Ipoh & Melaka – Mountain City, Venice of the East

Nestled North and South of Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Melaka respectively are both two of the most well-known cities in Malaysia along with Penang. One surrounded by mountains and the other an UNESCO World Heritage listing. Here’s what we did during our 1 night stayovers in both Ipoh and Melaka

Note: This is an excerpt from THIS post
Read to know more about our 16-day road trip and the other destinations we visited 🙂


Another note: Ipoh and Melaka have been grouped together as

  • You could go from Ipoh straight to Singapore, skipping Melaka altogether.
  • You could also go from Hat Yai to Melaka straight, skipping Ipoh altogether.

    Thus, it would only be fair to group the two, arguably skippable yet still interesting destinations together

Ipoh – City surrounded by mountains

Back in Malaysia! Stop Number 7 (including the Hat Yai revisit) of our road trip, Ipoh! After staying in Hat Yai, we travelled past the Malaysia-Thailand border and, unfortunately, arrived back in Malaysia. Thailand was a beautiful beautiful country, but all good things must come to an end. This also means that our road trip is coming to a close.

Due to an unforeseen jam and a terrible miscalculation, we were on the road for about 7-8 hours or so, reaching Ipoh the latest we’ve ever reached a destination, 8pm at night. By the time we got to Ipoh, it was NIGHTTIME. To add on to our misery, it was raining the entire day since waking up in Hat Yai. Not the best stretch of our holiday

Anyways, reaching Ipoh, on to the hotel! Sunway Onsen. Perhaps in a severe and utter miscalculation, we may have booked a condo contrary to a hotel. It was definitely an experience to be had, but considering it was a one night stay over and not a multiple night thing, booking a condo requiring access cards and parking lots was a… mistake. It was a great hotel dont get me wrong, the room would have been absolutely fantastic IF we were staying there for longer.

Due to our late arrival, there was no fancy restaurant dinner to be had, we just did a drive-through from a nearby McDonald before going to sleep.

Now if we’re being honest, and I know my parents are reading this, but I was buzzing to go home yet still extremely sad. Like I wanted to play Honkai Star Rail really bad, but this holiday gave me severe post holiday depression. But we’re alright, and Star Rail is fun

Melaka – UNESCO World Heritage listing

Alright, the next day and the second last day of the trip 🙁

Leaving the hotel at around midday if I remember right, we make our journey to Melaka, stopping at an R&R to have some lunch and reaching at around 5 pm

On to the hotel! 906 Riverside Hotel Melaka. I’m gonna get this over with, the hotel was bad, the worst one across the road trip. The toilet was un-flushable when we first got the room, the bedsheets and blankets were dirty, the floor was not very well maintained, there’s a few chairs and a table and thats about it. If you’re staying at Melaka, the last place I would recommend, sorry.

Anyways, we were in Melaka for one reason, at least thats what I would like to imagine… 1 part for the Jonker Street Night Market, and the other part for the Geographer Cafe

Small story, the ENTIRE road trip, there was this one song for some reason that came up again and again. It’s kinda like an inside joke to the family even before this road trip, a song from a movie that my mother and father talk about all the time.

In a nutshell, my parents once watched a movie, a very beautiful movie with white sand and clear water in Malaysia which made my parents wanna go to Malaysia to the island where the movie was filmed to check it out. The trip was quite memorable cause it was their first time snorkelling, but also because at the hotel, they played the movie on loop which drilled this specific song into their head. From now on, everytime we went to a nice beach or on a holiday, the song comes to mind.

Hence, we came to Malacca to check out the restaurant where the movie was filmed, AKA

The 快乐不快乐 (name of the song, AKA Happy no Happy) building

Thats where we had our dinner that day. Not even joking the food was great, got some satay and pizza. Although the last 2 out of 3 days of our road trip weren’t the best, at least we saw the

快乐不快乐 building

The entire trip, all the time, outta nowhere, unprompted, suddenly we would go

Conclusion – Heading home!

And thats it for our road trip, heading home on Day 16! I’ve actually somehow managed to cover almost everything for the road trip, every stop, every restaurant (almost), every place we visited.

If you’re gonna stay at Melaka, here’s some things to take note of

  • The Geographer’s Cafe is a nice visit even if you didn’t watch the movie, good food, live band
  • Don’t stay at the hotel we stayed at, or at least I wouldn’t recommend it
  • Look around, its a UNESCO world heritage listing after all

Make sure to refer to the post link HERE to have a look at the other places we visited during our 16-day road trip across Malaysia and Thailand. That’s all from me, make sure to drink your food and eat your water.

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