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October 18th-October 20th
We moved on, back to this travelling malarkey, after 6 days in the same place. We sadly said goodbye to Penang Island and in particular a restaurant that served real bacon. Actual bacon, like the stuff you have, not the shrivelled streaky stuff they've been trying to peddle to us. Like we mentioned before we were trying to make this journey without the use of a travel operator. This is for two reasons, the first being the travel operator quoted us 560 ringgit (£110), we laughed and left, and the second being that our hostel owner, Mr Baba had given us precise instructions on how to get to where we were headed. We left the island by public bus and then boarded a passenger ferry to mainland Malaysia; we jumped straight on another bus and were on our way to Ipoh. At the Ipoh coach station we encountered a rain storm and two taxi drivers spoiling for a fight.
We walked over to the taxi rank and showed the first guy that stood up our hotel name and address. Another guy then piped up and starting shouting at him. The two men were engaged in a row, for no actual reason for about 5 minutes. Finally the first man turned to us, nodded to his car and gave us a price. We left the coach station totally unaware of what had just happened, but hoping our taxi driver had won the row. In all it had cost us both 50 ringgit (£10) a far cry from the earlier price we had been given.
Ipoh is a transit town; there is literally nothing to do here for tourists apart from to change buses. We had decided to come here because Declan had seen a leaflet in a travel shop for 'The Lost World' and he was convinced there would be dinosaurs. The Lost world was an amusement/water-park just outside the city limits and as we had picked up an extra day after leaving Thailand a day earlier than planned, we decided to make the trip. We had two nights booked at the Hin Hong Hotel, chosen mainly for its use of alliteration. It wasn't the best place we have stopped at. We spent most of the first night sitting in the dark as all the lights had tripped on our floor, Declan did suggest the name of a good electrician, however he was 9000 miles away and they wouldn't appreciate the call out fee.
The following day we made our way to the 'The Lost World'. The taxi we jumped in looked like it was from the 50s and the driver knew very little English, we showed him the leaflet and he nodded. Poor Mel then had to put up with nearly 20 minutes of Declan humming the tune from Jurassic Park. We arrived bang on time for the opening and noticed the park had a strict dress code, especially for Muslims (See photos). All females had to cover themselves up in full swimwear with Muslim women having to wear a Burkini. That isn't a typo, they called them burkinis!!!!!!!
We entered the park and quickly realised that not only were we the only westerners, but it appeared the people of Ipoh had never seen white people before! Everywhere we walked people would stop to look at us. This could be for the reasons above, but as the day went on we also thought it could be that Declan didn't have a t-shirt on and Mel had 2 big bandaged toes. The people at the park were indeed strange, and there outfits confirmed this. Remember having swimming lessons in your pyjamas and wondering when the hell you would be swimming around with so many clothes on? Well in Ipoh everyone seems to be swimming around in long t-shirts and jogging bottoms. We spent the day wondering whether we would have to jump in to save someone drowning, or whether there were all trying to rescue a rubber brick from the pool floor to earn their swimming badges.
The water-park had a few tube rides a wave pool and a long lazy river. After riding the tubes and facing the waves we completed two laps of the river. We then decided to hit the spa section of the resort. The spa section had different mineral pools heated to varying temperatures. The main spa wasn't that bad a mere 35 degrees, however we then moved into the infinity spa and were nearly cooked alive. The aptly titled 'Top of the World-pool' was 45 degrees of pure hell and nobody dared ventured into it. There was also a foot spa pool where you were encouraged to lap the circuit three times to give yourself a massage. One lap was enough for anyone!!! Although Declan managed two after he was told it would aid his vision. It didn't!
The park also had the greatest petting zoo ever, attached to the side. There were hundreds of animals, none too exotic but close enough to actually reach out and touch. We wandered in thinking it wouldn't be that much fun however after feeding three racoons perched on a wooden gangway we were impressed. We spent some time trying to catch some fish, unsuccessfully, and even managed to wake up some sleeping chipmunks. We ended the day walking by the Tiger sanctuary. The tigers had just been fed and were too interested in the game keepers to show the small crowd any attention. We left the park utterly unaware of how we would get back. We were about 10 km from the city and there were no taxis outside the park. We started walking along the main road back to Ipoh town centre. After about ten minutes a random bus pulled up and the driver gestured us on. We didn't have a clue where we were going and the bus itself looked like it had been through the wars. We eventually saw a building that resembled one by our hotel and jumped on in the middle of the road. This had been the norm for most passengers so we hadn't protested. We ended the night watching Jurassic Park, once again in the dark.
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