Some we want to lock in time

The limestone cliffs echoed the evening prayer from a nearby mosque. After a morning visit to the heritage museum learning the history of Ipoh from colonial days,  the hills seemed to me to reverberate the soulful claim of  the natives of the land.

I paid a 3 night visit to Ipoh staying at a resort tugged away among limestone hills. At an impulse I had bought the hotel package at a Malaysia tourism fair held in Singapore not knowing what Ipoh had to offer. Other than a water theme park near the resort and the promise of good hawker food in town, I was cracking my head how to while away 3 solid days in this sleepy city. It turned out to be a trip filled with deja vu moments and flashbacks of my childhood in KL.

Ipoh looks so much like the KL of my childhood days. It takes around 15 minutes by car from the resort to town passing through quiet stretches of road lined with bungalows before approaching streets lined with old shop houses interspersed by vacant land with thick undergrowth. We then hit the town area with busy well lit crisscrossing streets lined with old shop houses. For two evenings sitting in a Grab car to town for dinner gave me flashbacks of my younger brother and me accompanying my father in a taxi to watch a movie in town. The passing scenes from the cab window looked so familiar.

The old shop houses in Ipoh and the interior of the coffee shops are like those I remember in KL in the 70s. Yet another flashback was when I passed by a shop house selling buttons, zips and other sewing accessories. As my father ran a men's tailoring, I often accompanied my mother to similar shops in KL to stock up such accessories. It was deja vu passing that shop in Ipoh.

The crowning nostalgic recall occurred when I visited the Han Chin Pet Soo (heritage house). I was waiting for a guided tour to begin when I overheard the chat among a group of ladies around my age who were also joining the tour. From their conversation I knew they were from KL. I suddenly felt the need to connect with people from KL and started to engage in small talk with them. It turned out that they were from my alma mater in KL. The room was filled with excitement and exchanges about the dreaded cookery classes and the annual choral speaking competition just to name a few hard to forgets of our school, BBGS. So thrilled were they in meeting a senior from Singapore they insisted on a photo so to post in the alumni website.

My last post in 2017 says " The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind". Yes the past does not remain unchanged as they change with our "present". Yet certain memories we willed them to be locked in time.