Malaysia North South Expressway

We spent the long festive season during Chinese New Year holiday recently by taking a short journey towards nothern states of Peninsular Malaysia from Johor Bahru to Ipoh via the North-South Expressway (PLUS Highway).

We made several stops along the way to rest, eat and sleep before reaching Ipoh city. As had been expected, travelling during the festive season may take us longer time to reach the destination due to busy traffic. The journey  took us more than 4 hours to reach the first stop in Shah Alam instead of the usual  timeframe of 3 hours.

At Shah Alam city, we took a one night sleep in a Homestay or Bed and Breakfast accomodation known as Taja's Homes. The accomodation was quite spacious with four bedrooms  and very comfortable for families with children. We had good time staying in  the city due to it's nice and homely environment and finally decided to revisit the city on our way back home from Perak.

The next day, we drove straight to the Maritime City of Lumut which is located in southwest of the state of Perak. Similarly, traffic was heavily congested in both direction of the PLUS Highway. The journey via Teluk Intan took almost 5 hours to reach our hotel accomodation in Teluk Batik. The City of Lumut complemented by the nearby  economic and tourism hub namely Pangkor Island, Teluk Batik and Bandar Sri Iskandar has been rapidly developed and transformed itself into one of the most popular holiday destinations in the state of Perak.

From Lumut, we went to Ipoh via federal road through Bandar Sri Iskandar. Bandar Sri Iskandar can be regarded as a newly born township which has been planned and developed by the state government to become a centre of higher education. The journey took us approximately 2 hours to reach the city centre. Ipoh is the capital city of the state of Perak which was once became one of the Malaysia's major city during the turn of 19th century due to the booming of tin mining industry.

Nowaday, Ipoh has yet to develop it's economy based on industry and tourism. Presumably, Ipoh can be considered as one of the great places for food lovers. Find out what we had discovered during this exciting journey in the next posts.