Malaysia

Historical Walk Round Ipoh
The amazing Heritage walk round one of my favourite Malay towns of Ipoh where the food is amazing too! The heritage walk is about 4 miles long covering most of the historically important places and might take approx. 2 hours to complete all the places. In fact I am so keen for you to find out about Ipoh, I am attaching links for free heritage walk maps and info on Ipoh. Yep FREE!! Below the Video

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In 2013, I visited Malaysia for two months, here in Perak one of my favourite provinces, on being so close to Ipoh , I visited kellies Castle. An amazing concept that never quite got finished, a shame as I suspect it would have been stunning even today! Overlooking the picturesque view of Batu Gajah, Perak, is the unfinished castle of William Kellie Smith, better known as Kellie’s Castle. The brainchild of the Scottish rubber plantation owner to celebrate his child’s birth, the castle and surrounding ruins bear signs of Smith’s grand vision for his family home. Originally, the castle would have boasted a 6-storey tower, an indoor tennis court, an entertainment area on the rooftop, a wine cellar, plus what would have been Malaya’s (later Malaysia) first elevator. It was designed in a Moorish and Indo-Saracenic Revival style with top quality craftsmanship in mind. To realise his dream home, Smith brought in 70 workers and imported bricks and marbles from India as well as exquisite tiles from Italy. Besides its beautiful exterior, Smith had also instructed the construction of secret exit tunnels speculated to be utilised in case of emergencies. There is also a small secluded room near the wine cellar which people have dubbed as a secret room though it was reportedly planned to be a photography room. Construction was halted however when Smith suddenly passed away at the age of 56 from pneumonia while he was on his way to Lisbon to pick up his elevator. His grief stricken wife, Agnes, sold the castle to Harrisons and Crosfield and the castle was left abandoned before being made into a tourist attraction years later

Batu Ferringhi-

Spice Garden- We took the 101 bus to the Spice Gardens(about 15mins) which cost 15Rm each for entry you can get a guided tour for 25RM which could make the walk round a little more interesting from what we could see. We elected to take ourselves, possibly on reflection we wished we had gone with the guide. Nicely landscaped, very humid and hot, so start this one as early as you can. There is a lovely cafeteria at the top of the walk overlooking the bay. Where you can buy food and drink (a bit expensive, but a lovely view).

National Park forTurtleSanctuary & MonkeyBeach-We took the 101 bus (again) to the National Park area. The bus dropped us off about 3-4 yards from the main reception station where we were given an excellent intro to what and how to get about, along with your free map n registration of your entry into the park. Although you do not have to book your boat back as well as there as there were plenty of boatmen offering return trips on spec. We clubbed together with 7 other tourists which brought our boat price down to around 17RM each person for return trip. First to the Turtle sanctuary, which were told no swimming allowed? Actually what we found when we got there was that people were swimming, so don’t believe everything you are told. The sanctuary was very quiet with the small tourist groups coming and going, plenty of information to read and a couple of newly hatched turtles to see. We then took the short walk (which felt like a long walk in the heat) to the one of the few small lakes where there is a layer of salt and fresh water that then work their way out to sea. It was pretty dry when we visited in November but it was still interesting to see. All in we did have about 40minutes here and had a quick chance to paddle in the sea before the boat came to collect us to take us toMonkeyBeach. A short 10minute boat ride away back towards the start of our trip.

Monkey beach, very underdeveloped (great!) and almost idyllic Beach style white sand with beautiful palm trees lining the sand giving you shade even in the water in places. We had two hours there and wasted no time getting settled into the water which was lovely and calm and around 2-3 feet deep for some distance. Be aware that the tide does come in quickly here and almost covers all the beach making it almost disappear after two hours we were at the end of the beach that still had some sand access to it, another hour and that would have been gone too. We left with 5 of our party and left two who had decided they wanted to walk back along the 3.5km walk that takes you back through the interior to the park station. Definitely worth the visit and would have spent longer if we had realised that we could have.