Cameron Highlands - quite a common and popular place for the locals in Malaysia to visit or spend holidays. I have been here a few times.
What makes this trip interesting, is the fact that I'm assigned as the "tour-guide" for Shim, a Penangite who never been to CH before, and Aisy who is Shim's friend from Bahrain - they studied together in Sheffield Uni, in UK. Aisy came down for some sort of solo backpacking tour in some parts of Msia, which includes CH, Langkawi, Penang and KL. Shim decided to guide her around, and asked me to join em since I've been to CH quite a number of times.
1 July 2012 - Shim and I moved from Taiping (where we just had a homestay trip with our uni friends), and drove down south to KLIA. We picked her up (the flight was slightly delayed) and drove back north to Perak to CH via Tapah. Assigned as the driver, this was also my first drive via Tapah, as usually I would go via Simpang Pulai. Tapah route was quite tricky and challenging, but all 3 of us reached CH finally and checked in our hotel in Strawberry Park Resort at about 8.45pm. We were exhausted... of course, Aisy was having slight jetlag from the 8hours (+-) flight. Regardless, we went out for a quick dinner and later jumped on our beds after some series of catch-up as well as perkenalan (for me), finally getting the rest we needed.
For 2 days we went around roaming around CH. Being the guide, I planned the visits n so on, but basically I was being quite random and ad-hoc as well, depending on their preferences along the way.
I loved the Cameron Bharat Tea plantations, walked down all the way to the area where there is this narrow river and more teasss. Btw, since it was not a school holidays, and it was Monday... we had some privacy, not so many people at that time :-) The weather, at times it drizzled... making the air cooler.
Some time in the evening...after visiting a few rose, cactus and strawberry farms, the rain poured and we were stranded in a strawberry farm which was faraway from other farms and only had few foreign workers (Aisy wanted to go to Mossy Forest, I drove there but we returned as we found out it was quite secluded and further. Upon returning back, the rain poured heavily almost making it impossible to drive on the small hillside road, so that's why we stopped at the farm). We reminded each other to be cautious, but we visited the farm nonetheless. After that we went to the Time Tunnel Museum which I kinda loved for the nostalgia feel it had. Basically they are collections of things from the 50s to 80s... and oh...I just love these stuff u know :P Luckily, Shim and Aisy loved it too, so takde la syok sendiri je kan. Hehe.
We wrap-up the day, with dinner and went back.
2July 2011 - Breakfast was heavenly just like the day before :-)
Aisy was looking forward to a more adventurous activity; after not being able to make it to mossy forest the day before, she asked about hiking or waterfalls in the area. I told her that for hiking, it was kinda late to plan for that, it would be better off if we had more friends or hike in a group. We then decided to check out the waterfalls. Unfortunately, due to a lot of development in the area lately, both waterfalls was a let down.
The water was not clear and looked like teh tarik... adeh. We took some shots, and dipped our legs in the safer waterfall and went back to check out from the hotel. The hotel is highly recommended for travelers looking for comfort and seclusive area.
We visited some farms and went to the Boh plantation, we had lite brunch. They have a tea leaves factory which operates at certain time, and allows visitor to have a peep at the processes. It was rather educational hehe.
Ok.... driveee back to Penang. We stopped by Ipoh, to grab late lunch. A friend of a friend recommended a nasi kandar place but didnt mention that they close early, so we went all the way just to see them closing and washing their stall.... haiz. We settled for what ever they had in nearby astaka (few stalls there) and filled our tummy.
Drove back to Penang, to my home and they visited my parents. Shim then went back to her home in island, bringing Aish with her. They left for Langkawi the following day, but I didn't join them.
After they came back to Penang, I joined em, we went to Botanical Garden. But we also let Aisy enjoy Penang esp Feringgi on her own first before I met her in Georgetown the next day and brought her around some places. She was very keen to explore different cultures so I brought her to the Buddhist (Siamese and Burmese) temple, and then to Fort Cornwallis, and around Georgetown. My parents and Shim later joined us for dinner, and 3 of us, Shim, Aisy and I went back to Feringgi to spent the night. We sent her off the next day in the airport, where she would take domestic flight to KL and continue her last part of her trip to Msia.
Some pics from Penang trip:
It was indeed a fun, (extended) week... in which, made Shim and I strongly consider being a tour guide in future... hehehhe.
