The Ipoh Heritage Trail

I had booked the earliest possible train from KL Sentral to Ipoh, and I was up with the dawn for a quick breakfast at the hotel before taking a taxi to the station.

I've been to KL Sentral, Malaysia's largest and most connected transit hub, a handful of times when taking the train to or from the airport. I've never taken a long-distance train in Malaysia before and was excited to try it out.

I bought a bottle of water and a can of coffee from an on-site convenience store and found my platform without any difficulty.

I have to say, I am very impressed with Malaysia's rail system (at least that in Peninsular Malaysia... I can't speak for Borneo as I haven't visited yet).

The train left punctually on time, which is a huge plus in my book. The trains were clean, comfortable, and modern with USB chargers at every seat and very nice dining cars and clean toilets onboard. They felt a lot like Japanese-style trains.

While not exactly bullet trains (a high-speed rail line is currently under construction between KL and Singapore), the trains moved really fast, and the express line I took only stopped at a handful of stations on my way to Ipoh.

I settled in to read my book, and about three hours later I had arrived in Ipoh, a city of around 750,000 people about halfway between Kuala Lumpur and the Thai border.

Ipoh was once called the "City of Millionaires, City of Silver". Not too long ago, Perak State (of which Ipoh is the capital) was the wealthiest state in all of British Malaya due to the rich tin-bearing valley of the Kinta River and its ideal location as a trade hub halfway between Georgetown and Kuala Lumpur. In fact, the very first car ever imported to Malaysia was in Ipoh, and to this day, if a car has a license plate beginning with "A", it means the car is registered in Ipoh.

Today, Ipoh is a fairly sleepy town whose tin mining industry has more or less been undercut by foreign operations. Now, the city markets itself as a laid-back tourist destination full of rich culture and history, and that's what I was there to see.

It was too early to check in at my hotel, so I dropped my backpack at the front desk and set off on foot to follow the Ipoh Heritage Trail, a free self-guided walking tour posted online by the city government to showcase the city's rich architectural heritage, multicultural history, and faded colonial charm.

The walk began, conveniently enough, back at Ipoh Station, where my train had just arrived.

The station, a beautiful, whitewashed colonial ("Edwardian Baroque Indo-Saracenic" to be precise) building, was built in 1917 and is affectionately called the "Taj Mahal of Ipoh" by locals.

The station sits on a large square called "Ipoh Heritage Square" which serves as the starting point for the heritage trail. A series of plaques and a map downloaded off the city's website, took me from point to point as I walked through the Old Town and learned about Ipoh's history.

The second point I stopped by after leaving the station was the Ipoh Cenotaph, a war memorial built in 1927 to commemorate the men from Perak who died during the First World War. New plaques have been added to the other faces of the memorial to honor fallen soldiers from the World War II (particularly those who were killed in Kanchanaburi during the building of the infamous "Death Railway") and the Malayan Emergency (a civil war fought between communist guerrillas and the military forces of the Federation of Malaya and the Commonwealth).

Just across the road, the Ipoh Town Hall was the next spot on the walking tour. The beautiful old building was constructed in 1914 and is still in use today!

I won't share pictures about every building on the Heritage Trail - there are around 30 spots in total, many of which were simply architecturally significant buildings that now hold banks or offices, but I'll do my best to highlight some of the more interesting spots.

The Royal Ipoh Club is the oldest sports club in Malaysia. Dating back to 1895, the club is home to a beautiful football field and is considered to be a very elite sports club. The current building dates back to the Second World War when it was constructed as a laundry house for the occupying Japanese forces who were living at the nearby St. Michael's Institution.

St. Michael's Institution, just across the quiet street from the Royal Ipoh Club, is a private Catholic school and one of Malaysia's most prestigious schools. Founded in 1912 by the De La Salle Brothers, the school provided an important role in education in early modern Ipoh, providing elite English-language instruction for Perak's most diligent students.

The school looks every bit an elite British boarding school and like much of Ipoh is a strong reminder of the city's colonial past.

Next to the school stood the India Mosque, a different reflection of Ipoh's multicultural heritage.

Built in 1908 by the Indian Muslim community, the mosque served traders and merchants who had come with the tin-mining boom.

The green and white mosque is notable for its blended Mughal and colonial architectural influences. It's not a large building, but it is striking.

I wasn't hungry, but I took a walk past Durbar at FMS, Ipoh's most famous bar and restaurant. Originally built in 1909, the building once hosted offices of officials from the Federated Malay States, a British-established federation of four Malay states (Selangor, Perak, Negeri Sembilan, and Pahang) formed in 1895 and lasting until 1946.

The food and drinks at Durbar are supposed to be good, but I think they are also a little pricier than I was willing to pay, so I walked on, admiring the street art.

One thing I really love about Malaysia is the prevalence of street art. You'll find it all over Georgetown and Kuala Lumpur, and apparently in Ipoh as well.

It was midday, and it was hot. It's the hottest part of the year in Southeast Asia, and the bright sun, intense heat, and humidity are especially miserable this close to the equator. I needed to go somewhere to cool off and found a local cendol shop.

Cendol is a popular Malaysian dessert made from shaved iced, coconut milk, and green rice flour and pandan noodles. I ordered mine with durian. I've come to like durian well enough, but the Malaysians are crazy about the fruit, and I figured that I'd try the local specialty.

After a cold, sugary snack, I was ready to get back on my feet and continue on the Heritage Trail.

What Ipoh is most famous for nowadays (and the only thing I really knew about the city before visiting) is its coffee culture. Ipoh is the home of Malaysia's famous "white coffee", and is not only where this drink originated, but also home to the headquarters of Old Town White Coffee, one of the country's most famous coffee shop chains.

Old Town's original location in, fittingly enough, the old town of Ipoh, has a small coffee museum located on the floors above the cafe dedicated to the history and culture of Malaysia's coffee industry.

I didn't get a coffee at Old Town this day but instead walked a bit further down the street to the Kung Fu Kopitiam, martial arts-themed kopitiam located inside a historic 1928 building that once housed the Perak Ku Kong Chow Association, a Chinese clan association founded by immigrants from southern China, primarily what is now Guandong.

Like many Chinese associations in Malaysia, it was established in the late 19th or early 20th century, when large numbers of Chinese migrants arrived in Ipoh during the tin-mining boom. These newcomers often formed clan or regional associations to support one another in a foreign land. The associations helped members find work, provided accommodation, settled disputes, and offered social welfare and funeral services. They also preserved cultural traditions, dialects, and religious practices from their home regions.

I ordered the butter kopi, a small mug of strong, rich, hot kopi-o served with a slice of butter to stir into the coffee in the place of milk or cream. This created a delicious smooth, rich, fatty coffee drink with just a hint of saltiness. It's definitely not something I'd have every day, but I wanted to try it while I was in Ipoh.

It was time for lunch, so I also ordered a plate of moonlight hor fun, an Ipoh specialty. A plate of broad, flat noodles was wok-fried with grilled chicken, greens, prawns, and dark soy sauce and topped with a raw egg yolk (representing the moon). The noodles had a very nice and smoky wok-hei flavor.

Concubine Lane is one of Ipoh's most famous and atmospheric streets. Today the pedestrian heritage street is lined with cafes, restaurants, book shops, and souvenir stalls.

According to local stories, the area was once owned by Yao Tet Shin, one of Ipoh’s richest tin mining tycoons. After his death, his wives reportedly lived in different nearby lanes, each becoming associated with different members of the household. While historians debate how much of this story is fact versus legend, the romantic and slightly scandalous tale has become part of Ipoh’s folklore

Nearing the end of my heritage walk, I came to the impressive Sultan Idris Shah II Mosque, also known locally as the State Mosque of Perak. The grand mosque was built in 1968 and named after Sultan Idris Shah II, who ruled as the 33rd Sultan of Perak from 1963 until his death in 1984.

Finally, I arrived at the Birch Memorial Clock Tower, one of the most recognizable landmarks in the city. The tower, built in 1909 is richly decorated with panels representing the growth of civilization from the Stone Age to the present, featuring historic figures such as Confucius, Buddha, Plato, Alexander the Great, Lao Tzu, Constantine, Martin Luther, William Shakespeare, Florence Nightengale, and Isaac Newton among others.

There is one very obvious blank spot on the panels. An image of Mohammad originally stood amongst other world religious figures but was removed in the 1950s due to Islam's prohibition on depictions of the Prophet.

The walk took around 3 hours including my stops for cendol, coffee, and lunch, and it was finally time to check in at my hotel. I was hot and tired and ready for a shower and a rest. My first half-day in Ipoh had been a success, and I was excited to see what else Perak State had to offer.