I enjoyed the train ride to Ipoh and was delighted that the train made a stop at KL's old heritage railway station too. There was much less evidence of palm oil plantations on the northern route and we passed lots of crops being harvested alongside the tracks - looked like small tea plantations - the leaves of the shrubs were being picked and also field crops being harvested manually by local farmers in chinese style shade hats. Many more birds were evident too with many on the wires and in virtually every other tree and shrub we passed at 142kms/hour making it impossble to identify them. We passed wetlands and I saw herons and raptors and all sorts I could only wish to see better. Arrived at Ipoh bang on schedule to be met by the Cheaws who proceeded to give me a tour of the town and took me to visit the limestone temples that Ipoh is famed for where we also had great views of Crimson Sunbird, Blue Rock Thrush, Blue Whistling Thrush and Black-thighed Falcon. They also pointed out all the Durian and Rhambutan trees growing in the kampung areas around the temples and we stopped at a store and bought a local speciality, Pomelos, guava, mangoes ( 2 varieties they introduced me to are called 'water lilly' and 'elephant tusk'), Roast Apples and budhas fingers - I've to give them all a try and take some back to KL with me for mum and Linda to try too. For lunch we went to the locally famed 'Foh San' restaurant for Dim Sum and it was just out of this world as a culinary experience. Back to the hotel for a brief rest before Shirly Teh picked me up for her clogging class at 6pm. I had an absolute ball with the other dancers and am so glad to have met them. The next class is Sunday and Shirly has asked me to share with them 2 dances that we do at the Brisbane clubs so a bit nervous about that but looking forward to it too. After clogging a group of us went out to eat at an open air market place with stalls of hot food and I enjoyed their great company and got introduced to some more local cuisine, this time claypot chicken and rice, chicken satay and peanut sauce and chicken noodle soup. Tomorrow Hong Ming and Kuan Yaow are picking me up at 7.15am and we're off to Cameron Highlands birding for the day.
