Ipoh heritage.

Ipoh railway station was built in 1927, and replaced an earlier wooden building after the powers that be decided that the former was not grand enough for a town of the status of Ipoh. At that time, Ipoh was not even the capital, the British having decided that a smaller city some 75k north was better for them, and refused to transfer south. However, when the Japanese invaded in 1941 they made Ipoh the capital, so when they returned the British were presented with a fait-accompli.

An interesting clock tower was built in the centre in by the son of a British administrator who served here in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Apart from the clocks, which are not working at the moment, there is a frieze with eleven figures on each side, showing civilisation from BC to the early 20^th century. I said elevn on each side- in fact on the south side there are only ten, as the image of Muhammed has had to be painted out as Islam will not allow an image of their prophets to be shown. An interesting omission was that of Jesus, it was explained to us as he was crucified and had risen again he was not eligible!

A walk through the old part of the city with many descriptions of the happenings took us about two hours, our local guide would not use one word when ten would do, but mostly it was interesting, in particular the narrow streets where Ipoh was founded, mainly by the Chinese, in the 18^th century.

Lunch in the Royal Ipoh club was pretty good, three courses and coffee, overlooking a sports field where one could imagine the British playing polo or cricket in the afternoon after a big lunch. Built in 1895 at the height of the British Empire, the interior or the rules had been little changed since then, still very exclusive, we were only allowed in as Rashpal is a member there. We even had to change our shorts for long trousers!

After packing in the afternoon we had a final meal at a Chinese restaurant with our hosts, then home to bed for an early start in the morning to KL and Bangkok, it looks like being a long day tomorrow as we have an RIBI dinner in the evening after we have registered for the convention.