A Visit to the Kellie's Castle

Last Sunday, we attended my cousins's (2 brothers) wedding in Kuala Kangsar Perak. As the wedding was at night, we decided to put up a night in a resthouse in KK as it'll be cumbersome and dangerous to travel late at night with my family of seven, my mom and a maid. Well, the wedding was different than the usual wedding i've attended. It was held in a resort in Sg Perak, they were brought to the reception area via the Sg Perak with a boat (ala-ala kahwin Mawilah macam tu).

The canopies were well lit and nicely decorated with pictures of the brides and grooms strolling around the kampung area on their basikal tua,wearing kain batik and tattered looking pants. Very classic kind of photos! Anyway, it's not about the wedding that I want to talk about. It is about my experience visiting the Kellie's castle.

So after checking out of the resthouse, we decided to have our lunch at the famous restaurant called Tasik Raban restaurant in Ipoh which served succulent and scrumptious ikan bakar and other masakan kampung like the tempoyak, masak lemak, sambal petai udang and all the ulam-ulam. So after lunch as we were heading to the PLUS highway, when my eldest daughter Nuraina kept telling my hubby how she wished she gets to visit the Kellie's Castle as she has been reading about it in her Year 3 BM book.

She kept pestering and informing the lot about the majestic Kellie's Castle. As she was making a lot of noise we then made a detour to the Batu Gajah exit. After about 20 minutes driving on a quiet, desserted streets, there stood the magnificient castle. Everybody got excited upon seeing the castle's towers. My kids went 'Wow a real castle'.... over and over again. As it was on a Monday, as I was surprised to see the big number of tourists hence it explains the school holiday.

The castle belonged to William Kellie Smith was four-storeys high. There was a lift shaft to go up the castle and it was supposed to be the first lift built in Malaysia. However, it didn't materialise as William died in Lisbon Portugal before the castle could actually be finished. Even though, it was built in the early 20th century, 1901 I think, the castle still stands strong and you can actually see the nice plaster ceiling (which is blue in colour) to be rather unique.

There is a living room, reading room, tennis court on the courtyard of the first floor, the children's room, store room, the master bedroom overlooking the guardhouse, the wine cellar underground, the maids' room downstairs and the kitchen.

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They say this place is pretty myserious and I can actually feel the creepiness when we went roaming from room to room. The second floor is said to be rather 'keras' as it was said that on this floor that there have been sightings of the late William and her six year old daughter Helen wondering along the corridor.

The image of the castle still lingers in my mind and to those of you, who'll be visiting Perak, i'd reckon you check out the place.