#1. Ipoh
Ipoh is a city in northwestern Malaysia, known as a gateway to the Cameron Highlands hill station. In the former Hakka Miners’ Club, Han Chin Pet Soo is a museum about the tin-mining industry and Hakka community. Sam Poh Tong is a Buddhist temple in a limestone cave. To the south, Kellie’s Castle is an unfinished mansion built by a Scottish planter. Southeast, the vast Gua Tempurung cave has dramatic rock formations.
Ipoh is more than a gateway to the Cameron Highlands or a way station en route to Penang. Shaped by the 1920s tin-mining boom, Ipoh's wealth and population ebbed away after the mines' closure. But an old-town renaissance has revived its time-worn buildings into boutiques, hotels and gorgeously kitsch cafes.