Batu Gajah

Batu Gajah is a town located in the state of Perak in Malaysia, about 24 km from Ipoh, the Perak state capital. The name Batu Gajah, which literally means "elephant rock" in the Malay language, is presumably derived from 2 large boulders that resembled elephants found along the Kinta River. Folklore claims that huge elephant figures were made of stones to scare away the elephants that destroyed the villagers' sugar cane crops. Famous for its tin mining long before the Independence Day of Malaya, Batu Gajah had been an ideal place for Chinese immigrants to stay and work during those years. This contributes to a significant percentage of Chinese in the population of Batu Gajah today. The Indian Settlement village at Changkat has a large population of Indians and Punjabis who built one of the oldest Sikh temples in Perak.

Batu Gajah is a very quiet town, ideal for pensioners and young families. The attractions here include two golf courses - Royal Golf Club and Clearwater Sanctuary Golf Course, and nearby pre-independence castle built by a Scottish rubber plantation owner, Sir William Kellie - Kellie's Castle. There are also many hawker stalls and restaurants serving food such as noodles, laksa, and Indian-Muslim mee goreng and mee rebus. Youths spend time at cybercafés and around the local supermarket. In recent years, Western style food franchises such as 7-Eleven, KFC, Marry Brown and Pizza Hut had opened up branches in the town. Recently, a supermarket named TF is opened and currently in business.