We finally rented a motorbike for 3 days and got a chance to explore some of the beauty outside Ipoh, including the Kek Look Tong park, which blew our flipping minds. It’s a cave, but it’s so much more, as you enter into this gorgeous cavern which is so meticulously clean it almost seems fake. The floors are polished, but the stalactites and the stalagmites are gorgeous and you can still hear the drip, drip, drip as they still continue to build.

Inside are many different statues of various religious leaders from over the centuries, and as you continue towards the rear of the cavern it opens up to a scene from the movie Bali Hai! It’s lush, green, and expansive, and magnificent is not an overstatement. They had small paddleboats which ran around the perimeter of the huge limestone rock faces, so for a few dollars enjoyed that, as well as just wandering through the park itself. This is a MUST SEE attraction.

Fifteen minutes later we found Hindu temple city; a road with several of them all side by side, including Sam Pho Temple which is built inside the mouth of a cave, which we have seen a few times already. But what was different about this one is that the cave (also) had a back door which led to the outside and there was yet another temple out there! Limestone walls all around kept it all blocked in but open to the sky. Probably the most memorable feature of this temple, however, was the water treatment out front, a little lake with miniature Islands built out of stacked stones and lava rock.

On our last full day we hit another trippy place called Ganung Lang Regional Park. It’s all of ten minutes from our room, but a world away! We were met by a beautiful cascading waterfall, and took a quick ferry ride to their small island, where we strolled through the walkways, taking pictures of monitor lizards, monkeys, and the largest centipede/ millipede (I never asked), about 8-10″ long. And all these places we visited were free, too.

We have one more trip to share, to Cameron Highlands, so stay tuned for that one