1) High cost of living
Cost is rather high in Kampar and Ipoh. Take food for example. A bowl of bak kut teh costs RM5.50, a Sunkist orange cost RM1 and taxi rides are exorbitantly high at a minimum of RM6 (for a really short trip) and RM40 from Kampar to Ipoh. A portion of dim sum costs between RM3 to RM7. Of course, the prices are still reasonable if converted to SGD but we should compare before the conversion.
2) Hot weather
When we left Singapore, it was hot. But it was even worse in Ipoh. One of my friends said this is because Ipoh is a valley and it is inland. When S and I were exploring the town on an afternoon, we looked like the only ones doing that. A taxi uncle later told us it was just impossibly hot to walk around in Ipoh's afternoon sun.
3) Traditional
The Malaysian chinese are more traditional than us (at least my family) and I can observe many detailed rules being observed during the wedding day. What I particularly liked was that an old auntie was continually dishing out auspicious nouns and adjectives as the couple were going about their business. The only setback was that they used Cantonese which I am not very fluent in.
4) Suay
We were so unlucky this trip. Some examples:
i. The theme park "Lost World of Tambun" was closed on Tuesdays when we visited. The taxi dropped us, turned around and left and we could not flag down another taxi till some 40 mins later.
ii. The dim sum restaurant which I visited on the last morning was closed for an hour just at the time I arrived.
iii. The coach left Singapore using the 2nd Link but somehow returned using the Causeway even though my wife and I were the only passengers and we told them early we did not need to alight at Woodlands. It was 5am when we reached Johor customs and it was already packed. At Woodlands checkpoint, I could not go through the automated turnstile as my luggage was too big and later I was asked to open my luggage because the shape of the car air freshener which I bought looked weird on x-ray.
