I had been through Ipoh, the attractive capital of Perak state in West Malaysia, many times in the past but had never stopped to explore. It makes a fascinating short visit, made memorable by interesting relics of the past, a progressive, forward-looking present, and mountainous scenery.
Ipoh is known in Malaysia as the Bougainvillea City, a title which it well deserves. They are cultivated everwhere, and the streets are bright with them.
The town itself is named after a variety of tree, Antiaris toxicaria, which is found locally. The sap of this tree was used by the Orang Asli, the aboriginal inhabitants of peninsular Malaysia, to poison the tips of their spears and arrows.
Ipoh is also known throughout Malaysia as the 'city of millionaires'. It is the main town in the Kinta valley, until recently known for the richest deposits of alluvial tin found anywhere in the world.
Thousands of immigrants came to the region to work the tin-fields in the 1860s, mostly from southern China. Inter-ethnic fights between rival Hokkien and Hakka miners and endemic triad warfare made Perak a lawless place, and the disorder that prevailed paved the way for formal British intervention in the affairs of the Malay states in the early 1870s.
Ipoh, and the other Kinta valley towns Tapah, Batu Gajah and Kampar, are still dominated by tin-mining interests, and are very Chinese in feel and character.