Makan Trip 1

The first makan trip took me quite a while to plan... after much delay, I finally managed to gather 8 persons to go on the trip, that's just nice for 2 cars. We don't really have a solid plan but we know we want to head up north to the state of Perak, where it's known for it's good food and it's near enough to do a day trip.

There is myself, Heng Kiat, Daniel, Choo Ling, Noel & friend, Mahe & Pao Shen. Me and Pao Shen was the driver for this round. All of them are my colleagues except for Heng Kiat who is a good friend of mine and Michelle who's Noel's friend.

We departed early in the morning from our office in Kelana Jaya used the PLUS highway to head straight up to the town Bidor. Bidor is a crosstown, mainly use as a rest stop for travellers heading to the Manjung District (Lumut, Teluk Intan & etc.). Bidor is known for it's food thanks to the Pun Chun Restaurant which have anchored the town businesses attracting travellers to stop there for it's famous Duck Noodles, Wantan Mee and Yam Puff.

As we parked our cars across the street, we waste no time (people are already complaining that they are hungry on the way) and got ourselves a table in Pun Chun. There's always plenty of place to seat, the place is clean and it's quite comfy. Some of us ordered the Duck Noodles while some of us ordered the Wantan Mee. But I usually only order the Duck Noodles if I am there in the late evening because they would have steam the duck in herbal soup all day by then and the taste and aroma is much more better. Heng Kiat ordered some "Char Chee Yok" which are deep fried pork braised with fungus, mainly a Hakka dish. I ordered some Yam Puff or "Woo Kok" to share, basically it's yam with saucey pork and deep fried to crisp, yum yum. Daniel also order extra wantan which are really good too. Unfortunately, the only set back is Pun Chun prices are not cheap too, almost the same or slightly more expensive than those you can get back in the Klang Valley.

After cleaning our plates, we decided that we need to walk to kill off all the food in our stomachs, Daniel then suggested that we go and visit the nearby Bidor Waterfalls, I think it's also known as the Gapai Waterfalls. First question I asked Daniel, "is the road leading to the waterfall ok?" because my 306 is sort of low and it rained like the day before. Daniel happly said "yes, very nice road leading in, no problem". Being stupid and naive, I trusted Daniel and away we go... to get the falls from the Bidor town, just head to main traffic light junction, take a left turn as if you are heading back to PLUS. A short distance after turning left, you will you see this left turning which will lead you into the falls. It's quite a distance to drive in, first there's nice tarred road and beatiful mountains and green scenery, as we proceed further, we see graveyards, then pig farms, then the road start to get messy. The tarred road sort of ended and we are in for some dirt road with huge pool of water in the middle. After struggle, we manage to reach the falls. You will find that there's a huge empty land before the falls that you can park your car and there will be some local orang asli (native) there selling Petai. A aroma malaysian beans that we usually use to fry with Belacan (shrimp paste) with Prawns (Shrimp) that's nice to eat but you will probably fart like mad after that :P.

You have to take a short walk and over a bridge to reach the falls, the water is clear and cool, the fall is not too high but there's a nice big pool there that you can swim. There are some rubbish at the side of the falls, but overall it's not a bad place to take an afternoon dip. Unfortunately we were not really prepare for it, so we just hang around, enjoy the scenery and went back to our makan hunt.

The next item on our mind is to go to Kampar, a small town further north of Bidor to taste the famous Bread Chicken. It's basically chicken wrap in a bread. To save time, we went back to the PLUS highway and head north to Tapah, at tapah, we took the federal road up north which leads us to Kampar.

Kampar is a small town, just a few row of shops but surprising busy and filled with traffic and people. Now remember, almost none of us know the place so it took us a while and Daniel being the most eligble sweet talker in our group had to get down a few times to ask for directions. We are looking for the famous Yau Kee Restaurant where the Bread Chicken originated from. We managed to find the restaurant at last but parking was a hassle, such a busy town. If you are originating from Tapah, once you reach Kampar town, just head to almost the end of the town then take a left turn and then another left and you head back up Tapah direction and you can see the restaurant on your right hand side.

When you stepped in Yau Kee, you know the place the made it's money, partially air condition, it's a popular tourist place where most local perak tours will stop here for lunch. This place is know to sell hundreds of it's Bread Chicken a day during festive season. Today you can also sample this Bread Chicken in the Klang Valley but we wanted to try the original.

The Bread Chicken comes in two variety, you can either have curry chicken or herbal chicken in the bread. Wanted to try both, we ordered once each and some fried noodles and rice to top it off. The curry chicken is good, the bread is soft and buttery, nice combination. The herbal chicken is a bit off, don't go so well with the bread somehow. It's probably around noon when we are done eating. Everyone is full and some of us decided to tar pau the bread chicken home.

We then depart Kampar and took the federal road up to our next destination, Kelly's Castle which is somewhere near Batu Gajah. We passed by some durian stalls on the way, thinking it would be cheap, we stopped and ask, RM5 per kilo!!! That's not cheap at all, then we proceed on our way again. Through signboards and maps we finally reach Batu Gajah... from there we headed towards Lumut direction cause that's how you get to Kelly's Castle. Soon, we reached Kelly's Castle. There's ermm... this nice looking castle like building across a river. Looks badly maintain if you ask me and you have to pay like RM5 I think to go in. After much discussion, we decided it's not worth the admission, so we took some photographs and head to Ipoh.

We got a bit lost in Ipoh town, looking for the Perak Tong, decided to check out the local tourism office but it's closed! wtf?? somehow we manage to find our way through some maps I have printed from the Internet but on the way we stopped for some coconut (not that good). Like most cave in Ipoh, the Perak Tong house to a chinese temple, there are a number of buddha's statue in it and I being a bluemoon buddhist, hehe... decided to stop and pray. In the cave you will find a long staircase that leads you to the top of the mountain where the cave is in. Along the way you can see murals and drawings of chinese stories or buddhism.

At the top of the cave, the view is fantastic, you are actually in the middle of the Kinta Valley and you can see Ipoh from all side of the mountain top. After some rest and many photographs we head down and proceed to Ipoh town for tea. Well, not really tea because we went to the famous Ipoh Chicken Tauge shop and they also serve good meatballs. If you ask me, I think the meatballs taste better than the chicken.

After tea, we decided to head back home and we wanted to drop by Rawang town to visit the Peng Nam Restaurant (same name of one of our colleague). Somehow Pao Shen's ferrari got stopped by the traffic police on the way out of Ipoh for speeding. We have to wait for Pao Shen to demostrate his able negotiation skills, we found out later he managed to get away with a small ahem RM10 "fine". Hehe... definately can't do that in KL.

When we reached Rawang town, traffic was horrible! We didn't managed to find the place and after sweet mouth Daniel asked someone in town, he was kind enough to show us the place. Unfortunately, Peng Nam Rest close at 8pm!!! It was still open when we are there but they are not taking in new customers anymore. Dissapointed, we head to Sg. Buloh where we went to Loong Kee Rest near Bukit Rahman Putra for a simple chinese dinner.

The trip ends before 10pm and on average we spent around RM80 each (those in my car, 1.8lit car petrol a bit costly), :(. I was glad everyone went home with a happy experience and full stomach that nite.