that there is a List of roads in Ipoh in Wikipedia! Ask any old timer and you are likely to hear him mentioning the old names instead of the new ones. I searched for 'Hugh Low Street' and I was surprised there are still so many references to it by journalists, bloggers and so on. It is now known as Jalan Sultan Iskandar.
Our present Sultan of Perak and family have three main roads named after them: Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah is now the longest (stretches from former Jalan Tasek, Tiger Lane, to Jalan President Kennedy which joins Jalan Pasir Puteh); Jalan Raja Permaisuri Bainun (Jalan Kampar); and Jalan Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah (Jalan Gopeng). There are so many institutions named after them that someone joked that Perak should be renamed Perak Darul Azlan!
Last Friday, we were at Boh Tea Plantation's cafe when we overhead a Sikh woman trying very hard to explain to her taxi driver the location of her hotel (Hotel Impiana, formerly known as Hotel Casuarina) in Ipoh. I turned round and seeing that I appear willing to help, she handed her handphone to me to speak to the driver from KL. I had to describe how to get there and also to inform him that it is along Jalan Raja Dr. Nazrin Shah, formerly known as Jalan Gopeng. I was tempted to add that the hotel now belongs to the royal family!
One of the women asked if we were from Ipoh and said that the Sikh man drawn by Lat the cartoonist was her uncle! Her father used to work for Ipoh General Hospital, which incidentally I did not mention, is now named Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun! It is amazing for someone like her, who used to live in Ipoh, but seem unable to direct her aunt's taxi driver! I cannot blame her, especially after so many changes to old road names. Anyway, she said she is now living in Singapore and her aunt, in Australia. They were here to attend a relation's wedding.
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