Road Trip to West Malaysia Part 1

[typography font=”Lobster” size=”20″ size_format=”px” color=”black”]R[/typography]ecently, I have been rushing project after project until I have no time to even update this blog. I already had a few projects lined up just before I finished this website. I never thought it would be so fun to do these projects. Though tiring in the process, it gives a sense of satisfaction once the jobs are completed. Therefore, as a reward for myself (and also because my wife will be changing to a new job soon), we decided to take a 5-day road trip to West Malaysia. We drove around Malaysia and went to various locations without a care in the world. It was great as it helps in keeping the mind refreshed after working so hard.

Originally, we had actually planned for 4 days, but because it was so fun, we decided to extend our stay for 1 more day.

Below are the places we went:

• Melaka
• Ipoh/Tambun
• Gerik/Tasik Temenggor
• Kota Bharu
• Kuala Terengganu
• Kuala Lumpur
• Yong Peng

Melaka

We drove from Singapore to Melaka first for lunch. It took us about 2.5 hours to reach the destination and another 10-20 minutes to find a public parking lot (near Casa Del Rio). The parking fee was 3 Ringgit for the whole day, I think.

We then walked to the Famosa Chicken Rice Ball restaurant for our lunch. It was a pity we were unable to take any pictures of the food as we were too hungry. By the time we thought of taking pictures, half of the food was gone. I don’t know if it was due to our hunger, but the food was great. The steamed chicken we ordered was juicy and succulent and the oyster sauce vegetables tasted great too. This, coming from someone who doesn’t eat vegetables often.

After our meal, we decided to walk around the restaurant and took a few pictures, before heading off to The Lost World of Tambun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s hard to imagine all of these are part of the restaurant, isn’t it?

Ipoh/Tambun

The drive towards Tambun was a long one and along the way, we rested at a few rest stops. By the time we arrived, it was around 8pm, and we checked in at the Sunway Lost World Hotel’s Executive Suite for 2 nights. We were also given meal vouchers (for 2 and additional 15 Ringgit for extra person) and entry tickets to their hot springs.

Once we entered our room, we were surprised as the room was way larger than we had imagined! Once we unloaded our luggage, we made our way to the Giant Hypermarket, which is just a short distance away from our hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time we reached Giant, most of the shops are already closed. We decided to settle for Pizza Hut, which is the only restaurant still open at that hour. When our food was served, which took quite a while, we were surprised to find out how tasty it was! The spaghetti was al dente, which was way more than we had expected. They have really high standards, I got to say. Again, there are no pictures to be taken, as the food was gobbled up as soon as it was offered to us. The hunger was getting to us from the long journey.

We walked around the area after our meal and headed back to our room to prepare ourselves for the hot springs there, as we need to bring our own towels to the hot springs.

Once we arrived at the hot springs, we proceeded to place our belongings into the locker. The price of renting the locker was 10 Ringgit (!!!) which was expensive, in my opinion. After placing our belongings into the locker and changing, we proceeded to the hot springs. I dived straight into the hot spring without even thinking if it will be very hot, and I was lucky it wasn’t. The feeling of dipping yourself into the warm spring, especially after a long day of driving was AMAZING. You can’t believe how good it felt! I felt like the whole day’s fatigued was washed away from me as I submerged myself into the water. After spending about an hour in he springs, we felt rejuvenated and revitalised. We then walked back to our hotel to shower and rest. for the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, do take note of the safety warnings, as pregnant women should refrain from using the hot springs. However, they should be able to dip their feet in the foot bath, I think.

You may read more about the hot spring here.

The next morning, after our breakfast, we went into The Lost World of Tambun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The theme park is divided into 3 sections: The Water Park, the Amusement Park and the Lost World Petting Zoo.

Once we entered the theme park, we could see a few amusement rides, which includes a couple of Halloween-themed rides. The theme park was not crowded, as it was a week day, which means we do not need to wait long for the queue.

We went for the amusement rides first as they were the nearest to the entrance. The first of which, was a carousel, followed by a simple roller coaster (subject to personal experiences) and lastly, the Viking Ship. We didn’t go to the Halloween-themed rides as the kids might have nightmares later at night.

The next area would be the petting zoo, where they have small animals for you to pet and some enclosures where you get to enter and interact with the birds. It comes with a foot bath too. After the petting zoo, we went for the swan boat ride. The boat ride fee is not included in the tickets we bought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the boat ride, we get to paddle the boat ourselves, which is a lot like cycling, and also we had fish food to feed the fishes in the pond. There was no mention as to how long we could paddle in the big pond, but paddling non-stop can be tiring. Also, we get to see some nice view from our boat ride.

After the boat ride, we took a break to buy some ice cold drinks to ease ourselves from the hot hot weather and moved on to the Water Park to cool ourselves.

There are four features in the Water Park. One is a river where visitors can rent a float and get swept away by its current, two types of water slides and a tidal wave pool.

We went to the first water slide feature with six different water slides to choose from, each with varying views, lengths and speeds. We tried that for 4 times before moving to the next water slide, which is a very tall slide that resembles a tick. Visitors will plunge down all the way from the tallest part of the slide to the end, where they are carried by the momentum up to another slide, before sliding back down, kind of like a see-saw. After that, it got really hot, so we went for lunch first and moved to the kids’ water play area and then to the tidal pool.

There was also a performance on the stage in front of the tidal pool where dancers danced to the tune of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and got the audience in the pool to participate in the dance of another tune. We left the place at around 5pm so that we could go back to our room for a shower and then proceed for our dinner at Lou Wong Tauge (beansprouts in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect) Chicken Restaurant (老黄芽菜鸡沙河粉), which my aunt recommended.

After our shower, we proceeded to the restaurant, which is at most a 20-minute drive from our hotel. When we arrived, we ordered kway teow (soup), stir-fried beansprouts and half a chicken. The staff went away before we could tell them how big we wanted our portion to be. I was afraid that he might give us large portions of each dish just to charge us more. This time round, we managed to take a picture of our food before we consumed them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When our dishes were served, the portions were a bit large. Also, we noticed that the beansprouts looked thicker and juicier than the ones we have in Singapore. When we took our first bites at the food, we found that the beansprouts were really juicy and there’s no ‘raw’ taste in it. The chicken was just nice; its not too soft and not too hard on the teeth. The taste was pleasant as well. One bite of the chicken and my tongue could feel its aroma pouring onto my taste buds. The kway teow wasn’t soggy and retained its ‘bounciness’ even though it is submerged by the soup. I tried putting everything together into my mouth and found out that the tastes complement each other really well. Somehow, we managed to finish all the food they gave us, which made us very full. After finishing our food and settling our bills, they gave us a 20% off voucher, which was for their local goods store on the 2nd floor. We saw that there are people on the streets starting to set up street stalls and found out that every evening at around 7pm, there will be a night market there. We decided to walk a bit to take a look at the things they sell, before going up to the 2nd storey to shop at their local goods store to buy some pastries and chewing gum for the next day’s long travel.

After we left the store, we decided to go back to the hotel. On our way back, we passed by a mall called Ipoh Parade, and thought that we might as well stop and take a look at the place. The mall was larger than what we expected. It took us about 3 hours to tour the place. Besides the shops and restaurants, it also has a family-friendly KTV, a Cinema, a games arcade with a kids-playing centre and also a supermarket. One thing to highlight is the kids-playing centre. My kids enjoyed playing inside and the entrance fees was 2 Ringgit per hour, if my memory serves me correctly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we returned to our room, we all tucked ourselves into bed and slept soundly.

The next morning, we checked out after finishing our breakfast and started plotting our next course of our journey. We were torn as to which places we should go next. After much thought, we decided on Tasik Temenggor in Gerik (or Grik) as our next destination, which was probably about 2 hours’ drive from Tambun.

Road Trip to West Malaysia Part 2