Ok, before i start this long series of posts about our Cameron Highland trip, i gotta make it clear that i am gonna be long-winded (as usual) and probably writing down every details that come into my mind. The posts may even appear to be unorganized because i'll just be doing the "story-telling" with whatever that i can recall rather than pre-structure it.
Since one of the reasons for having a blog is to document down the events of our lives, i'm gonna make this as detailed as possible so that many years later when i read back on this, i can still relish the memories, be it good or bad.
There were six of us on the 3D2N Cameron Highland trip: 贝's sister Joan and her boyfriend John (in one car), Carol, Celia, 贝, and myself (in another car). We would depart from JB and meet up with Joan somewhere after KL. Weeks before the trip, we had been doing research on the hotels/resorts in Cameron Highland, as well as planning for the itinerary of our trip. Here's our initial plan:
As you can see, we are not those travelers who failed to plan for our trip. However, just like any planning, things don't always happen accordingly.
On Friday (23-Sept-2005) morning, at around 6.30am, i was awoken by a call from Carol. Celia and Carol had arrived rather early at my house even though the planned departure time was 8am. That was because Carol's hubby was the chauffeur and he had to travel to Singapore to work early that day. So we had dim sum breakfast together and departed around 8am as scheduled.
What followed was a long drive towards north. 贝 drove all the way while we gals chatted all the way. Looking back now, i realized that we had been talking the whole journey, almost non-stopped. See, wasn't it nice to have a car full of women to entertain the male driver with all the yapping? At least he was kept awake the whole time!
We met up with Joan at Tapah rehat and had Baskin Robbin ice cream for lunch. We thought that since we were already at Tapah, it would just be an hour more to reach Cameron Highland. We decided to have a proper meal after we reached our destination. It was around 2pm at that time.
There were two routes to reach Cameron Highland, one is to exit at Tapah and the other is a new route that exits at Simpang Pulai. We took the second route as we heard that it was less winding and required lesser time. Well, the roads turned out to be not what i've expected.
The winding roads up Cameron Highland. It was a drizzling afternoon.
Boy oh boy, if the roads were indeed less winding than the old one, then i can't possibly imagine how the old route looks like at all. I was feeling kinda dizzy on our way up to the higher ground, so what i did was to look far away at the lush green mountains, taking deep breath of the air that was gradually becoming cooler and fresher, and of course to continue tattling with Carol and Celia. I couldn't be sure if doing the first two indeed helped, but talking non-stop sure worked in taking my mind off the probably imaginary motion sickness.
We arrived at the hotel at around 4.30pm, 2 hours later than planned. So, from JB to Tanah Rata in Cameron Highland was actually an 8-hour journey, instead of 6 hours as we've thought.
The place where we would be spending 2 nights was Hotel Casa de la Rosa ("Castle of Roses"), located in Tanah Rata, opposite the only golf course in Cameron Highland. It was a small hotel with less than 50 rooms in total. The decor gave it an European touch.
Hotel Casa de la Rosa at Tanah Rata, Cameron Highland
Entrance to the hotel's lobby
We stayed at the 2nd floor
Joan, John, 贝 and i stayed in the Family Quad room, while Celia and Carol stayed in the Garden View Double room. We were quite shocked when we saw the spacious room. It was huge! Really, no kidding. There were one super king size bed, two single beds, one bathroom with bathtub, and a balcony overlooking the golf course. Here are the pictures of the room and the view from the balcony.
By the time we checked in and settled in our rooms, it was already around 5pm. The original plan of visiting the tea estate, bee farm and vegetable plantation would have to be pushed to the next day. Everyone was just famished and decided to have an early dinner.
It was a damp evening but the weather didn't dampen our mood. Such cold weather was ideal for steamboat dinner as we've planned. The hotel receptionist told us that we would have to go to the highest township, Brinchang, where there were quite a number of restaurants offering steamboat dinner. The two townships were actually located in close proximity, with about 5 minutes drive only. We've passed by Brinchang on our way to the Hotel so we knew how to get there without problem.
When we reached the town center of Brinchang, we indeed saw many restaurants offering steamboat dinner along two shop lots. Not knowing which one offered the best meal, we decided to park our cars at a nearby parking lot and check it out by foot. This turned out to be a decision with a costly consequence, but i'll leave that to later part.
As it was still drizzling, i gotta get the umbrellas from the car boot after we've parked our cars while the others waited in the vehicles. Right after i reached the back of the car and bent down to reach into the boot, a dirty drunken vagrant came up closed behind me and started to murmur something. Carol, Celia and 贝 immediately came out of the car and stood beside me. This vagrant was actually asking for money from us.
As we were still hesitating whether or not to give him money, another vagrant came up to John's car asking for the same as well. Since we were in a strange place and worried that they would do something to our cars if we refused to pay them, we just gave them RM2 each and left the parking lot as soon as possible. Without our knowing, bad luck was lurking about.
We asked for the prices of the steamboat dinner for almost all the restaurants there before we decided on one. I jokingly told the gang that the people must be thinking, "stupid kiasu Singaporeans. Wanna have one dinner also need to go around the whole town checking the prices." Well, i guess working in Singapore for so many years had somehow made us Singaporean-like.
Since the prices were all the same -- RM10 per person, with two choices of broths (鸳鸯锅, or "yuan yang guo"), free flow of fresh veggie and rice vermicelli, and one-time serving of meat -- we chose the restaurant with the most patrons with the assumption that more customers meant better food.
We waited for at least half an hour before the steamboat was finally ready. It was rather disappointing as it wasn't the traditional charcoal steamboat dinner that we thought it would be; it was the modern gas steamboat dinner. Anyway, on the bright side, gas heated up faster than charcoal so it was in fact better considering how hungry we were.
We've also ordered two dishes of veggie, which actually tasted better than the steamboat. I didn't keep track of the time but i think we spent more than two hours for the dinner. Even though the broths were just so-so, we still finished up everything and even replenished the veggie several times.
Our half-tomyam-half-herbal-broth steamboat dinner, before and after
The dinner cost us RM90 (for 6 persons). Kinda expensive i think, especially the two dishes. They charged us RM15 for each dish of just plain fried veggie. The veggie are so darn cheap at Cameron Highland and the oil used for frying wouldn't cost much either. The portion wasn't big as well. I reckon the cost might just be RM5 the most. Wow, they sure profited a lot from the tourists.
After the dinner, we went to the well-known pasar malam located just a few streets away. Other than taking it as a after-meal stroll, our intention was also to do a survey of the night market on what and which stalls to buy the things we want, and to come back again the next evening to buy them. I'll write about the night market (with lots of pictures) in the next post since the actual shopping was done the next day.
As our plan for the 1st day was already ruffled, we gotta re-plan for the next day. We also intended to turn in early as we expected a full day ahead of us for the next day. So at about 8pm, we decided to head back to the hotel.
That, was when all hell broke lose...
Labels: travel
