’m not sure where it is. All the colorful garlands for the temple. There must be a Hindu temple somewhere.
Of course, you don’t capture it on video, but now you get the smell of Little India, too. All the incense and the spicing, a different aroma in the air. Snack time in the Little India. There’s a bunch of Indian restaurants here, of course. We checked out a couple of places. They’re pretty hot inside. My traveling companions needed a little bit of a cooler temperature. So, we popped inside here, and apparently we ordered some samosas. They’re making them in the kitchen now. They didn’t have samosas ready to go. They’re making them for us.
Drinks have arrived. No, that’s it. That’s a hot tea you ordered. Yeah, teh tarik basically. I ordered, I never know what to order. I just ordered something icy cold milky tea. Whatever you call that, I’ll have one of those. So, there’s my icy tea has arrived. Just going to give it a little bit of time, of course, to cool down. Yeah, I think it’s basically milky cold tea. Exactly what I wanted. Fresh out of the cooker. Got these samosas with, so this is a coconut sauce, coconut sauce, and then a mix tomatoey kind of sauce, and they also brought out kind of a sweet dessert. It’s kind of funny sitting here, it reminds me of my room in Port Dickson because in my tiny little room in Port Dickson, I had one of these giant fan units. It was aiming right at my bed. It was like being in a jet engine all day, all night. Yeah. So, that’s got a little samosa here with a coconut. Very chewy. It’s good.
I didn’t even see the outside of this place when we came up, but that’s where we had our samosas and our little sweet dessert, a restaurant, Amma Mess and Chai Point. There’s another place right behind it here, Moga Punjab. Yeah. Yeah. Little India, Ipoh. Very pleasant part of town. Walking back to the car. We’re going by this series of shophouses. These were the first places that I saw in Ipoh when we arrived. We actually drove in on this road, and I remember seeing this little shop right here full of people. A lot of tourists checking that place out. I remember this park over here as well.
What an interesting park. Heavily sculpted, landscaped. Yeah, Habib. He loves parks. It’s his favorite thing. So, he’s taking an interest, but I think he likes more natural parks. A lot of greenery and lakes and rivers and things. Yeah, it’s an interesting one. I noticed the big coffee sign up there when we first arrived, and I was wondering why a park was advertising white coffee, so there had to be a coffee shop in there somewhere. Yeah. Unusual park. This one looks like they used to have a big water area over here. I don’t know whether it was for bathing or just fountains, but now there’s no water anymore. I don’t think, or no water you want to go bathing in anyway. I thought maybe there’d be a coffee shop over here, but no. Well, maybe. Yeah, maybe that is. Let’s go take a quick look. Habib and Shenaz have sat down over there for a rest on our walk. So, I’ve got a few minutes to look around.
Oh, yeah. So, that explains the sign at the front. There really is a coffee shop in here in the park. Oh, very cool. Let’s take a look through the window. Oh, that’s a surprise. Now we’re back on the American Hobo Trail. This definitely would have been a spot he visited on his bicycle at some point for sure. Riding along the river. I think he covered the entire river from beginning to end all the way through.
Back in my hotel room, this is where the day started. So, I thought it was only fitting that it ends here as well. Yeah, the end there. We had parked our car kind of close to the Old Town, and then we all piled in, and Habib drove us back. This hotel has underground parking, which is really convenient. Just drive underground, park the car, hop in the elevator, put your key card in the slot, and the fan turns on, the air conditioner turns on, all the outlets turn on. I’ve got my kettle plugged in. I’m going to have a cup of coffee, and boy, I’m going to sleep well tonight. That was a good day. We got very lucky. Like I said, when we came to Ipoh, I had two places on my mind basically that I wanted to visit. Like one of the cave temples. The main one, I discovered, is closed for renovation. So, we couldn’t go there. So, we went to the Perak Cave Temple. Of course, you could spend a week here going to cave temples. I think there are so many of them. If I were here longer, I would go to most, if not all of them. The Lord Murugan Temple is here as well. Oh, that looked very interesting. The American hobo spent a lot of time at that temple. Yeah. There’s so many other places that I could go to. But the other place I really wanted to visit was the tin mining museum, which we did manage to get into. So lucky there.
My own stupidity. I didn’t realize you had to book a tour in advance. I had no idea. I mean, I guess I was being lazy. I just looked it up on Google Maps and thought, “Oh, there it is. It’s open from 11 till 3:30 every day, something like that, or 9 in the morning till 3:30.” I figured you just show up, and you walk through the museum. But it’s not that kind of a museum. It’s a guided tour, and you have to book it in advance and join one of these large groups. But we showed up, my heart sank because I thought I had led all three of us astray. I’d basically designed our day around going to that museum in the afternoon, and my companions came with me, trusting that I knew what I was talking about, and then when I saw it was closed, I was like, oh no, I really screwed up because then what are we going to do for the rest of the day? We hadn’t planned anything else in particular. I’m sure we would have found something else, but I really wanted to go to that museum, and I probably would have walked away on my own. I don’t like to push myself forward. If it’s closed and it looks like I was supposed to make an appointment, and I didn’t, my bad. I’ll pay the price. I don’t go to the museum.
But Habib, a little bit more assertive than I am. Then when one big group came out, and our guide was saying goodbye to them, Habib kind of pushed me forward and says, “Well, just ask, like maybe just ask him. Maybe they can get us in.” Normally, I wouldn’t have done it, but with his urging, I did speak to the guide and said, “Oh, is there any way, like can we sign up for a tour now?” Then he said, “How many people?” Said, “Three.” He’s like, “Oh,” and he checked his schedule. “Yeah, I think we can fit you in.” So, ah, that worked out so well. He was such a great guide, as I’ve already said, great tour guide. He, a born storyteller. He was a performer, not just a historian. He made the tour quite fun, really enjoyable. Then we walked over to Little India, another area that I wanted to at least see. Then with Habib, his expertise, we found a nice little restaurant there for some samosas and traditional sweet dessert. That was very, very nice.
So yeah, now the day is winding down. Time to shut down the GoPro. We probably will go out for something to eat later tonight, maybe around 8:00, though I may just skip dinner altogether. If I have a good buffet breakfast in the morning waiting for me, I can go without dinner because it’s 5:00 or so right now, and the samosas we had, that’ll carry me through the night, no problem. But we’ll see how that goes. But even if we do go out for dinner, I’m not going to record it on video. So this is the official end of the day. As always, go check out the Planet Doug Patreon. If you’re in the mood to support the Planet Doug journeys in some way, you can join one of the tiers there, the forest planet, the city planet, got all the different planets there for you. You can find updates and photo updates, things like that there. Always check out, there’s the Planet Doug YouTube channel with the main videos, but there’s also the post tab. Check in there from time to time. You’ll find an update from me. Real-time update, what it is I’m doing right now, and perhaps some photos and some breaking news from Planet Doug. So check out those two places. Perhaps I will see you there. If not, as always, I’ll see you in the next video. I’ll see you then.