Hello everyone 👧.
My family and I reached Concubine Lane, Ipoh, Perak area at 1.15pm after about 45 minutes of car drive from the rest stop where we stopped by for a toilet break and bought snacks. This was also our first time visiting Ipoh, Perak.
Why is this area known as Concubine Lane? Out of my curiosity, I searched through Google search, I found out that this place is the home for the mistress of a rich Chinese business tycoon. In another search, it mentioned that this place had been used by Chinese merchants and British officers to kept their mistresses away from their angry wife. After hundreds of years, Concubine Lane with the old historical building that has been maintained well had became one of the famous tourist attractions in Ipoh, Perak.
This is the first day of 2023 and also a public holiday for Malaysians. Many locals visit Concubine Lane with their families. Thus, parking lots are limited as well. My Brother driving around his car around Concubine Lane area to search for vacant parking lots. As he drives around this area, we take a look from inside the car at the streets with a wide variety of shops.
My Brother finally found vacant parking lots but not for free. The parking lot that my Brother parked his car belongs to a private property or a resident making an extra income from the parking fee on his vacant home lot. We make an initial payment of parking fee of RM5.00 (USD 1.1) for the first 2 hours and the remaining we will pay the home owner for RM2.00 (USD 0.5) for the subsequent of each hour when we are going to exit this place.
Most of the shops are closed. It is likely that most of the shop owners did not open due to the fact that it is a public holiday. Or, in another words, the business owners prefer to save cost by paying triple daily wages to their employees for working during public holidays.
Lunch
Since we only have a light breakfast in the morning, our first priority is getting food or lunch. Ipoh is famous for its chicken rice. Therefore, we search for a restaurant that serves chicken rice.
In front of Concubine Lane or between two food trucks selling cendol desserts, we found a restaurant serving chicken rice. As we entered the restaurant, the restaurant not only selling chicken rice, but also other types of food from many stalls inside the same restaurant.
Diet is a no during travel to other places for us. We will regret not trying or getting experience eating the food from other place. So, we just picked what we were craving and within our stomach capacity for lunch. The food we ordered included chicken rice, vegetable popiah, rojak buah, chicken liver and asam laksa noodles. For our drinks, we also ordered the recommended famous Ipoh coffees.
Lorong Seni Panglima & Birch Memorial Clock Tower
We walked to Lorong Seni Panglima located near Concubine Lane first for sightseeing. A lot of street art is painted on the walls in this area. Luckily not many people are in this area, so we don't have to wait or have a hard time getting a photo with these street art.
At the end of our walk at Lorong Seni Panglima, we saw a clock tower. This is Birch Memorial Clock Tower and was built during the British residence in Perak prior to World War I.
The architecture or heritage buildings that were built more than 100 years around Lorong Seni Panglima and Birch Memorial Clock Tower are still well maintained and currently mostly used for commercial business use.
Kong Heng Artisan Market
We keep on walking and looking around for interesting sights until we reach a mysterious lane with greenery and tree branches on the old bricks wall. Then, we entered the entrance of Kong Heng Artisan Market.
Many handicrafts and souvenirs made by local artisans are sold on this artisan market. In this case, the goods can be considered Made in Ipoh/Perak. My Mum only bought sandals from one of the artisan stalls.
There were a few restaurants inside this market as well. I found all of them to be aesthetic restaurants with a nice environment in which to take a meal or have a tea break.
It's difficult to get family pictures in this artisan market area with the crowd of people there. Also, we try to avoid interrupting other local tourists taking pictures while we pass by.
Concubine Lane
When we exited the artisan market lane, the entrance to Concubine Lane is right in front of us. This is the place that the Chinese business tycoon's mistress stayed that I mentioned above.
In this area, we began our shopping spree by buying souvenirs and food from street food vendors. At first, we walked together on this busy lane. Then, my family and I separated.
Many street food stalls in this lane. in order to buy the food we like from the street food stalls with long queue of customers, we have to separate ourselves by each person for each food stalls for save time.
As time went on, the lane became increasingly crowded. My family could not find me due to this matter. Even by phone call, we could not hear clearly as this place was noisy with background music and the noise from the crowd. My Sister messaging me and had sent me a picture of a wall painted street art with a couple having a meal on a table as family gathering point.
Before reunited with my family, I'm taking my time ordering cold drinks from an aesthetic tea house. At the same time, I'm took some pictures of the interior inside the tea house too.
By the time I reached the family gathering point, I saw my Mum and my other two siblings shopping inside the souvenir shop just in front of me. There was no chair or bench at this Concubine Lane, so I just lay on this pretty wall while waiting for them.
The last item we bought at Concubine Lane was a large curry bun from this food truck. We had bought too many food from this place. In the event that we feel full after eating the food we bought (during our road trips back to Penang), we will skip dinner at night.
The time spent exploring around Concubine Lane (including lunch) was more than 3 hours. If the museum or other business premises were not closed during the public holiday, there would still be more places to visit and more time to spend too.
After exiting the car park, we headed to our next visit to other travel attractions in Ipoh, Perak, which is Kellie Castle.
That's all. Thanks for reading my post 🤗.
