Ipoh 2025 - Cave Temple Visit and Vegetarian Lunch (Day 2)

 

I actually wanted to visit Kellie Castle, but I hate that it was kinda rainy, and the Grab ride and back would cost us around 50rm. Plus, entrance tickets too! So we ended up following my friend to visit the Cave Temples instead since he was footing the Grab cost anyway :P We visited the 3 caves I previously brought my husband to. I won't go into details of the 3 caves, you can read about them here if you are interested.  This post is just a summary and some different things we saw here. 

Above, my friend as we urged him to walk into the cave tunnel :P I think if you don't do your research, perhaps you might actually missed out the tunnel all together and be wondering what's the big deal about the Cave Temples are all about :P

What's different this round was, my friend actually wanted to have a vegetarian lunch at the temple. I told him that there is a cafe there, but it was always closed. Well, on this trip, we decided to just walk in and kept walking anyway until someone stopped us. After going through some dark hall and corridor, wow! We landed up in an actual dinning hall! I seriously wonder why they don't lit the path better so that people actually know that there is a restaurant here. It's super unwelcoming for visitors who don't know about this place!

Luckily, there were two tables of people already eating here and chatting away. They seems like regulars. One of the uncle told me to go to the kitchen to look for the lady to place our order. I went and found a very grumpy looking middle aged lady, who reluctantly came to the counter where I placed my order. They were closing soon, like in half an hour, so I didn't dare order too much. She told me they don't serve individual servings, every dish was for sharing. Okay...... I ordered a plate of beehoon and a bean curd dish. 

I didn't order any tea, but she serves them to us anyway, lol. Strangely, the tea was super nice! Thank you grumpy lady. The whole place and experience kinda reminded me of that time I went to had lunch at an abandon tea house in JiuFen. It's just a very surreal and whimsical experience.

The beehoon came, and it was quite a huge pile for a small serving. I started eating a bowl, and found it quite delicious, so I think I might have ate 3 bowls :P  

The sweet and sour bean curd came later, and the colour didn't look anything I would expect from a sweet and sour dish. I was expecting orange. It came out black. I think they use vinegar to make it sour. And it has pineapples in it! I super love it! I would 100% eat here again! Next time I'll come earlier and order everything on the menu! Hahahaha. After eating, we paid and ran off before being chased out by the grumpy lady. Actually, I think she is grumpy cause there were 2 older couple who was cooking in the kitchen which we think is probably her parent. They were just arguing at each other while cooking :P

After lunch we went to the next cave temple, and I don't recall seeing so many wall art the last time I was here. I was pretty sure I walked all the way into the cave..... But this time, I was amazed at the art on the cave walls inside. Goes to show that maybe you should visit a place more than once, cause you will always find new things to admire.....

Saw this jolly painting on one of wall. I thought it looked nice, with the red paper lantern hanging there as well, and how white the limestone cave walls are...

Also found a painting of Goddess of Mercy, with a lovely black background, standing on a golden dragon. I remember the last time I was here I was just fascinated by all the dragons and the crooks and crony of the caves that houses different deities. I don't recall at all these paintings on the wall. Were they new?

There was also a painting of the unicorn-green-cow inside with a monk/god sitting on it.... strange....

This round, while walking back to the entrance of the cave, we saw that there were stairs going up along the caves. They might have been there last time, but they were probably off limits? I don't recall being able to climb up into the caves. But since I saw some guy walking down from there, I invited my companion to go explore! It was a series of steep stairs going up and up, and there are some smaller altars up there. But the fun was actually climbing up those steps. 

This is what some of the stairs looked like. We went up one at a time cause they were pretty flimsy. And super steep. We had to walk down backwards as the steps were also pretty small. A small adventure :P There was a time in my younger days that I won't go up such stairs our of fear of falling. But after climbing the stairs here up and down, nothing seems too much for me anymore. 

Here is my husband climbing up one of the steps to another small altar hall....

The levels are all over the palace since this is a cave. You could look out from the opening, but there are gates there. I wonder why they build all these for. It was just so weird..... Perhaps there were spirits here?

The 3rd temple we went to, I was already too tired to run around exploring. My friend continued to explore, but I basically stayed on the ground and saw these 4 beautiful tiles in one of the Goddess of Mercy Hall. Are these the great four beauties of China?

I decided to take a photo of all four, to specifically post it here so that I can always look at them whenever I wanted to. Maybe one day I can even draw them? They are so pretty!

Some reminded me of those beautiful carving I saw in the National Museum of China in Beijing. 

Lovely <3

And so that was how we spend our late morning on our second day. Above a photo taken at the first temple's miniature garden. I don't recall seeing this before too. It reminded me of Japan a lot. I haven't visited Japan in 2025 at all.... time to go back?