Stopover in Bidor, Perak

Bidor is a small town in Perak, situated off the North-South highway that most travellers heading north stop by before journeying onwards towards Teluk Intan, Ipoh or Penang.


Perak at one time was the world's largest producer of tin ore but these days, tin mining has ceased to be a major industrial activity. Instead, Perak is now well known for its produce - groundnuts, the famous Tambun pomeloes, taugeh (beansprouts) and guava fruits, which is commercially cultivated mostly on former mining land in Bidor.





Bidor is located about 45 minutes away from Ipoh and is famous for its Bidor chicken biscuits and herbal duck noodles served in the Pun Chun Restaurant located along the main road. You certainly will not miss this place which is jam-packed with diners on most weekends and public holidays.





What fascinates me most about this town is how quaint and slow-paced it remains despite the hordes of tourists who descend upon this town to savour the famous noodles and buying bagfuls of its equally famous Pun Chun Restaurant chicken biscuits and local fruits like seedless guava, jambu air, soursop, dragonfruit to take back home. You can even get unusual stuff like lotus-seed pods and seasonal petai sold along the five-foot way here.

And I love the way time seems to have stood still in Bidor compared to major cities like KL. The sundry shops remind me so much of how it used to be when as a child, I would spend many delightful afternoons in shops like these, choosing my favourite biscuits and sweets from the small allowance given to me by my grandma whenever I visited her in Malacca. Even the bicycle leaning against the wall seemed oh so familiar. I felt transported back in time, so long ago, the childlike feeling returning unconsciously at the sight of the ubiquitous biscuits displayed tantalisingly in glass containers along the narrow kaki-lima.






I was glad I stopped by Bidor town. It has a charm of its own and even the magazine vendor by the roadside felt like an old friend. And I did not leave Bidor until I had filled my tummy with the must-have meal - yes, the duck drumstick in herbal soup accompanied by a plateful of springy noodles and fresh prawn wanton, all washed down with cups of Chinese tea. And this time, I remembered to take a picture of it before I dig in. So, here is what I had that day. It was satisfying, to say the least!