Cameron Highlands Trip - Day 2

After a night of good rest, we were be heading to quite a number of places to cover our sightseeing tour on the second day of visit. Apart from the Strawberry Farm and Tea Plantation that we are looking forward too, we are also keen to explore the Rose Valley which consists of 400 over varieties of roses in all shapes and sizes from the 'Black' rose, 'Green' rose and etc.

Breakfast was served a local restaurant 5 minutes away from the resort that we stay. According to the tour guide, this restaurant which is known as “Country Lodge Restaurant” is also owned by the owner of the resort. Breakfast menu was light and simple countryside dishes with fried bee hoon, sunny side-up egg, minced meat porridge, bread (butter and homemade strawberry jam are available for spreading) and coffee.

After breakfast, we set off to our first stop at “Rose Valley” which is a few minutes from Brinchang town. This valley is basically a beautifully landscaped rose farm with hundreds of rose varieties and you can also find some tomato, white radish, Cameron apple and etc that occupied a small portion at the far end of the farm. Entrance fee: RM$4.00

Other than the lovely roses and local vegetables you can also find some other flowering plants that bloom beautiful around the valley. Take a look at these beautiful Daisy plants, I am sure they do put on a smile on you.

Outside the Rose Valley, there are a lot of stalls selling all kind of local grown vegetables, fruits, snack and souvenir. While most of the tour mates are busying with their shopping, we stop at a stall and enjoy the steam sweet potato and tapioca which is a good enjoyment during cold weather.

Cameron Highlands Bee Farm is the second attraction on the list while waiting for the transportation to visit the BOH Tea Plantation (click HERE) up hill. EeFengGu is situated 5km from the central of Cameron Highlands. It is a must to visit when you are in Cameron and it opens from 8:00am to 7:00pm daily. Upon visiting the farm you will realise that Bees are not confined but roaming freely from flower to flower around the sanctuary to collect nectar. In this case, do not provoke the bees while touring around the sanctuary unless you wish to be sting by it :p

Lunch was at “Kea Farm Strawberry View Café Restaurant” that is located at the center of the Kea Farm market after our discovery tour from the BOH Tea Plantation. The dishes are consider as good "at sight” but rather average "in taste" and most of the dishes are “cold” when served due to the cooling weather. For this reason, the tour guide always suggests that we shall have steamboat for dinner instead of the usual 8 course meal.

Kea Farm is not just about vegetable markets, there are also various stalls selling roses, carnation, freeze dried flowers, etc. Souvenirs ranging from simple key chains to T-shirts with Cameron Highlands prints are also available at most of the stalls. And the vegetable markets in Kea Farm are no exception. The roadside vegetable markets nearer to the T-Junction are priced higher; you can check those prices but refrain from making any purchases till you explore the vegetable markets located further in. Another interesting items is the delicious looking bi-coloured sweet corns that comes in several grades; such as grade A, B, C based on the size of the sweet corns and will be priced accordingly.

After lunch, we are all excited and getting ready to explore the long waited Strawberry Farm (click HERE) which is one of our main attractions on this tour. But before entering the Strawberry Farm, we stop by at the "Time Tunnel" (click HERE) and Cactus Valley which is just beside it. This valley is the newly built tourist attraction with numerous types of cactus on show. Its hillside location makes for interesting viewing of the cactus and other plants which include Strawberries, Roses, Apple & Peach trees, Orchids, Cherry Tomatoes etc.

Other than resting at the resort while waiting for dinner time after the strawberry farm visit, we decided to take a short walk to the Brinchang Market to grab some fresh fruits and souvenirs before heading back home on the next day.

From the photo above, you can see that their coconut outer skin is toward "Black" in colour instead of the normal "Green" that we have over here. Along the roadside, we also spot a stall selling "durian" which makes us so tempted to try some.

At the fruit stall, we bought some “Pepino Melon” which is also known as “Cameron Apple” because it was planted in Cameron Highland. When we first heard about Cameron Apple, we are still looking for that “red” usual apple until we realise that actually the physical “Cameron Apple” is not what we thought of. We bought 2 of it for RM$1.00 and surprisingly it taste great with a sweet scent like honeydew taste.

Dinner was at another local steamboat restaurant known as "Restoran Highland" which is different from the previous day. The steamboat at the restaurant are served using Charcoal and traditional steamboat pot which long vessel to prevent the ashes of the charcoal from dropping into the soup.

Overall the food over at this restaurant is far much fresher and better than the one we had yesterday. Guess having steamboat on cosy weather is always a good choice and everyone of us enjoys our meal heartily with the extra local green vegetables too…..

Cameron Highlands Trip - Day 1

Talking about Cameron Highlands, what will be the first thing in your mind that you will think of? Is it their all year round cooling weather? Their well-known Strawberry Farms and Rose Gardens? Or even perhaps the Boh Tea Plantation in the high mountain area? But I am sure no matter what comes in your mind first; planning a trip over there is always another great sight-seeing venue for those who love the Nature compare to any shopping trips.

Our journey starts pretty early in the Morning around 6.30am whereby we need to clear the Singapore Custom at Tuas as early as possible in order to avoid the morning traffic jam at the Malaysia Custom. After the custom clearance, we stop at a “big” coffee shop which is about 15 – 20 minutes away from the custom to have our morning breakfast.

And according to Uncle James who works at one of the factory near that area, he was very familiar with that coffee shop stalls whereby he often go there for lunch break with his colleagues. So with his recommendation, most of us tried that “Ye Zi Mei Da Bao” which is quite similar to our local "Da Bao - 大包" which is big enough to be share by two people. Personally I don't really like the taste, I find that there is quite strong flour taste with the bao skin.

Like I have mention is my Taiwan trip previously, the best thing to look forward to when going for tour is nothing but eat and eat and eat :p After about 2 hours of travelling, we stop at a Chinese restaurant known as “Min Kok Restaurant - 明佫鱼翅酒楼” in Seremban - 芙蓉. Accordingly to the local tour guide, this restaurant is famous for their dim sum because most of the people in Seremban love to eat dim sum for lunch instead of the usual rice and noodle.

But for us, since we are on a tour group our lunch will be the usual 7 or 8 course meal instead of dim sum. Out of those dishes served, we prefer their “Deep-fried Fish with Thai Sweet & Sour Sauce” and “Braised Pig Trotter”. The Thai sweet and sour sauce goes very well with the crispy fish and also their braised trotter is so soft that it can melt in your mouth.

After lunch we continue our journey to Cameron Highlands and we get to stop for a toilet and coffee break around 3:00pm. I was surprised to see two mini stalls selling all kinds of cut fresh fruits, snacks, and cold drinks for travellers who stop for break like us. Rey was excited to grab some chips and drink to munch along while mum and aunties were busying getting fruits and drinks. For me, I was attracted to some of their deep-fried crackers which available even in “Pink” colour. Em... wonder what are those round and pink crackers.......

Finally, we arrived at Cameron Highlands after surviving though all those winding curls along the road to the mountain. We reached “Country Lodge Resort” around 6.30pm in the evening and the weather was around 20 – 25 degree which is still manageable for most of us.

Although the appearance of the resort look great and nice from the outside, but we will kind of disappointed with the facilities in the rooms itself. The room was pretty small for triple sharing and the washroom was kind of “scary” according to Rey. Overall, we rated our room 4 out 10 compare to what we have encounter during our Taiwan’s farm-stay resort which we think is much better than this. (Maybe we have being too pamper with our city life which makes us feel that the living standard over there is so different from what we have here)

Dinner was served around 8:00pm at a steamboat restaurant that is 10 minutes walk away from our resort. All the food are arranged nicely on the table before we arrived and after we settle down with our drinks, the waiter starts to bring out the hot broth for us to get ready for our steamboat feast. As you can see, there are so many fresh vegetables that are available for us to consume.

One of the top attractions in Cameron Highlands is their Brinchang Night Market or 'Pasar Malam'. This night market only operates on the weekends (Friday and Saturday nights) but during Malaysian school holidays, it operates every night starting from 6:00pm till 11:00pm. The Night Market cover relatively a size of at least half a football field, situated opposite Brinchang Police Station by the road side.

The Night Market consists of several sections such as Food Street, clothing stretch, vegetables, flowers, fruits corners, souvenirs and etc. Cameron Highlands seems to be the homeland for purple skin sweet potatoes. They are so soft and sweet which is best to eat while hot from the steamer. The “Pearl Corn - 珍珠玉米” appears alternating in yellow and white where you can buy it either “Steam” or “BBQ”, both are so tasty and juicy.

Along the stretch, we saw about 2 stalls selling this kind of fresh honey comb cube that is cut from the whole block of comb itself. These honey comb taste really sweet and yummy and it’s definitely a great experience to try one of this honey comb which we cannot possibly have it in Singapore. So next round when you visit Cameron Highlands, do give it a try @ RM$2.00 per piece.

This interesting snack has caught my attention as it looks similar to our local Kueh Tutu. Over there at Cameron Highlands night market, there was only one stall selling these Putu Bambu. These snack are made from ground rice flour, fresh grated coconut and coconut palm sugar that were all stuffed into the bamboo tubes. Once they are steamed till cooked, the fillings will sink into the bamboo tube and each of them is then being pushed out from the bamboo tube and wrapped nicely with banana leaves. The taste of the Putu Bambu is so soft and fragrance and it costs RM 0.50 per piece.




P/s: Stay tune for more @ 2nd post on the BOH Tea Plantation and Strawberry Farm...... coming up soon.