We had a late night chatting to the new arrivals at the hostel about their adventure to China by train. They had some interesting stories to tell.
In the morning it was time to leave the Cameron Highlands. We set the alarm to stop us over sleeping as it is so quiet in the hostel we might not wake up.
A quick breakfast and a 10 minute stroll to the bus station. The bus wasn't there but soon arrived. It left on time and our journey began. Not long after we had started the journey, a rather flustered man came to speak to the driver. It turned out he wanted to go to Genting. However, the bus was going to Penang, which is in the opposite direction.! The bus stopped, he got off. So did his wife, 4 kids and most of the luggage compartment! His new adventure was about to begin as we were sure there was no bus direct to Genting.
Amanjaya was an efficient bus station outside the centre of Ipoh. This was where we arrived. Let's just say we couldn't have arrived soon enough because we had finished off our chocolate drink that morning and our bodies had taken on a little too much liquid for a long bus journey with no WC.
Opposite the bus station was a huge shopping centre which we visited before catching the local bus to the centre of Ipoh. The bus we wanted had just left but they ran every half an hour so the next one soon arrived. It was busy but we managed to get a seat. In Ipoh we decided to walk to the train station to buy a train ticket for 4 days time. It is an electric train that runs to KL so we thought it would be an interesting experience.
The station was a beautiful colonial building. Very big and very white. Outside the ticket office a noticeboard displayed the available tickets for the next few days. As we checked it, we had a surprise we weren't expecting. Sold out Saturday, Sunday, Monday ... Yikes, the train was a lot more popular than we had anticipated! We queued to check if there were any tickets left for the day we wanted to travel. Fortunately there were, although it was a little more expensive than we were expecting and almost twice the price of a bus.
We started to walk back to the bus station as we needed to catch an inward bus to our accommodation. We didn't get very far and a man stopped us. He asked if he could help us. We explained we were just walking back to the bus station and would be travelling by bus to our destination which was far away. He insisted he would take us. We insisted it was too far. He insisted! We climbed in and were whisked off to a famous hawker market. Here we were treated to a range of sweet Chinese dumplings with a variety of fillings; Butter, chocolate, coffee, pumpkin... and tea tarik! We talked about travelling and he explained he had taken his BMW touring bike around the whole of Asia and was now planning his trip to Europe. He also told us about his business in Malaysia and about the machines he was responsible for that could dig holes for piles 74m deep to support huge flyovers for traffic. Not only did he operate the construction company but also owned a tea plantation in Thailand! A really interesting man and very kind. He dropped us where we were staying and invited us for lunch in a few days time. We are not certain if we can make it but certainly will try.
After dropping our bags we headed to a local food market. Everything was a little lower priced than we had experienced in other cities. We bought a range of noodles for dinner and some sugar cane juice. Dinner was followed by a movie night - The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe!
