Something bad happened on the 1st night when we wanna return to the hotel. Something that kinda blemished our otherwise perfect holiday. Something that, as of now when i'm typing this, is still not completely resolved. Something that on hindsight, things could have been worse and i shouldn't have let it overshadow me like a cloud throughout the rest of the holiday.
And i'm not gonna write about that something today in this post. Not that i intentionally wanna make it a suspense, but just that i may be able to get a closure on the incident tomorrow and i'll then relate the whole story.
For now, let's just say that an unpleasant incident happened and we were stranded in the parking lot for hours. Despite our plan to turn in earlier that night and to visit many places of interest the next morning, we ended up sleeping late at around 1am. The unfortunate event spilled over to the next day and we didn't get to go anywhere until around 12pm on the 2nd day.
Hence, there will be a gap in time while i relate our trip on day 2. Oh, and this post is gonna be pictures intensive. So be patient if you are using dial-up connection.
We slept like a log on the 1st night as we were both mentally and physically strained. We cancelled the plan of watching the sun rise and decided to have breakfast at 8.30am because we thought that we would be able to begin our touring at 10am.
Breakfast was provided in the hotel starting at 7.30am. We had expected a buffet breakfast but it wasn't. There were only two choices of breakfast sets: toast with egg or nasi lemak. We ordered the toast with egg breakfast set and the servings were just nice to fill us up. There were a bowl of corn flakes, two pieces of toasted bread, one fried egg, one hash brown, tomato sauced beans and fresh veggie on the side, a glass of orange juice and free flow of coffee or tea.
Being in the land of strawberry, the jam to go with the toasts was of course non other than strawberry jam. Just as we thought we could have a taste of the jam made from local freshly-picked strawberries, a closer look simply left us dumbfounded.
Strawberry jam made in USA for our breakfast in Cameron Highlands. What happened to the local strawberries?
After breakfast, we realized that we were kinda stranded in the hotel, thanks to the previous night's fiasco. While we were waiting to be rescued, we decided to make full use of our time to snap pictures around the hotel.
A far view from the hotel
Clear blue sky with moon seen in the day.
A wooden pavilion in the backyard of the hotel. Bei was pretending to be melancholy in the picture.
Within five minutes of walking distance was another hotel by the name of "Ye Old Smokehouse". This hotel has an award-winning garden and we took some pictures there -- outside the garden because it was open for their hotel guests only.
A sign outside the garden of Ye Old Smokehouse.
Finally, after much delay, we started our tour at around 12pm. All the places of interest were located at Brinchang, the highest township in Cameron Highlands.
Our first destination was Sungai Palas Boh Tea plantation.
To reach there was an adventure in itself. The entry point into the long winding roads that led to the plantation was just opposite the Equatorial Hill Resort. The steep and narrow single-track tarmac roads could only accommodate a one-way traffic at any single time, with lots of sharp turns and blind corners. So what the drivers needed to do was to honk everytime they hit a curve to warn the oncoming cars from the opposite direction. Whenever two cars coming from opposite directions met in the middle, one of them would have to give way by reversing or driving to a wider opening or a bend.
When we were on our way to the plantation, there was a tourist bus in front of us. That made our journey easier because this big vehicle would have driven off all oncoming traffic and cleared the roads for us, the cars following behind it. However, we were not that lucky when leaving the plantation. Our car was the first one in front and gotta play the role of the bus, sounding the horn and facing up the opposite traffic. It was rather scary yet exciting.
The whole journey was accompanied by scenic panorama of the lush green hills against the clear blue sky. Looking at the terraces on the hillsides planted with rows of tea trees and inhaling the fresh cooling highland air simply put everyone at ease and forget about all the unhappiness. I'm not sure what words can i use to describe the scenery adequately so that i won't do it injustice. Perhaps i should let the pictures do the talking:
The cafe overlooking the plantation
The vehicle used for transporting picked tea leaves to the factory
Free guided tea factory tour was provided every 30 minutes but when we were finally done with all the ooh's and aah's at the scenery, we had just missed one that had started a few minutes earlier. So we walked around the factory by ourselves and didn't really spent much time on it.
We didn't buy any tea from the tea shop as none of us really fancied black tea (we only had connoisseur of Chinese tea with us but not for black tea). We did, however, enjoy a few cups of tea in the cafe, sitting at the balcony with the wind gently blowing, sending the fresh aroma of tea leaves to our olfactory senses.
Gleefully, we headed to the next destination, which was the Ee Feng Gu Bee Farm. It actually just situated not far opposite the entry point of the plantation. There was a huge sign outside the farm but the name "Ee Feng Gu" was not on the sign at all. We thought it was another bee farm and thus continued on without stopping. Fortunately it wasn't long before we realized that we were on the wrong way and turned back to the right place.
The farm was built on a hillside, with well-paved track and a variety of flowers. Warning signs were everywhere reminding the visitors not to pick any flowers to avoid attracting the bees.
There were statues of cartoon bee figures all around the farm, such as the queen bee:
or the worker bee:
The real bees were kept in boxes placed among the plants.
They could be seen crawling around the boxes and flying around the flowers.
Celia had intended to buy some honey but decided not to after tasting it. Carol, on the other hand, bought something for her hubby as their anniversary gift. It was two small iron balls that were said that by rotating them in the palm, it could help to keep the person healthy. Carol chose this unusual item as a symbol of their iron anniversary (i.e. the 6th wedding anniversary). Oh, and don't ask me why such gizmo would be sold in a bee farm. They sold a lot of strange souvenirs there, such as this:
I was tempted to buy a few as gifts to the people i dislike. It would be like scolding them "死人头" (si ren tou, or dead man's head) and they would still be happy about it. This would be like bringing the art of swearing to the highest level.
There was no guided-tour or demonstration of how the honey was extracted. We were told that the honey extraction process was done once every few weeks and we've missed it. So, in my mind, bees still remain as the little winged insects that gather nectar and pollen, with backside equipped with a sting, attack people when there's perceived danger, and die once they sting someone. See, my knowledge about bees didn't improve at all after the visit.
Our next stop -- the Cactus Valley.
Labels: travel
