Tin City [Travel, Malaysia]

My friends and I ventured out to Ipoh this past Labor Day/Wesak holiday-weekend to test-drive a car – Subhash writes car reviews for a living – and this post is my review of the Chevrolet Malibu.

It's a very pretty car. It drove us over 120 miles from Kuala Lumpur to the city of Ipoh, a 2-hour car ride that was very nicely air-conditioned. The car was new-ish, and so it felt nice to be in it, just like how nice any new thing is. New things are best.

For a new car, though (this is probably a 2014, I dunno), it's a bit crappy in that it couldn't play music from any of our phones via Bluetooth. It does have the requisite female robot voice that announced, upon starting the car, that it had finished searching for satellite. Dumb, considering there was no GPS. What shitty robot service.

I was excited about going on a road trip to Ipoh, which I'd never really visited (except for a couple of stopovers in the middle of the night on the way to Penang a few months ago). I'm 31 years old but I still find the idea of travelling anywhere unaccompanied by my parents as thrilling (thanks, Saudi Arabia) and very grown-up. At the same time, I hate travelling and hot weather, so I also dreaded this trip. Anywhere in Malaysia is permanently 32 degrees C out, whatever the weather.

My side of the car's window was clean enough for me to take a photo of Ipoh's sign, so that's a plus point for the Chevy Malibu. I didn't like the reflection (seen above in picture), so the manufacturers should do something about that. Don't let this sign deceive you – we didn't actually get into Ipoh until after 30 minutes of passing it. 

Ipoh is a quaint place. It looks and feels like Penang, though, to be honest. Nothing so different about it. It's a very Chinese place, so obviously, there are lots of lol signs. Like the following:

Yummy Tits for all ages!

These chickens have moved on to a better place, away from the difficulty of life on the streets.

We found parking and hunted for food, which didn't take very long because we were hungry. After perfunctory glances at a few places, we decided all the restaurants must serve the same food, so we just stopped at the 4th one and made peace.

The template design for Chinese restaurants here.

I like a place that puts more importance on setting our table with Chinese food utensils than overall hygiene.

Nga Choi Kai is Ipoh's steamed chicken in soy sauce served with bean sprouts.

This meal served for 4 people cost us about RM 15 each (about USD 4) which is pretty pricey – you could get cheaper food like this elsewhere with the same "ambience" – but I guess expected in a tourist spot. The servers don't speak English; when we asked one lady what the dish was called, she said, "kampung chicken" which basically means it's 'native' chicken (so she told us what type of chicken this was). NOT. QUITE. MY TEMPO.

Meanwhile, the Chevy Malibu is parked waiting quietly for us in front of a pharmacy and a sewing shop (I think). I found it interesting – and frankly daunting, if I am to start driving here – how paying for parking works here; it's so different from Saudi (where there's no concept of paid parking in public places) or Manila (where the rules are random). Or maybe I just really don't know anything about being a motorist anywhere.

So you pay in advance for parking coupons per hour, which is 30 cents (USD 0.08) and you leave these coupons by the windshield for the parking attendants to see. Otherwise you'll get ticket-ed.

Ugh, civilization is like, so complicated, you guyzzz.

Thankfully, the Chevy Malibu has windshields by which we can display these. Plus points for this car!

We drove around for a bit to absorb some fresh air-conditioning because the heat was really making me hate myself, and then we stopped at the Ipoh railway station, apparently known for having and operating the oldest train in the country. First constructed and opened in 1935, the station also houses the Majestic Hotel, which is now boarded up and looks super haunted, but is great in pictures because History. They preserved the posteriors of this place. 

"I'm, like, so colonial right now?"

We just walked around for a few minutes, caught a glimpse of ye olde traine (it looks like every other train I've seen, and I've seen, like, two), and then crossed the street to this gallery, which at first I thought was a government building. It turns out there was an exhibit inside – a photo/video gallery of the recent enthronement of the new Sultan of Ipoh.

Wow wow wow. Seriously this is gorgeous. Look at those poser flags – AS IF there was a breeze that day.

The new Lannisters.

And the new Sultan's name is NAZRIN. YOU GUYS. It's a very popular name here. My driving instructor's name was also Nazrin. God is surrounding me with people who bear a striking resemblance to my name. I am the Chosen One.

Aaand that's it. We piled back into the car to head home. It was a short walkabout, which is the only kind of walkabout I can tolerate. I'm famous for being the worst travelling/backpacking companion ever. 

As the Chevy Malibu headed out of Ipoh, I suddenly remembered that we HAD TO have some of the famous Ipoh White Coffee – coffee beans roasted in palm-oil margarine and served with condensed milk – so we stopped at a Chinese restaurant awesomely and enigmatically named "Yes 5!"

My iced White Coffee. Which tasted and looked like any old iced coffee. :(

The Yes 5! restaurant was also situated right in front of the other Ipoh sign, and I was of course just thrilled about that because I'm reverse-maturing.

A true testament to the power of the Chevy Malibu is how I managed to take a photo of the sign while inside its moving body, despite being openly sabotaged by Chuk. If you look closely at the photo above, the Ipoh sign just about makes it into the picture. HAH.

Throughout the entire trip, I repeatedly joked about how the greenery in Malaysia looks like giant broccoli waiting to be picked. No one laughed at this, which prompted me to repeat it some more, and now I have written it down here to be forever remembered. 

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DISCLAIMER:

I never drove the Chevy Malibu. If you want to read a review of someone who actually drove it, HERE.