Ipoh in One Day: Best Things to See and Do

If you’re planning a day trip from Kuala Lumpur or traveling through northern Malaysia, Ipoh is an excellent stop. The city is compact and easy to explore, offering a mix of limestone landscapes, historic lanes, cave temples, and relaxed cafés, making it ideal for a day of sightseeing. Check out this guide to get some tips on what to see and do in Ipoh in one day.

Activities to do in Ipoh

City center

The city center in Ipoh is nice to walk around. There’s some colonial-style buildings, street art, and the most famous part are the Market and Concubine Lanes, that have cute stores and restaurants. These streets are located about 10 min away from the station. If you have the time, you can also visit the Masjid Panglima Kinta mosque, which is nearby.

Mirror Lake

This was the most “touristy”-feel activity I did, as it’s quite a developed area for tourism. When you reach the Mirror Lake, you’ll immediately see multiple activities and fast-food restaurants. There’s a place for rock climbing, a petting zoo, and ATV driving. However, the highlight of the place is the visit to the lakes. There’s 2 lakes, Lake 1 and Lake 2, which are derived from mining activities.

• Lake 1: you’ll pay the entrance fee (12 RM) to cross a tunnel, where you’ll reach the area of the lake. That area is quite small. There, you can purchase a boat ride for 30 RM. In my opinion, if you don’t plan to do the boat ride, crossing the tunnel is not worth it – you’d be paying to snap a photo from a single location in the lake. The boat tour goes around the lake, and lasts for around 10-15 min, as it’s quite a small lake.
• Lake 2: I found this lake tour to be a bit more interesting. You also pay 30 RM, and then you cross a 120-m tunnel by boat to reach the lake. As with the previous lake, you reach an area that was inundated due to mining activities. The lake itself is surrounded by very tall mountains, and sometimes you can see monkeys and more rarely , mountain goats. The tour takes around 20 min.

Currently, there’s no hiking trail between the two lakes, but our guide said they’re working on it. Is seeing both lakes worth it? I would say no. Had I skipped Lake 1, I don’t feel like I would have missed anything. Lake 2 looks the same but has the fun part of the tunnel.

Cave temples

If there’s anything in Ipoh, is Cave temples. You may have already visited the Batu Cave in Kuala Lumpur, in which case you’ll be familiar with the concept. If you’re not, a cave temples is exactly what the name says: a temple built in a cave. Caves in this region of the world are very large, spacious, and warm, so there’s plenty of place to put everything you need for a temple. It’s a cool concept, so I highly recommend visiting at least one cave temple. These are the most famous ones, which are free to visit:

• Sam Poh Tong Temple: it has the most restrictive times, as they close at 14:00, so be aware of that. It’s also quite a small cave temple, but I personally really enjoyed it. It had a gorgeous rock garden at the entrance, and the cave lead to a small area surrounded by mountains where you had another building. It’s a quick visit, but it’s nice to see. This temple doesn’t have any stores, so if you need anything walk to the next one, the Nam Thean Tong Temple, which has snacks, water, and souvenirs.
• Nam Thean Tong Temple: a few steps away from Sam Poh Tong you’ll find this temple. The outside area is less interesting, but the cave in which it is built is much larger. I personally found the other one more interesting, but to each their own. Since you paid for the Grab here you can as well visit it and compare which one you like more. There’s quite a few staircases going up, but if you skip them, you won’t miss much, as there’s not really any views you get from the top.
• Ling Sen Tong Temple: this one is the third of the series, located a few steps away from the Nam Thean Tong Temple. It has the most colorful entrance, and another spacious cave.
• Kek Lok Tong Cave Temple: it’s located 10 min away by Grab from the previous 3 temples, but be aware that it might be closed (see below).
• Perak Cave Temple: unfortunately, I didn’t get time to visit this temple, as it’s the one located further away from the others (approx. 30 min away by Grab), but it has good reviews.

Practical Information

How to reach Ipoh?

You can conveniently reach Ipoh from Kuala Lumpur (2:30 h) or from Penang (Butterworth station, 1:45 h) by train or by car. The time required with either is very similar, so choose based on your needs once in the cities.

Where to leave your luggage in Ipoh?

If you pass by Ipoh on a transit, they have very convenient lockers in the station where to leave your suitcases. There’s two sizes – small, where you could fit a large bag, not sure if you could get in a cabin suitcase though; and large, which is very large and you can fit in a large suitcase and have some extra space for maybe a rucksack.

To reach the lockers, head towards the prayer room (there’s no labels showing the lockers). Once you exit the main station hall, you’ll immediately see the small lockers in front of you, and the larger ones are to your left. The locker system works with tockens. You need a 2x 5 or 1x 10 RM bill to be exchanged for 2 tockens, which you’ll then put into the locker to close.

How to move around Ipoh?

The easiest way to move around is to use Grab. It is of course possible to manage with buses, but they tend to take much longer. When I went to ask Tourist Information if there was a way to get to the Cave Temples without Grab (as my eSIM stopped working), I got skeptic looks. Anyway, I decided to buy another eSIM rather than risking it with the bus system.

Update Fall/Winter 2025: Check before planning these!

If you’re visiting after Fall 2025, you may want to check these two activities:

• Kek Lok Tong Cave Temple: I’ve seen many bloggers saying that it’s one of the most beautiful temples in Ipoh. Unfortunately, if you’re coming this season, and without knowing until when, this temple is closed. Officially, there was a landslide and the temple is closed.
• Qing Xin Ling Leisure & Culture Village: Sadly, this one is closed too. There was a rock falling that killed a tourist and thus the place is closed until further notice.

Others

• While in some countries you can survive well without a SIM card, I would say in Malaysia it’s a must. Even the train schedules were accessible by QR code!
• Bring toilet paper with you – not all places have some, and if they have, it’s usually outside of the cabin. Same with soap, some restrooms don’t have.
• Crossing streets in Malaysia: always a bit of a challenge. From what I’ve seen, cars usually won’t let you cross, even on a zebra passing. So what you do is to cross when there’s no cars, independently of the traffic light color, or wait until the cars have to stop due to traffic and squeeze in between. Not great, but it works.