Trip to Kampar

My son decided to further his studies in UTAR after completing his STPM. The course that he is doing is conducted in UTAR new campus in Kampar. As usual for everyone of our child by default we had to send them and their belongings to their new temporary homes. Princess is the record holder for the largest and most number of items that was packed into our old faithful and our Only Daughter got the least number of items.

We left on late Sunday morning and we took the trunk road to Seremban instead of the highway as it is more interesting. We were rewarded with a rare sighting of the train passing by the most probably only railway crossing in Malacca state. Travelling by train is not popular because it is very slow and inconvenient. The infrastructure of road and air travel was upgraded with time but the railway seems to had been frozen in time only until recently. Anyway we were excited to see the train including me ..... hehe!!!

Seremban beef noodle was a real treat for us because the last time we pass by this way we missed it by a couple of minutes because they were closing up for the day. It was a real disappointment that time so it was a really great to be able to enjoy it this time. Yes, yummy!!yummy!! Thought of having two bowls to make up for the last time but I had to refrain myself or else I might fall asleep while driving with a fully loaded tummy on a very hot afternoon :(


The rest of the journey was on the highway and it was kind of a boring with occasional stops at rest area to attend to nature call. Stopping at rest area is also a great way to take a break from the monotony of travelling on a highway and to stretches oneself.

At three pm with the sun burning real hot we arrived in Kampar, a place that is new to almost all of us except me but it was like donkey years ago since I was here last. No memory of this place at all but had no problem locating the the hotel whereabouts. Kampar is a small town so it was really easy to get around. The first stop is the Grand Kampar Hotel to freshen up a bit before the tedious task of room hunting for my son.

From earlier research done we understand that there were mainly two areas of housing which is West Lake area and Taman Perdana. Our first stop was in Taman Bandar Baru a newly completed area and was turned of by a foul, loud mouth Nicole who seemed to have a little monopoly of the area. Next stop was the West Lake area and there were like hundreds of people crowding at a house turned into some kind of office to cash in on the influx of new students starting their courses in UTAR and KTAR. This is the first year where UTAR and maybe KTAR is conducting most their courses here in their main facilities in Kampar.

After checking out a few houses, this area is syndicated by a few wanna get rich quick capitalist. Any area in the house that can be partitioned into a room is being partitioned off thus increasing the number of occupant per house and so is the cash return. It is like a refugee center and paying good money for unhealthy living. Not liking what we saw we went on to Taman Perdana where the accommodation is in flats. The area did not look safe or decent so we did not even bothered to make any enquiry there.

After going round the older housing area with no sign of any room to let we decided to head back to the West Lake area and check out some of those houses that we bypass earlier on. Luck was with us we managed to meet up with someone who have a house across the road where foul mouth Nicole was. The house is brand new and the owner only wanted six people to stay in it. Our son got a room with his own attached bathroom and I guess he should be very comfortable in it. It is a really decent and nice place.

Having settled the most important item in our agenda for the trip we headed to Kampar old town to have claypot chicken rice which is famous in this little town. It was nice and yummy cooked almost to perfection. Next stop TESCO the only modern store in Kampar to buy some more necessities before we call it a night. The whole of TESCO was flooded with outstation people doing a bit of last minute shopping before settling into their new abode. Extension cords, brooms, brushes, detergents and buckets were really hot items as the racks containing these items were almost empty.

The next morning breakfast was in the hotel as in was included in the room rate and the spread was really miserable. Oh well since it was included and there were fried eggs, it was still something to fill the tummy right?


It was registration time for my son after breakfast and all of us went to UTAR with him. Princess was really proud to be there because it is her alma mater ....... incidentally she graduated with first class honours,congrats and well done my dear. OK registration was really fast and we walked around the campus to have a look see before heading to Ipoh for lunch. We wanted to eat the famous Ipoh white flat noodles with chicken and drink the old town white coffee. Having not been to Ipoh for a long time I was really surprised that the amount of traffic had really grown and it was really congested in the town center. We were unable to locate where old town is but we got our yummy food and white coffee.

We headed back to Kampar after we were done in Ipoh and went straight to Yau Kee restaurant for the famous curry chicken in the bread which is a unique dish maybe made famous by this restaurant. We had a loaf of chicken curry in the bread and pork knuckle noodles .... they were both good.

After sending sonny back to his new abode and said our goodbyes we headed back for home with a quick stop in Isetan for some take away sushi for dinner. It was really a hectic two days and I am really glad to be home sweet home.