We had been in Penang for almost a week, in all honesty, we could have stayed a month, but it was time to see somewhere different as we were quite short on time for Malaysia. We got on the free ferry (yes, FREE) from Penang Island to Butterworth, walked to the train station and took the fast train south to Ipoh, it only takes around two hours and takes us back half way towards KL again.
We planned to stay in Ipoh for just two days, we had read it had a very lively food scene and that it was relatively untouched by foreigners, both turned out to be very true. The people here were very friendly and interested to know why we were there, and the food was fantastic, which seems to be true throughout Malaysia.