Sam and I headed for a planned road trip holiday from the Southern bits to the Northern parts of Malaysia. It was meant to be a relaxing trip (which would be very much in contradiction to my usual type of holiday: packed to the brim from one activity to another). Departing Malacca in the morning, we stopped in KL for lunch and repacked our things for our holiday. Our first holiday spot was Cameron Highlands.
Sam took to the wheel and I was really thankful for that as the skies darkened and rain poured down relentlessly. We could barely see the road and passed by several accidents. The most heart-wrenching was when we saw a car in an overturned position in the drain, with a man holding an umbrella and his baby in his arm standing next to the car. It was raining so heavily that we couldn't stop in time to help them but were thankful to see that another car managed to stop in time. The drive up the windy and mountainous road heading to Cameron Highlands was not made any easier with the torrential rain. A burning car blocked the road and the family stood watching haplessly as the fire fighters doused the fire.
A collective sigh of relief could be heard when we finally arrived at the hotel. The hotel was located in Brinchang, in one of the main tourist areas with plenty of restaurants and shops. Dinner was at Wai Yat Restaurant which was reasonably priced or so we thought till we saw that the restaurant close to it had a slightly cheaper menu. Fireworks went on for hours as the Hindus were celebrating Deepavali.
We were woken up by the Muslim morning prayers and it made me realise that the past few years, we've been living abroad and were not subjected to the prayers in the mornings. I prefer waking up to the chirping of birds as we did when we lived in Australia.
The weather was cooling and nice the following day, after the huge downpour the previous evening. We had nasi lemak for breakfast at the Tanah Rata Majlis stalls (near Maybank and Agro Bank). Our initial plan to have strawberry waffles at Yong Teng Cafe had to be scrapped as it wasn't open.
We headed straight to the Boh Tea Plantation for a tour of the factory. The tea manufacturing process was in plain sight of everyone there. We went a little overboard buying tea in the shop. The highlight of our visit there was securing a seat in the cafe right by the side of the area overlooking the tea plantation. We sat there enjoying the view along with our tea and scones. It was a sight for sore eyes indeed.
We left the tea plantation halfheartedly and headed to KEA Farm Markets and filled our tummies with boiled sweet potatoes, and lekor (fried fish sausages). Sam's Mum could not resist the temptation to buy strawberries and both Mums were very happy with the strawberries, actually.
We stopped at Cactus Farm to have a look at the plants sold there but sadly, we couldn't purchase anything as it wouldn't have survived the rest of our road trip. There were some sellers at the Cactus Farm who were really rude and making remarks about the visitors to their outlet which made me resolve to not return in future.
We made a quick pit stop at a night market for my 'nasi minyak' (rice with chicken, normally served at Malay weddings, but popularly sold in restaurants/stalls in the Pahang) fix and Sam's fried chicken fix.
Mums wanted steamboat for dinner as it was a rather cold night. Sam and I had to stuff ourselves silly as we had our food fixes an hour or two before dinner time. We felt completely stuffed and took a slow stroll browsing around the shops before returning to the hotel. Our plans for a quiet night were ruined by an inconsiderate hotel tenant that was staying in a room on our floor who was in a heated domestic argument which took place from inside the hotel room, to outside the room, proceeding to the stairs and lobby and the street itself! She stopped at each location and screamed her head off at each location. It went for a very long time. Then she screamed all the way back into her room! Thank God I had earplugs on. The rest weren't so lucky. I fell asleep feeling glad that we'll be leaving Cameron Highlands, despite my joy of being in a nice cooling climate again. Bring on Langkawi already, will ya?
We were woken up by the Muslim morning prayers and it made me realise that the past few years, we've been living abroad and were not subjected to the prayers in the mornings. I prefer waking up to the chirping of birds as we did when we lived in Australia.
The weather was cooling and nice the following day, after the huge downpour the previous evening. We had nasi lemak for breakfast at the Tanah Rata Majlis stalls (near Maybank and Agro Bank). Our initial plan to have strawberry waffles at Yong Teng Cafe had to be scrapped as it wasn't open.
We headed straight to the Boh Tea Plantation for a tour of the factory. The tea manufacturing process was in plain sight of everyone there. We went a little overboard buying tea in the shop. The highlight of our visit there was securing a seat in the cafe right by the side of the area overlooking the tea plantation. We sat there enjoying the view along with our tea and scones. It was a sight for sore eyes indeed.
We left the tea plantation halfheartedly and headed to KEA Farm Markets and filled our tummies with boiled sweet potatoes, and lekor (fried fish sausages). Sam's Mum could not resist the temptation to buy strawberries and both Mums were very happy with the strawberries, actually.
We stopped at Cactus Farm to have a look at the plants sold there but sadly, we couldn't purchase anything as it wouldn't have survived the rest of our road trip. There were some sellers at the Cactus Farm who were really rude and making remarks about the visitors to their outlet which made me resolve to not return in future.
We made a quick pit stop at a night market for my 'nasi minyak' (rice with chicken, normally served at Malay weddings, but popularly sold in restaurants/stalls in the Pahang) fix and Sam's fried chicken fix.
Mums wanted steamboat for dinner as it was a rather cold night. Sam and I had to stuff ourselves silly as we had our food fixes an hour or two before dinner time. We felt completely stuffed and took a slow stroll browsing around the shops before returning to the hotel. Our plans for a quiet night were ruined by an inconsiderate hotel tenant that was staying in a room on our floor who was in a heated domestic argument which took place from inside the hotel room, to outside the room, proceeding to the stairs and lobby and the street itself! She stopped at each location and screamed her head off at each location. It went for a very long time. Then she screamed all the way back into her room! Thank God I had earplugs on. The rest weren't so lucky. I fell asleep feeling glad that we'll be leaving Cameron Highlands, despite my joy of being in a nice cooling climate again. Bring on Langkawi already, will ya?
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