The Ipoh Mural Art Trail is another tourist board effort. The
famous young Lithuanian artist Ernest Zacharevic was commissioned
to create a number of murals for the downtown area; he did a
great job, incorporating the quirks and defects of the walls he
was given into his art. I am sorry to report that in a few cases,
these imperfections have overgrown his efforts, with the tropical
climate further degrading the background with which he worked, but
what has remained shows a great talent and a great imagination.
Speaking of looniness on the Internet, one of the recurring cavils
about these pieces is that they are primitive or amateurish compared
to the famous ones in Georgetown. Guess what, snobbish guys - this
is the same artist, and these were done after some of the Penang
ones (Zaharevic is based in Penang, so there are younger ones as
well there). Given a smallish budget, I figure Ipoh did a nice job
here. Another recurring criticism is that they are not well kept
up; I agree here, but given the heat and humidity and the probably
transient nature of the funding, that's understandable.

-

I'd heard a lot about the signature roast duck at Sun Yeong Wei
and its more modern offshoot SYW so was eager to try it. As luck
would have it, it's only 10 minutes from the hotel, right in
Chinatown. It was fairly busy when we got there, but we scored
a table out back away from the heaty outside.

We got a combo plate of char siew, pretty much what you'd get
anyplace (except here in Rhode Island, where I am writing from,
where it's worse), nice mix of lean and fat, and roast pork,
which was very salty but quite good otherwise, with great crispy
skin - not so nice as that at Bricks and Barrels, but 40% less
in price. A quarter of that famous roast duck was also very
salty and also surprisingly full of the same medicinal herbs
flavors as one found in the bak kut teh down in Klang. It wasn't
my favorite, and I wonder about the multitudes who sing its
praises to the skies. A bowl of plain rice was needed with this
salty food; also drinks - lili had a Coke, and I had soybean
beverage, a good source of both protein and flatulence.