One Day Trip to Teluk Intan - The Diamond Bay

Teluk Intan, finally here again. The last time I was here, it was like 12 years ago if I am not mistaken. Hmm yes during primary school graduation trip. I did not really have chance to tour Teluk Intan yet that time, because the school trip was to Pulau Pangkor, just passing by Teluk Intan the day we were all heading back to Kuala Lumpur.

But our school bus just drove circling the Leaning Tower of Teluk Intan and left the town!! Consider I actually have not step on the land of Teluk Intan yet.

Teluk Intan is a small town located in the state of Perak in Malaysia, with an estimated population of 120,000. It is being called as Teluk Anson (Anson Bay) too by some people, the reason why is to honour a British Officer and last Lieutenant-Governor of Penang, Major-General Sir Archibald Edward Harbord Anson who drew the plan of the modern township in 1882 during the British protectorate era, according to Wikipedia haha.

Although the name means "Diamond Bay", the town is not located near a bay. It is founded around the oxbow meander of the Perak River, making the town looks like near a bay. The locals believes that in the future, the river’s flow will erode the narrow neck of the land between the loops of the meander and turning the town into an island. Island? Woah, hilarious.

The bird's-eye view of Teluk Intan

Teluk Intan in the 70's and 80's

Just before reaching Teluk Intan, we stopped at Bidor, another small town east of Changkat Jong and Teluk Intan for the famous Duck Leg Noodles.

Mentioning about Bidor, it made me recalled the time when I first left home at the age of 18 to attend UTP Educamp with my father. When the interview was done, he drove me back from Tronoh to Kuala Lumpur bypassing Bidor. We stopped in Bidor for dinner at a restaurant and bought some famous local made 'Sat Ke Ma' (Chinese:萨奇马) and also 'Kai Zai Peng' （Chinese：鸡仔饼) back home. Ended up we nearly made our way to Cameron Highland that night!! That was because my father turned into a wrong junction I guess. And along the wrong way, my father realized that he might get into wrong way but I was the one insisting we were on the correct way though we keep on seeing road sign board saying :"This way to Cameron Highland." And the reason why I was insisting we were on the correct way back to Kuala Lumpur was because I thought there was only one way from there to Kuala Lumpur and the way was always dark. Hahaha, ridiculous to say on my naiveness.

So we were back in the restaurant my father brought me before, but no Duck Egg Noodles sold :/

Disappointed but we managed to salvage something in Bidor, hahaha. Fruitsss!!

This is a place full of fruits like guava, rose apple, pamelo and many others.

 

After passing all the outskirts, we finally arrived in Teluk Intan. It took us around 2 hours.

The first thing I thought of was food, never a problem to my partner for she is a local. For the past few days I have been craving for dim sum, so I suggested dim sum for brunch. I remembered it was near lunch hour, and the partner said it was kind of weird having dim sum in the afternoon, not morning. Actually for people in Kuala Lumpur, having dim sum as lunch is not something new. Now eating dim sum can be anytime, some cultural changes to the urban and suburban community, to have sleep until 11.00 am or later and wake up for some dim sums.

After everything, the first place she brought me to is a Hokkien temple.

The outside view of the temple

Buddha

Temple is always the place I like to visit, for me to worship Buddha, and pray for my family and myself a very healthy, prosperous and safe Horse year ahead :)

And then we arrived at Leaning Tower of Teluk Intan!! First time I was here!!

Inside view of the ground floor

The bio-data of Major-General Sir Archibald Edward Harbord Anson

Going up to the 2nd floor

Outside view from Leaning Tower

 

It was really a red-hot day at Teluk Intan. I can hardly open my eyes.

Read about the history of Leaning Tower

It looked like it is 8-storey high, actually it is only 3! Impressive

After this, what did we have? Mural paintings!! Crouching Wall, Hidden Arts :D

All the below can be found on the wall of shops behind 汉城

Bruce Lee

Horse Year

The others can be found on walls in front of Hotel Angooka.

King Kong

Audi Accident

Berserk Elephant

Memorial

Leaning Tower

Cute Kittens

Orang Utan

Park at Your Own Risk

Minions Helping Out

Who painted this? Graffiti artist Ernest Zacharevic? These wall arts certainly cheered me up. I never thought I could find these things at a town like Teluk Intan to be honest.

Whoever who painted this, great job.

Before leaving Teluk Intan, bought this local-made honey sesame biscuit, Seremban Siew Bao and Egg Tarts for my family. Slurpss~ Too bad miss the chance to eat Teluk Intan's one more famous Chee Cheong Fan. I will be back for it next time :)

Honey Sesame Biscuit

Seremban Siew Bao

Egg Tart

One is Never Enough

Food

Talking about food, what makes you salivate badly?

Everybody loves food (except for those with Anorexia I supposed), for every food is God’s gift sorts of thing. 

Ever watch the movie of Ratatouille?  

Gusteau said : “Good food is like music you can taste, colour you can smell."

Yeah right, each flavour is totally unique, but combine one flavour with another, and something new was created.

One characteristic of mankind is that: They don’t just survive, they discover, they create, I mean just look at what they do with food.

Now, imagine every great taste in the world being combined into infinite combinations: 

Tadaa!!  

And thus, Chinese people have Chinese cuisine like Peking Duck, Chinese Fried Rice, Dim Sum, To Fu, Man Tou, Bak Kut Teh etc; 

Japanese have Miso Soup, Teppanyaki, Tempura, Udon, Soba, Green Tea Ice-cream, Sushi & Wasabi!! etc; 

Italian with their traditional pasta, spaghetti, pizza, Nutella (hey I just knew this hazelnut chocolate spread is an Italian cuisine, the Italian company Ferrero has it liked by people all around the world!! Just a perfect blend with white bread) etc;

Korean produced Kongguksu, Miyeok Guk (Similar to Miso Soup), Gejang, Bulgogi, Jokmal, Kimchi and many others;

The cuisine of United States featured apple pie, sirloin steak, barbecue smoker, hot dog, hamburgers, popcorn, Coca Cola (?), muffins, brownies, coleslaw, fried fries, fried chicken etc (all kind of fried stuffs, the Americans definitely are the earliest ancestors of fast food);

The Mexican, like others, have their traditional guacamole, chip hat and Cinco de Mayo? etc;

So much more other cuisines out there on earth, and these cuisines can become the symbolic icons of one particular ethnic/ nation. If people mention about sushi and sashimi, what comes to your mind? Japan, that’s absolutely correct.

If you notice, all food of different cuisines come from many tiny things such as salt, sugar, garlic, onion, ginger, scallion, mustard, pepper, rosemary, olive, cheese, saffron, milk etc and animals for instance beef, chicken, mutton, whale (Japanese), fish, seafood, dog and cat (Chinese and Vietnamese). Well, after that is very much depending on styles and tastes varied by class, region and ethnic background.

The various styles of food continued to gain its expansion throughout the world thanks to the influx and efflux of migrators from and to each other’s nation. The immigrants enhanced and added rich diversities to each food created.

As such, everybody is arguing that their food is the best in world.

Food Magazines and websites certainly have done their job in compiling the lists of best food all over the world. Actually, there is no best food in this world. There is only food that is best preferred by most of the people. Meaning to say, food that has the highest popularity.

CNN Travel on 7^th September 2011, published on their website, the world’s 50 best foods. The best 10 are : 

1)  Rendang, Indonesia

2)  Nasi Goreng, Indonesia
3) Sushi, Japan
4)  Tom yam goong, Thailand
5)  Pad thai, Thailand
6)  Som tam (Papaya salad), Thailand
7)  Dim sum, Hong Kong
8)  Ramen, Japan
9)  Peking duck, China
10) Massaman curry, Thailand

Out of the 10, Thais surprisingly have 4 of their food in the list!! I have been to Thailand and tasted some of their food, definitely I will not call it spicy but some kind of tongue-paralyzing tang. You must get to taste it yourself one day!! 

Not bad, Indonesia has 2 of their food in the top 2. Who will expect that though, Rendang and Nasi Goreng are just ordinary food the Malaysians could eat every day, just not sure how Indonesia’s Rendang and Nasi Goreng are different from Malaysia’s. Indonesia’s Satay is 14 on the list, now I am unsure is Satay Malaysian or Indonesian food? Satay is well- known traditional Malay food in Malaysia though, I have no idea at all Indonesian has it too. 

Sushi and Ramen from Japan are both deserving, they are just irresistible for me. Japanese simply have their own ways in handling food and their ways are non-replicable. Their food are always creative, natural, delicious, good looking yet so healthy to eat. It is in their DNA, I guess, long ago embedded in their souls.

Dim Sum is too, another delight for me, Shrimp Dumpling is my all-time favourite. I could eat up to 50 of it a day but Peking Duck not so. I have worked in a Chinese restaurant before, seeing how they served the duck. The whole duck will be roasted to shiny brown, and having it left to stand with some metal supporting at the neck while serving.  The waiter will then slice the duck skin, wrap it in a steamed pancakes (simplified Chinese: 春饼; traditional Chinese: 春餅). Inside the pancake you will see some accompany materials such as spring onions, sweet bean sauce and cucumber sticks. The pancake is wrapped around the meat with the vegetables and eaten by hand. What is interesting of this dish is just the crispy duck skin, after that, the whole duck meat, bones and fats will be taken home by the customers or absorbed by the restaurant like my case. The restaurant can have many usage of the remaining such as making it into a broth or used to boil soup.

Peking Duck

Looking at it, it seemed like the people are obsessed very much in Asian’s food. That is very proud for the Asian for their food arts especially the Thais. As an Asian and a Malaysian, I have reason to feel proud too because Penang Asam Laksa is on the 26. Woah, Penang again!! On 19^th September 2012, Forbes voted Penang #3 in the world’s top 10 cities for street food, but recently on 4^th February 2014, Lonely Planet picked Penang as top spot for foodies in 2014. According to it, the “must tries” are Char Kway Teow, Hokkien Mee (Also known as Har Mee, Prawn Noodle) and Asam Laksa. 

Asam Laksa

Char Kway Teow

Hokkien Mee (Har Mee)

Just mentioning, our neighbour nation, Singapore has 4 food listed on the World’s 50 Best Foods. On 13, it is the chicken rice; on 29, it is the chili crab; on 44, it is the laksa, and lastly on 45, it is the roti prata. 

Surrounded by Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore, Malaysia herself and I are so fortunate and happy, for the food, of course.