We woke up, ate some breakfast in the apartment, and headed out.  Today we are headed to Ipoh.  In the 1880's, Ipoh was know for mining tin.  Today it is know for its food, notably nga choi kai, or Beansprout Chicken Rice.  

After a somewhat traffic-laden drive, we arrived in town just after 1:00 PM, a perfect time for lunch and a perfect time to try nga choi kai.  Well...everyone else tried the chicken part of it, I had the beansprouts, and noodle soup with fish balls.  The entire meal with drinks that fed all 4 of us cost 96 MYR => $21.50 USD.

While we were eating, we noticed something or someone making tapping noises.  We looked back and saw this man.  He was making bags of Gula Ketuk (Tap Sugar), a type of candy made from hard maltose flavored with sesame and ginger.  Gula Ketuk is made in bulk in a round pan and is broken using a special chisel tool as seen below:

Of course I had to buy some for 7 MYR => $1.60.  It is sweet, crunchy, and delicious.

Another food that Ipoh is know for is biscuits.  I bought a Salted Egg Lotus and a Taro Biscuit (the purple one).  Both were very good, although the salted egg one actually had an egg yolk in the middle...a bit different, but somehow worked.  

If there is a line, there has to be something good at the front of it. In this case it was Soybean Milk And Tau Fu Fah (a block of silky tofu sitting in white sugar syrup.  I bought one of each, but I had my soybean milk with black jelly in it...delicious.

By this time our apartment was ready, so we drove there, parked, and relaxed for a bit before heading out to explore the old town part of Ipoh.  We are only staying here for one day, so we have to see as much as we can today.

Like other cities in Malaysia, Ipoh has some very nice street art of which many are located in one area named Mural Art's Lane, just before crossing the bridge to the old town.

Wow...just some incredible art...right?!?

​We then walked across the bridge to old town, and of course there was a cow herder with his cows under the bridge.

Old town had its own amazing street art.

Wait...what is that over there across the street?  Is that a picture of the Mona Lisa drinking a beer?  Sorry...I didn't take a photo of it :-(.  We walked over to investigate and noticed the sign had a list of beers and also had "Toddy" listed.

So...while watching YouTube videos about food and drink in Malaysia, I came across a video of someone drinking Toddy in a bar in Kuala Lumpur.  He did not say where this bar was, so I have to hunt it down when we get there, but I have been looking for it during our Malaysia trip so far, with no luck.  Is this the stuff?  We got a glass and realized that it probably isn't the stuff since this is made by a brewery and it is less than 5% alcohol where the actual Toddy is more of a wine, so would have a higher alcohol content.  Oh well..the search goes on.

It was then I realized, as we were drinking a drink made by a small brewery, that this was actually a brewery...here in Malaysia.  So here is our obligatory brewery visit photo:

By the way...if you are interested in breweries, then visit our brewery blog.  At this point, we have visited 684 unique breweries.  Click here if you are interested.

After the beer we continued on our Ipoh Old Town walk including the famous "Concubine Lane," AKA "Second Wives Lane."  Back in the 1890's this is where opium, gambling and brothels could be found.  Later, it became a residential area where the concubine of rich Chinese tycoons were reputedly kept.  Now it is a tourist heaven with food and souvenirs.

We did a little more walking around town to see some of the British colonial-era architecture.

One of the more interesting buildings is this delapitated Municipal Car Park.  It is supposedly the first multi-storied car park built in Malaya in 1962.

Here is a cool old building with a paper airplane mural painting on it.

Wow...it got late and it is time for dinner.  By the time we found a place that was opened it was after 8 PM.  We didn't know what to order, so the waitress suggested these two dishes.  The first one is called 炒老鼠粉 (fired mouse noodles).  I guess it looks like a bowl of mouse tails? The second dish is something...I don't know what it was called, but it was good.  We washed it all down with a Tiger beer and a couple of 100 Plus' (a gatorade-like drink).  Total price was 39.60 MYR => $8.89 of which almost half of it was the cost of the beer.

We got back to the apartment around 9 PM, jumped into bed, a bit of blogging, and then sleep.  Tomorrow we drive up into the mountains east of Ipoh.  Until then...

Since Penang is full of cars and full of sites, we decided to splurge and book a private tour with a certified tour guide.  He arrived at to pick us up at our apartment and we set off at 9 AM.

First stop is Reclining Buddha Wat Chayamangkalaram, a Thai Buddhist temple.  As you know from following our blog, reclining buddha is our favorite of the Buddhas, so we were looking forward to it.

Oh...since we have a tour guide, we also have a photographer, so there will be many good photos of all of us versus the usual selfies....and here is the first of many.

This Buddhist temple is guarded by two seven-headed land dragons and two sea dragons.

And inside...there he is...reclining Buddha.  This one is supposedly the 4th longest reclining Buddha in Asia.

Tim's pose is reclining, although he refused to lay down on the ground :-(

There are also Buddha based on the Chinese Zodiac.  Tim, on the left is a snake and I am a Dog.

One last thing to do is to get your fortune.  You insert a token an a light spins around the wheel.  Whatever number it stops on, you take that number fortune from the box....why not.

I spun number 2, but I really didn't like what my fortune was.  Our tour guide said that if you like the fortune keep it, it you don't like it throw it away...so away it went.

The next stop was right across the street, Dhammikarama Burmese Temple.  This temple has a standing Buddha with a granite head and gold-leaf paint on most of the surfaces.

We are done with Buddha for now.  Next stop is taking a funicular to the top of Penang Hill.  You can actually hike up, which Tim and I would have chosen, but it takes 2-3 hours versus the 5 minute funicular ride, so the funicular it is.

The incline at the start is pretty steep at 28 degrees, and it traveled at a pretty good clip at 33 ft/sec or almost 23 miles per hour.  Oh...this part of Malaysia is very Chinese, hence the need to still wear a mask on the funicular.

A view we didn't earn by hiking, but a view none the less.

Also at the top of the hill is the Hindu temple, Sri Aruloli Thirumurugan.  The temple is dedicated to Murugan, the Hindu god of war who is the brother of Ganesha, the human with an elephant head.

Here is the whole, happy family, Ganesha, Agni, Svaha, and Murugan.

Awwwww...we posed inside pitcher flowers...how cute and touristy.

Before heading back down the hill, we stopped and had a fruit juice.  I decided that we should try something different, so for Tim I ordered an avocado and palm sugar juice, and for me a hog plum & sour plum.  Both were weird and oddly delicious.

After the juice break, we headed back to the funicular.  Oh...I didn't mention to you that when we got to the funicular at the bottom of the hill, the line was at least 2 hours long, so we paid the extra money and bought the express pass.  With this pass we can walk by all the "unfortunates" and take our snobby, westerner attitude and cut the line.  I felt a little bad, but oh well...we have a lot to see and only today to see it.  So...cutting the line it is.

Back down to the bottom of Penang Hill and we headed to the nearby ​Kek Lok Si Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia.The grounds are very colorful and beautiful. That tall tower with the golden peak is called the pagoda of Ten Thousand Buddhas.  The top of the tower is build in Burmese-style, the middle is Thai-style and the bottom is Chinese-style architecture. We didn't get to go up and inside of the pagoda because we had lots more to see, but the rest of the complex was very cool.

This was the second time we saw these "wishing ribbons".  You purchase your choice of ribbon for 1 MYR => $0.22 USD and place it on the "tree."  Examples of what ribbons you can purchase are: Academic Progress, Successful Career, Bodily Health, Family to be Safe, and World Peace.

Time for lunch, but first durian.  We heard the local durian was very good, so our driver took us to a place that had two different kinds of locally grown durian.  Both of them were really good, but expensive. I think it cost over $35 USD for the two that we shared.

After the durian Tim and I shared a plate of Char Kway Teow, a smoky flat wide rice noodles with shrimp, fish tofu, scrambled egg, bean sprouts, and Chinese chives.  I opted for duck egg this time instead of chicken egg.  The duck egg added a little bit of good funkiness to it.  This dish has become my go-to when I don't know what else to order.

After lunch we did a bit of driving and looking out the window on the way to George Town historic area.  The building on the left is the KOMTAR tower.  KOMTAR is an acronym for something in Malaysian. It is the third tallest building in Malaysia at 816 feet.  There is a skywalk and observation deck at the top, but we didn't visit. 

The green building is Tap Clan Building.  Meaning it is the building for the family name Yap...which is Susan's family!

We didn't stop at the Tap Clanhouse.  Susan said she had been there before and there is nothing much to see, but that brings us to our next stop, The Khoo Clanhouse.

The house is guarded by two lions...a female on the left and a male on the right,

The Khoo's came to Penang Island in the 1600's from China and became wealthy traders.  In 1850, the clan house was built.  There are documents here that allow Khoo's to trace their lineage back over 650 years.

This photo below is interesting.  The Khoo's came up with the idea to set the middle name for each generation up to the 47th generation.  So, according to this table, every 25th generation person will have the middle name "Lay" allowing people to know what generation Khoo they are.

The clanhouse has 2 entrances.  A left and a right.  The tour guide explained to us whenever you see 2 doors, you should always enter to the right because that is the dragon door.  The left door is the tiger door.  At this house, the doors are clearly marked as you can see the dragon near this right door.

Inside is a shrine to past generations along with Khoo's that did well in life.  The plaques used to be large until they started running out of room.  Now they are small as seen below the big ones.  There are multiple rooms like this with plaques of Khoo's.

Wow...it is hot.  Getting back into the air-conditioned van felt good.  We are now driving to the UNESCO portion of George Town.  But first....the driver stopped to make Susan get out for a photo of her clanhouse.

George Town is know for some very nice street art.  Here is a taste of the really good ones.

We passed this old-timey blacksmith shop.   This guy was making stakes by hand.

Time to visit the famous Chew Jetty.  When the Chinese came here in the 19th century they built communities of stilted houses along the water.  Each family or clan had their own Jetty.  Today there are a few of these 100 year old jetties still hanging on with some being very commercialized like Chew Jetty, and others being more tranquil. Today we walked down Chew Jetty just to get a feel for what they are all about.

The first thing you come across at any of these clan jetties is a temple.

Then you walk from the solid land onto boards that are on stilts above the water.  There are commercial businesses and private residence along this jetty.  Yes...peoples still live here.  As you can imagine, since these clan jetties are along the water, they are sitting on prime real estate.  Luckily, because this area is no a UNESCO Heritage Site, these jetties are protected allowing the residents to continue living their lives the way they have been for over 100 years.

At the end of each jetty there is a temple as there was at the start.

After 8 hours, our tour has come to an end.  Here is our tour guide showing us everything he showed us and also pointed out all the places he will show us on our next visit to Penang Island....uhm...probably not going to happen.

After such a long and hot day you would think I would just go back to the apartment, shower, go out for dinner, and call it a night.  But, it just so happens that today I am participating in a virtual 5K with other friends in memory of our good friend Dave Grassie.  So, after about 1 hour of relaxing in the air-conditioned apartment, I headed out for a 5K walk.

This is my finish line.  It was actually 5.55 Kilometers that took me back to the delicious hawker center for a beer and some dinner.

5 K walk summary.

Today's dinner consisted of Tiger Beer, Fish Head Soup, and Baby Octopus.  Tim met me there and he had some grilled prawns.

Oh..see that bottle below.  That is Pep poh, a drink that I ordered because it sounded interesting.  The bottle is actually the concentrate that they put some in a cup and added water and ice. It tasted a bit medicinal, but pretty refreshing.  

You have to check this out.  This woman was sitting at the table next to us.  Check out her iPhone case.  So crazy.

After dinner we walked back to the apartment, blogged, did laundry, and finally went to sleep.  Tomorrow we have a 2.5 hour drive to Ipoh, so not too bad.  Until then...

Today we are going to explore the nature side of Penang Island by visiting Penang National Park.  It was only about a half-hour drive to the northwest corner of the the Island.  There are multiple hiking paths through the jungle, but the most popular route is to hike to Turtle Beach (2.7 miles), have a boat meet you there and take you to Monkey Beach, and then take you back to the entrance.

Tim and I were up for the hike, but Peter and Susan decided to take the boat the whole way.  So, they gave us a bit of a head start and we left for Turtle Beach where we will meet Peter and Susan.

​Here we are at the start of the hike:

The handy map.  We are hiking along the trail that cuts the across from west to east.

Hiking in the jungle was pretty amazing.  The trail started out easy, but then it started climbing and climbing.  It actually climbed for the first 20-30 minutes of the hike.  Luckily they put a rest area right where we needed it.

After the climb, the hike got a bit easier....at least for a bit of time.  It was so lush and green and beautiful.

What goes up, must come down.  There were a few slippery down parts, Luckily they had rope to help.

Getting there....only 30 minutes to go.

And what a beautiful 30 minutes!

We made it!  

This is the view of the beach we got when we first arrived.

With a name like "Turtle Beach," you know there are going to be turtles.  There is actually a sea turtle conservation center here .  They dig up the turtle eggs after the female lays them and goes back into the ocean.  

These little guys actually just hatched yesterday.

They have an injured green turtle in a tank they hope to return to the wild soon.

Aww...such cute baby sea turtles.

These cages are protecting the buried sea turtle eggs.  Each cage (in the left photo) has between 100 - 150 eggs buried about 2 feet deep.  After around 45 days they hatch.  The center keep the baby turtles for about 2 weeks when they release them to the sea.

Did you know that the sex of the baby turtle is determined by the temperature the eggs are kept at.  The cages in the sun hatch females.  They have a covered building to hatch males.

Turtle Beach is very nice!

After 1 hour of checking out the turtles and exploring Turtle Beach, our boat arrived to take us to Monkey Beach.

On the way, the boat driver pointed out these rock animals....do you see the animals in them?

There is Monkey Island.

We hung out at Monkey Island for about 1 hour...and yes there were monkeys there eating cookies someone left behind....No, I didn't take a photo of them...oops.

Back on the boat for the final stretch back to the park entrance.  Here is a view of the tall buildings of Penang,

For dinner tonight we ordered a Grab and headed to a food market area in George Town.

Here is everything I ordered:

And here is how it all looked.  I snapped photo of the Popiah before she rolled it up like a burrito.  The Char Koay Teow was really good...better than the last one I had, and the Fried Oyster Omelet was amazing.  The food in Malaysia definitely does not disappoint.

After dinner we headed back to the apartment.  Tomorrow we have a guided tour, so no homework tonight on figuring out what to do tomorrow.  We just hung out, blogged, and went to sleep.   Until tomorrow...

We need to leave for the ferry terminal around 9:30 AM to catch the 11 AM ferry.  I woke around 7 AM and decided to walk to the beach for a morning swim.  Yesterday, one of the Grab drivers pointed out a path that he said was a shortcut to the beach, so I took his advice and wound up on a path along a river.  It is like a different world in here and I am only one street in from the main area.

After about 15 of walking I wound up at my own private  beach.  There were a few walker-by, but it was pretty much my own.  Check out these cute pictures of me before and after the swim.

My plan was to get back to the hotel by 8:30 AM to give me time to shower, dress, and pack.  We are getting to the ferry terminal early so we can find breakfast since the food venders by our hotel hadn't been opened.  When I got back to the hotel I decided to check if the venders were opened...and they were!  I hurried back to the hotel and told Tim that the Roti place was opened...."The what?" he said...."Trust me," I said.  i showered and we headed to the roti stall.

They had something called Sarang Burung Biasa AKA Bird's Nest. We asked for egg to be cooked well, and this is what was delivered.

It was so good!  The sauce it was served with was a bit spicy with corn niblets in it.  Somehow it worked and was a great combination.  We each ordered 1, although I was tempted to order 2.  The total cost for our breakfast was 5 MYR => $1.12!!  

Oh...by the way...this was our table during breakfast.  We got up from the table after breakfast and a local woman sitting next to us asked if she could take a photo with us.  It was nice.

We walked back to the hotel, ordered a Grab, and took the 45 minute drive back to the ferry terminal.  Bon Voyage Langkawi...it was a great visit.

Luckily, this time we sat towards the front of the boat where it was quieter and less vibration.  It was a pretty nice 1 hour journey.

We made it back to Kuala Perlis, I left the others to walk back to the hotel to get the car, and finally made it back to them after struggling with the traffic picking other people up from the ferry terminal.

We are now headed to Penang Island.  It is supposed to be about 2.5 hours, but this is a holiday weekend (Monday is Labour Day), so there was a lot of traffic.  I wound up taking about 4 hours for us to get to our apartment.  We checked in and immediately headed to the 5th floor to check out the pool area.

Here is a view off the balcony of the 5th floor.

And the pretty cool pool and the view from it.

OK...time for dinner.  We checked out what was around on Google maps, and picked a place that was walking distance.  On the way to that place, we noticed this Hawker Center, so decided to eat there.

I had a shrimp noodle dish, fried vegetable dumplings, and a grilled prawn.  It was all delicious.

After dinner, we all walked back to the apartment.  We needed to find a grocery store to buy some water and food for breakfast.  Guess what...there is a supermarket in the basement of our apartment building...how convenient.

After shopping we headed upstairs, we planned our day in George Town.  After which I blogged till 2 AM to catch up on it.  Tomorrow we explore the natural side of Penang Island and save the hustle and bustle for Saturday.  Until then...

Today we are taking another boat tour, but this time it is through mangroves instead of the open water.  We don't really know what to expect, but let's go!

After eating breakfast in our room (Maggi noodle soup and fresh mango), we ordered a Grab and took it 40 minutes to the far north part of Langkawi.  There we boarded a boat and off we went.  The pilot of the bot told us that today we will be traveling about 45 kilometers (28 miles) on the water...awesome.

The boat ride started in the open waters...just like yesterday...but in a totally different part of the Sea.  It was beautiful:

First stop on the tour was to feed fish at Dangli Island.  After paying for the tour, the woman told me to go to the shop next door and buy fish food and monkey food.  We passed on the monkey food, but I bought food for the fish...so here we are feeding them:

Next stop is a swimming break at Pasir Panjang Beach.  When we got there it was pretty quiet, but the boats kept coming and going. We hung out there for about 55 minutes of which I spent about 50 minutes in the water.  There I am it the right photo playing with the boat driver's kid.  I told him it was OK to leave him with us.  He spoke no English, but we had a nice time hanging out in the water.

Check it out...Shoe Island.

Here we are about to enter Kilim Geoforest Park.  I kind of dig this sign.

Entering the park, this is where the mangroves finally made an appearance.

The next stop on the boat tour was Bat Cave, where we were greeted by monkeys.

OK...I should have known not to enter a cave called Bat Cave since I really don't like bats, but I did and there were bats and I quickly got my butt out of there.  The others didn't seem to mind the bats for some reason...what the heck?!?

Ah...my favorite part of Bat Cave...the exit.  I really like the way the vines hang from the ceiling.  It looks very Raiders of the Lost Ark-like.

A mangrove forest all around us.

Back on the boat we zigged and zagged thouugh the mangroves.  It was pretty fun.

Next stop was Crocodile Cave.  During the rainy season when the river is higher, the boats can not fit through the cave.  Lucky for it is the dry season, so through the cave we went.

On the other side of the cave and after a few turns we came to an area dense with monkeys.  These monkey supposedly swim very well, but none of them felt like going for a dip, so we just enjoyed watching them hanging out in the jungle.

Like yesterday, we got to witness Eagle feeding.  I got a pretty good shot of the White Belly Sea Eagle.

Last on the tour they took us to a "fish farm" which was really just holding bins for a really expensive floating seafood restaurant.  We walked around and told the driver that we were ready to leave.  So he took us back to the Jetty.

We really enjoyed today's boat ride...probably better than yesterdays although they were pretty similar.  If we had to do it again, I think we would have just done the Mangrove Boat Tour, the one we did today.  Oh well..I am not going to complain about spending time on a boat zipping around this amazing area.

Next up on the agenda is to take a SkyCab (cable car) up to the top of Machincang mountain at 708 meters (2,323 feet) above sea level.  

As you can imagine, the ride up was spectacular.

There was an intermediate stop with a viewpoint, but we came here to go to the top which you can see in the right photo.

We finally made it.  After walking up a few flights of stairs we made it to the observation deck with more amazing views.  Do you see that bridge in the right photo...well...that is our next stop.

Here you had a choice to take a funicular down to the SkyBridge, or walk down what they said would be a 10 minute walk.  Tim and I choice the walk and Peter and Susan took the funicular. 

And check out the amazing view from the end of it:

OK...Time for Tim and I to climb back up from the SkyBridge.  We made it back with a total time of just over 10 minutes.  The advertised amount of time was 10 minutes each way.  We are hot and sweaty, but we are happy to be at the top and sitting down waiting for the funicular riders.

Back down we went on the cable car and then a Grab back to the hotel for cold shower and change of clothes.

Tim wanted pizza tonight, so I found a place on Google and we took a Grab to it.  Peter and Susan joined us, but found a Chinese restaurant instead.

We figured we should order a salad to go with our pizza, so we got a greek salad.  Both the salad and pizza was pretty good.  Total cost 53 MYR => $11.80

And for dessert, a 2-scoop ice cream cone for 12 MYR => $2.70 USD.

Wow...that was a long day.  We met back up with Peter and Susan, ordered a Grab back to the hotel, and called it a night.  Tomorrow we take the ferry back to the mainland and then drive to Panang Island.  Until them...

Today we booked a private boat to take us Island Hopping.  We don't really know what to expect, but we are excited.  But first, we headed to a restaurant just down the road from the hotel (Tim had a breakfast burrito, I had a greek frittata, and we shared an order of pancakes with mango puree syrup).  It was a pretty good western-style breakfast that we all enjoyed.

After breakfast we walked back to the hotel, packed our day bags, caught a Grab, and headed to the Jetty.  After paying the bill (330 MYR => $74 USD), we were introduced to our boat driver Flower, and we headed out.

This is not us...this is a boat next to us...but this is how we look.

The first stop today is Dayang Bunting (Pregnant Woman) Island...and island that looks like...well...check it out:

Next stop is Dayang Bunting (Pregnant Woman) Lake.  We pulled into an island and have no idea what to expect.

And there were monkeys.  Here is Peter about to negotiate his path through them.

So this lake is actually located a short walk into the land. You walk about 8 minutes along a path going up and down and wind up at this freshwater lake.  They put interconnected plastic decking along the coast to make a platform to swim or kayak off of.  Very touristy, but it was fun to jump in and swim around a bit.

Back to the boat and then we stopped.  Flower threw some chicken into the water and the birds came.  Big White Bellied Sea Eagles and Brahminy Kite (Red-backed Sea Eagle) swooped down to grab as many pieces as they could.

Lastly we stopped at Beras Basah Island where I swam as Tim, Peter, and Susan hung out in the shade and...I guess...watched me swim.  The island was pretty crowded with all the boats stopping here.

Back to the boat and back to the Jetty.  We had a good day as can be seen from the smile on all of our faces.

This is what it was like during the time we were boating between the stops on the tour.  It really is a beautiful area.

After dinner we headed over to the beach where we did make it in time for the sunset.  And what a beautiful sunset it was.

Around 8:30 PM we ordered a Grab and when back to the hotel.  Tomorrow we booked another boat ride.  This time it will be through the mangroves. Until then...

We woke up in Kuala Perlis knowing that we have a ferry to catch to Langkawi at 2 PM.  Since the ferry isn't until later, we weren't in any hurry so we just relaxed in the room blogging and internet surfing.  Susan texted that her and Peter were interested in find lunch, so I got ready and met them in the hallway.  Tim was satisfied eating whatever food we had we us, so he didn't join us.

We decided to drive to find food since it was already pretty hot and this town is small enough that we shouldn't have any problem finding parking.  We first drove to the parking lot that has many food stalls, but everything was closed.  As we were sitting there trying to decide where to drive next to look for lunch, a motorbike pulled up next to us and asked if we needed help.  We told him we were hungry and he said that he knows where there are restaurants open...just follow him.  So...follow we did.

We wound up at a small intersection with 3 different restaurants that were all opened.  The first place that caught our eye was a Roti restaurant.  Check out how it is made:

And this is the final product that we devoured and left us wanting to order another one.

After lunch we went back to the hotel, finished packing, and headed to the ferry station.  We are taking a passenger ferry, so I dropped off Tim, Susan, and Peter at the ferry and drove back to the hotel where they allowed us to leave our car.  After a quick-paced 10 minute walk, I was back to the ferry station and we all boarded the boat.

We are all looking forward to the 1 hour ferry ride.

As soon as we took off, we were all looking forward to the 1 hour being over.  We were in the back of the boat where it was extremely loud with extreme vibration  With ear plugs inserted, it was a bit better, and only 1 hour later we were pulling into Langkawi.

We ordered a Grab for the 30 minute drive to our hotel which was pretty nice with a private beach.

After relaxing a bit it was time for dinner, so we took a Grab to Cactus, a restaurant we picked out on Google Maps.  The owner was awesome and the food was pretty good as well.  Tim and I shared a deep fried fish, stir-fry squid, prawns in a special sauce, and a vegetable dish.  I guess we were pretty hungry since we haven't eaten since the Roti this morning that seems like a long time ago.

Tim and my total cost for dinner with 4 beers (we finally got to drink a couple of beers after not having any for a while) was 146 MYR => $33 USD.

While looking for a restaurant for dinner, I came across a place on the beach that served beer, so we headed there hoping to beat the sunset...which we didn't, but the scene was fun to watch and the Tiger beers were a great price (2 beers for 14 MYR => $3.16 USD).   I thought our shadows looked cool, so here is a photo of it.

By 8:45 PM we were done and ready to take a Grab back to the hotel.  Tomorrow we booked a 4-hour boat tour that we are looking forward to.  Until then...

We awoke in the hotel room and ate whatever leftover groceries we had, hard-boiled eggs and bread with kaya (a coconut and palm sugar spread).  It was enough to nourish us until we find some lunch during our sightseeing drive around the area.

I found that there are cave, not far from here, that are opened to the public.  We called to confirm that it was opened and it is.  The guy said that there are actually 2 caves.  Cave 1 you walk through by yourself, but Cave 2 requires a guide.  He said that cave 2 is closed today, but if we could get there in the morning he will be willing to give us the tour.  So, we got ready, jumped into the van, and headed north towards the Thailand border.

This area of Malaysia is beautiful.  There are rice paddy fields framed by mountains as well as palm tree and rubber tree farms.  Here are a couple of photos taken by Peter in the back seat.  His iPhone 14 takes some amazing photos.  As a matter of fact, I have been using many of his photos in this blog.

About 45 minutes later we arrived at Gua Kelam (Kelam Cave).  Just as promised, Aba met us at the entrance and guided us into the main building.

Ava looked at Tim and told him he needed to wear a helmet because of his height.  The rest of us shorties were told we didn't have to wear them, but it was recommended so we put them on and headed to the cave entrance.

This is the cave.  We enter on the far left, Main Entrance, and exit not he far right, Exit (Wet).  He said we will not get wet this time of year, so don't worry.  Sounds good...let's go!

By the way...the entire length all the parts of the cave is 2 miles and is at a depth of 94 yards below ground.

This is the reason we needed to wear helmets...or at least the reason Tim did.  The rest of us were able to pretty much walk upright, but Tim had to crouch down for the first 1/4 mile.  This part of the cave was manually dug out in the late 1930's.  Starting around WWI, this cave was mined for tin by Chinese miners, but there was no good way for them to get the tin out.  I'm actual not even sure where the original entrance was, but in the late 1930's, an Englishman came up with the idea to bore a path through the walls.

Now, there are two paths though the walls, this part of Cave 2 and all of Cave 1, so I'm not too sure what path was cut when.

Anyway...after the first quarter mile, we were all able to stand upright and explore the cave.  There were some formations, in this limestone cave, but nothing too spectacular.  It was cool to see the remnants of the tin mining including rakes, lumber and steel cables hanging from he ceiling, bottles, and Chinese graffiti.

Here you can see timber being held up by steel cables.  I assume they had boards between the timber to create a walkway they can stand on to mine tin higher up the walls.

Here we all are, enjoying this experience.  

Here is some of the Chinese graffiti I mentioned earlier, including drawings of guns and women.

After almost 2 hours we exited into a lush, beautiful jungle where people were below swimming and picnicking.  By the way...if you wonder how long it takes me to blog...it is longer than you think.  Why?  Well, as I typed the word picnicking I was wondering why there is a 'k' in there, so down the rabbit hole I went researching it.  Just one of many holes I fall in while typing this up.

Anyway...down we went onto the jungle floor.

Just when we though it was over, we got to walk through Cave 1, the part that most visitors use.  I guess I didn't mention that Gua Kelam translates to Cave of Darkness.

This part of the cave is a wooden suspension bridge measuring 8 feet wide. Again, there was some formations, but nothing too amazing.  

And then I saw flying and squeaking...BATS!!  Luckily this was at the end, so I didn't have far to run to escape them.

Don't worry...we all made it safe and sound out of the cave.  We said thank you to Aba and paid him 150 MYR => $34 USD.  That is for all 4 of us!  A cave like this elsewhere would cost at least $20 USD each, if not more.  This cost us $8.50 USD each.  Amazing.

Time for lunch.  Luckily, the town near the cave has many Chinese restaurants to choose from.  We chose this noodle place where this plate of noodles and iced chrysanthemum tea cost 7.50 MYR => $1.70 USD.  Oh...that jar of chili sauce or whatever it is, was delicious.  

Next stop on our drive about was Tasik Melati (Jasmine Lake), a recreation park with pagodas, bridges, and lilly pads.  

It was pretty nice, but needed some work.  Maybe fountains to better aerate the water to make it cleaner?  It definitely has potential, but I just couldn't stop thinking that just over a month we will be in Japan and see scenery like this all the time.

The last stop on our tour is to see some murals in the town of Kanger.  Here the artists incorporated props and the ground to add 3 dimensions to an otherwise flat composition.

As we were finishing up with the murals, it started raining, so we went back to the van and headed back to the hotel.  It was before 4 PM when we got back to our rooms, so I used to extra time to catch up on blogging and figuring out where to go during the next month before we fly to Japan on 30 May.  Spoiler alert... Bali may be moving up in the itinerary to the end of May instead of in August.

It was still raining around 6 PM, so we decided to eat more of our groceries for dinner (cup of noodle soup, mango, mangosteen, & chocolate cake) instead of going out for dinner.  After eating I continued blogging, planning, and watching The Mummy Returns which was actually in English on the TV.

Tomorrow we take a ferry to the island of Langkawi which promises to be a highlight of our Malaysia trip.  Until then...

Today we have the longest drive of our Malaysia trip, 6.5 hours for 260 miles.  We are traveling from the west coast to the east cosst of Malaysia with most of the trip on Malaysia Highway 4, AKA East-West Highway.  The highway passes through 2 major mountain ranges, the Bintang Range and the Titiwangsa Range.

The road turned out to be in pretty good condition.  It was pretty windy, but most of the road was smooth and well marked.  I did some reconnaissance on Google map the night before, so I had a few stops planned.  The first planned stop was a rest stop for lunch, but we arrived there too early, so we passed it by.  The next stop was a the East-West Highway Monument, which was pretty much a rock on the side of the road with a plaque.  The monument commemorates the three workers that died here during an August 1974 attack by the Malayan National Liberation Army (communist insurgents).

After a nice stretch of the legs we continued west.  We were starting to get hungry and I saw a rest stop sign that pointed left, so we turned and followed the road until we were stopped by a pack of monkeys.  They were all playing in the road with, what seemed like a male monkey, blocking the road to protected them.  We came to a stop, the monkeys crossed the road, and the monkey road guard crossed as well, letting us pass.  Pretty cool.

After the monkey's the road didn't seem to lead to a rest stop, so we turned around and headed back to the highway.  

The next planned stop, a viewpoint, was only 20 minutes, so we figured we could eat lunch there.  20 minutes later I pulled off the road to not a view.  However, there was an elephant crossing sign...what?  I guess there are elephants all along this highway as well as monkeys.

Back in the car, and I did manage to find a rest area about 10 minutes later.  We ate our hard-boiled eggs on tortillas with chili sauce along with some snacks before getting back on the road and finishing the drive.

As I drove, Peter got some good camera shots out the windows.

We made pretty good time and arrived in Kuala Perlis around 3 PM.  We checked into the hotel and relaxed a bit before heading out looking for dinner.  Ramadan ends today, so we thought the restaurants would be opened, so we walked to the waterfront where there are a bunch of seafood restaurants.  But first, some tourist photos:

We continued the walk and failed.  It seems everything is still closed, but we continued walking.  At least there was some nice street art to look at:

After about 10 minutes of walking, I was lucky to find a Chinese food stall that made me fish with rice that I took back to the KFC to eat.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel and chilled in our rooms.  Total Recall was on the TV.  Although it was dubbed in Malaysian, we could follow it since we have seen it before.  I blogged some and called it a night.  Tomorrow we will explore this northwest part of Malaysia.  Until then...

We woke up and had a nice breakfast at home of cereal, eggs made to order (thanks Susa), and fruit.  We left the guesthouse and headed to a parking lot close to downtown.  First up today is a walking tour of Kota Bharu.

Because today is a national holiday, the streets weren't very busy, so we were easily able to navigate and cross streets as needed.  Of course, the holiday meant that most places were close, but that is OK.  It is fun just walking around and taking in the sites.

First sight was a traffic circle with nice palm trees.

We did manage to find a morning market.  Unfortunately it was late morning and most of the venders were closing up, but I was able to get a shot of this old woman selling medicinal herbs and such.

A pretty nice gate in the center of town.

This is the State Mosque with a nice gold dome.

Right next to the State Mosque was a WWII museum that was unfortunately closed.  Tim did get to see a Douglas A-4 Skylark on display.  Malaysia bought a bunch of these aircraft from the US Navy in the 1980's.

Even though everything was closed, we did manage to find a Chinese restaurant where we took a breather and had some cold beverages.  After cooling off, we decided to go back to the car.  On the way back, we came across a bunch of murals.  This one, of the local foods, is one of my favorite I have seen so far in Malaysia.

There was many murals spread across several alleyways behind the shops.

We made it back to the car after about 2 hours.  We are now ready to head north of town, towards the Thailand boarder, to visit a couple of Buddhist temples.

First up is ​Wat Machimmaram, known for its large sitting Buddha.  

That is a large sitting Buddha.  In fact, it is almost 100 feet tall.  It is pretty impressive.

Inside the temple (under Buddha) the walls were covered with large paintings.  This one seemed especially gory.

This is a close up of a gory scene in another painting.  Ouch!!

Susan and Tim seemed to enjoy studying the paintings.

We were able to climb up to the roof of the building for a closer look at the giant sitting Buddha.

Back downstairs, we admired the 108 Buddhas circling the entire base of the temple.  The number 108 has spiritual meanings to Buddhists.

This guy made me smile.  Say hello to "Long Eyebrow Abhal".  He is one of the 18 original followers of Buddha.

One last shot with sitting Buddha before leaving.

Well...we thought we were going to leave and then we spotted these monkeys.  Tim loves monkeys because they make him laugh, so he had to take a photo with them.

Lucky us...I found a freezer of ice cream and tried to buy one, but they said they were free.  Of course we all partake...partook...we all had one.

Bye-bye sitting Buddha.

Next up, and under 15 minutes away is Wat Phothivihan, know for its large reclining Buddha.  Reclining Buddha measures in at over 130 feet long.

While looking around the grounds, Peter spotted a man selling coconuts.  Peter always wants a fresh coconut and is always looking for one.  Here they cracked open the coconut, poured the water into a bag with ice, shaved the fruit off the inside of the shell, and dumped it into the bag as well.  It was an awesome and refreshing snack.  I think from now on It will be Peter and I always looking for the coconut man.  By the way...the cost of the each coconut was 4 MYR => $0.90 USD.

Another day, and again the need to find food for dinner since it is still Ramadan,  We returned to our favorite mall that we visited yesterday.  Today it is even more crowded being it is the last day of Ramadan.

We headed straight to the seafood section of the supermarket and Peter picked out some squid and shrimp for dinner to go with all the produce Susan picked up from the market yesterday and a vender today at Wat Phothivihan.  The cost for the shrimp and squid to feed 4 for dinner: 45 MYR => $10 USD.

We headed home and Peter and Susan set off preparing dinner...Oh...I did help...I made the rice and helped Peter clean the shrimp.  He was on his own cleaning the squid...gross.

Here is the final product for our home cooked meal:  fresh salad, vegetable stir-fry, sautéed shrimp and squid, and rice.

And for dessert, Mango, guava, oranges that had a green rind, jambos (rose apples), and mata kucing (longan).

After dinner it was time for a quick shower, some laundry (just because there is a washing machine), some blogging, and then to sleep.  Tomorrow we have a 6 hour drive to go from the west coast to the east coast of Malaysia, so it will be a long day.  Time to get a good nights sleep.