Ipoh

The artist behind the Penang walls left seven pieces here in 2014. The old man drinking coffee sits on the wall beside a working café, so painting and shop read as one. A single loop of the old quarter passes most of them without a map.

Walk through the cave to the yard behind. The temple bores front to back through a limestone hill, so past the Buddhas ponds ringed by cliffs open up. Reaching that yard is what completes the visit. It stays cool inside at midday.

A monk moved in to meditate in 1890 and the cave became a temple, with quarters still in the back. The turtle pond in the yard grew from animals released by visitors, so no two are alike. Water drips from the ceiling in places and the floor stays wet.

The white building of 1917 runs Mughal domes and arches enough to read as an Indian station. A hotel upstairs earned it the name Taj Mahal of Ipoh, though that hotel is shut and only the station works. The town hall faces it across the padang.

A mansion that was never finished. A Scot began it in 1915 and died of illness with the work half done, leaving tunnels and roof stairs that stop mid-air. It is thirty minutes south by car and awkward to reach without one.

From inside the cave, 385 steps climb to a lookout on the cliff. The way up is narrow and dark enough that people switch on a torch. The top takes in the city and the limestone peaks around it. Over forty painted murals line the walls.

The collapsed back yards of a shophouse row were left as they were and roofed over into a market. Peeling plaster and trees growing through are untouched, so ruin and café share one space. At weekends there is nowhere to sit and you drink standing.

A lake sits under limestone peaks and a boat takes you across. It runs to set times, so missing one costs half an hour, and the far side holds a deer enclosure and a short trail. In the evening the peaks mirror in the water.

Two metres wide, named for the mistresses tin money is said to have kept here. Souvenir and snack stalls now line both sides and weekends move the crowd one way only. On a weekday morning it goes quiet and the upper balconies show.

Where Ipoh walks morning and evening, closer to a neighbourhood yard than a sight. It holds a pond and an orchid garden, and the shade is deep enough to sit there by day. On weekend mornings a group works through tai chi at one end.

A long cave bored through a limestone hill south of Ipoh, with a run of great domed chambers. Tours split into a short dry walkway and a wet route wading the underground stream up to the waist. If you choose the wet one, bring a change of clothes.

A Hakka tin miners’ club founded in 1893, its building rebuilt in 1929 and now a museum. Mahjong tables, opium beds and mining tools sit where they once stood. Entry runs on booking, for guided slots only, with tales of Ipoh’s tin boom.

Raised in 1917 in the royal town of Kuala Kangsar, its golden onion dome and white minarets stand on a rise. A little over sixty minutes north of Ipoh by road, it pairs with the palace grounds for a half-day outing. Only Muslims enter beneath the dome.

A theme park ringed by limestone cliffs, combining a water park, a small zoo and thermal pools. After dark a separate hot springs and night park section opens, and adults come to soak. Families play by day and stay on for an evening soak.

A white clock tower put up in 1909 for Birch, the first British Resident, assassinated in 1875. Panels round its sides depict figures from world civilisation. It stands near the old town hall and courts, within strolling distance of the railway station.