Day 1
For the first day, we start moving from Klang at 4am in the morning. Initially we planned to use the coastal road to Teluk Intan, but our plan changed and we need to initially drive a very small car to Rawang and exchange a suitable large vehicle (well, small car can be used if you have small amount of people, like 2 to 3 person, we had five and we knew that we will buy alots of things, then we planned to use a Toyota Awanza). After exchanged our cars (with one of my friend's relative), we continue our journey using our Malaysian famous North-South Expressway. Well it didn't turn well as many of Malaysian are also stared their journey to balik kampung (in English: back to their hometown). During that time it was around 6.30am and the traffic in the expressway was really crowded. Luckily we reached to Sungkai (one of the small town in Perak) and we exit to the coastal road. Thankfully we had a smooth drive at the coastal road, until Teluk Intan.
[Travel tip: During festive season, it's better to use coastal roads to Teluk Intan if you're driving from South like us. Remember, large vehicle aren't allowed to passing by any roads during festive season, we costal roads should be very nice to drive.]
Visited Places in Teluk Intan:
1) Menara Condong Teluk Intan, located at Jalan Bandar, Teluk Intan. Well, during Raya season, it's not advisable to come here. As you can see on the picture below, the whole area around Menara Condong are crowded with bazaar Ramadan. [FYI: Menara Condong is our Malaysian special Leaning Tower =) ]
2) Hock Soon Keong Temple, located not far away from Menara Condong, one of the junction at Jalan Pasar, Teluk Intan. Mainly this is a Mazu Temple.
3) Batu Tenggek, a legend which said an Britist soldier placed a stone here, and it has grew bigger over the years. Location is at the junction to the Teluk Intan town center. (forget the mark down where is the location, but i think is at the intersection of Jalan Changkat Jong and Jalan Mahkamah. I apologize if I'd given the wrong location, but do please provide me information for those who really knows where Batu Tenggek lies. Thanks)
After visiting some places in Teluk Intan, we start our journey to Tanjung Tualang. Our aim is to try Tanjung Tualang's river prawn and to visit the last tin dredge in Malaysia. From Teluk Intan, you can use the roads passing through kampung-kampung, where you can enjoy the wonderful view of paddy field which located in road A122.
When we reach to Tanjung Tualang, the first thing we do is to find a restaurant for our lunch. There're many restaurant in Tanjung Tualang and we don't know which is the best, so we just randomly choose a restaurant, Restaurant Sun Swee Kiong, located around the wet market, address 15-17 Jalan Homan. So we tried their steam prawn, and their fried prawn, they're delicious (for those prawn lovers, you should try it). Here are some pictures for these dishes. (Google location for Restaurant Sun Swee Kiong)
For the steam prawn, you must try to finish it while it's hot, because the head of the prawn (hei kou) won't be so delicious when it cold, while the fried prawn it's total superb. The price for these prawn are RM65/kg (size medium).
After we had our meal, we straight to our next Tanjung Tualang destinations, the tin dredge, which located along road A15, between Tanjung Tualang and Batu Gajah (before Chenderong town if you're going from Tanjung Tualang). The entry fee are RM6 per person. Besides walking around the dredge, you can also walk into the dredge. (Google location: Tin Dredge)
Besides visiting the tin dredge, we also found a duck farm just behind the dredge.
After visiting the tin dredge, we went to Kampar to find a hotel and take our dinner. Kampar is a town where we must try their local food, so we went for chicken bread (bread stuffed with chicken) at Restaurant Yau Kee at Jalan Idris, Kampar, nearby Fully Well Hotel, where we stayed for a night. At You Kee, you can find there're two types of chicken bread, curry chicken bread and herbal chicken bread, as shown below. (Google location: Restaurant Yau Kee)
After our dinner, I was not feeling well and straight back to the hotel. Well actually I was planned to bring my friends to taste Kampar's claypot chicken rice, another famous dishes. Well hopefully next time I can bring them to try it. Peace...
Day 2
After a long rest, we continue our journey. But first, we gotta take our breakfast, so we went to the local market area to experience the local breakfast, locate at nearby Jalan Masjid. (Google location: Kampar food court) Here you can try many kinds of food, like curry chee cheong fun, lai fun (prefer Gopeng's lai fun), fried hor fun, and many more.
After we had our breakfast, we went to Kampar Chinese Temple, just besides the main trunk road.
After visiting the Chinese temple, we set our course to Gopeng, not to eat, but to visit the Gopeng museum and Gopeng heritage house. Here you will learn the history of the Gopeng. (Google location: Gopeng Museum and Gopeng Heritage House)
Before reaching to Gopeng, we went to Gua (cave) Tempurung to have a look. During the first day of Raya, this tourist location are closed, so we just walk around the area. Below are some photos when we reached to Gopeng.
Now they also have a small cafe in the heritage house.
After visiting the museum and the heritage house, we continue our journey to Gaharu tea farm (Google location: Gaharu Tech. Sdn. Bhd.). For those who are interested to go there you need to drive along Jalan Kampung Sungai Itek, where you can also go to My Gopeng Resort and Rumah Rehat Adeline. At Gaharu tea farm, you can buy Gaharu tea, Gaharu cookie, Gaharu instant noodle. They also have Gaharu ice cream which is nice. If you're interested to visit their farm, you can pay them and they will drive you around the farm and bring you to hug a Gaharu tree, which believe to give you for good luck.
Well, we didn't go for a trip to visit the Gaharu tress, nor we stop by at the entrance (the entrance is like a great wall of China) to snap some photos because of the wonderful hot weather. We just brought some stuff and then, chao~~. After that, we went to visit Kellie's Castle (Google location: Kellie's Castle), a place that must visit if we're in Perak. The entrance fees are RM4 per person for a Malaysian.
Beside visiting Mr. Kellie's castle, we also went to meet Kellie's statue, located on a Hindu temple nearby Kellie's Castle, on the direction towards Batu Gajah (also along Jalan Gopeng).
After visiting Kellie's castle, we went to Ipoh to find a hotel for rest and prepare for dinner. Luckily we found a cheap hotel around Ipoh centre, there're a bunch of budget hotel around Jalan Ali Pitchay (Google location: Jalan Ali Pitchay). As for dinner, we went to have chicken bean sprout (Nga Choi Kai) at Restaurant Ong Kee (Google location: Jalan Yau Tet Shin)
After our dinner, we had some walk on Ipoh parade and then for supper we went to dessert street (tong shui kai) (Google location: Tong Shui Kai).
Day 3
After a great night sleep, we continue our last day vacation to have our breakfast at Jalan Bandar Timah (Google location: Jalan Bandar Timah). Initially we wanted to have our breakfast at Sin Yoon Loong White Coffee House (Opposite the Original Old Town White Coffe House) but many people came and crowded the area (well, it's holiday and of course Ipoh is a "Food Heaven" to many people). Sadly we just take our breakfast at other restaurant, but it's still nice. I had a curry noodles which almost same taste as Gopeng's curry (yummy), half boiled eggs, some crispy toasted breads and a nice cup of white coffee.
Later, we set our course to Perak Cave (Google location: Perak Tong). I manage to pay a visit to my grandpa, who rest in peace with other folks and we also had a very good exercise to the hill top to have a view of Ipoh.
After visiting Perak cave, we all are so tired and decided to end our Perak trip (around 12pm) and start going back to Klang. This trip is simple yet is a relaxing trip, we doesn't need to rush to places and still we can enjoy many things especially great food. I asked my friend, what's their best meal in this trip, they answered the fresh water prawn and the curry chicken bread.
As for those who are searching a great trip in Perak, I hope this blog would help you. Thank you for reading and have a great day =)
