High fives in Cameron Highlands

Due to the back to back combo of stress and frustration at work, I looked for someplace where me and my friends could relax and unwind. The idea is just anywhere outside Singapore and that is affordable! I googled and found travel packages to Cameron Highlands in Malaysia, a countryside part of Malaysia which is around 10 hours drive from Singapore. From my research then, I infered that Cameron would be like Baguio City, (Philippines' highest point) since it was situated in the highlands of Malaysia. The itinerary just suited us fine: Friday night at 10pm leave Singapore via VIP coach bus and arrive in Cameron at around 8am on Saturday and go back to Singapore at 10am on Sunday.

I proposed the trip to my chili friends and I was so happy when they enthusiastically confirmed, although DayOhbee was not able to join since she was changing jobs and was going home to Philippines for a quick vacation before starting her new job. So it was just me, Aoisoba, Chuvanescense, Ays, and our adopted chili, Liana.

So we only had the whole Saturday to see Cameron and I think it was suffice because we were able to do a "Nature Discovery" tour in the morning 'til around 2pm. The first part of this tour is my favorite and is the thing that one should not miss to do in Cameron --the tour of the Tea plantation where you could see hills and hills of tea plants that it has been nicknamed "Giant Green Carpet of Malaysia". Then we went to the Boh Tea Factory where we saw how tea are made. I listened to our tour guide attentively and what do you know, I learned something new and interesting: that black tea (or English tea) is called as such because the tea leaves are burnt while for green tea, the leaves are made into tea without burning them, hence leaving the tea leaves green. There is a cafe' (or shall I say a tea place) beside the tea factory where we had some tea and sandwiches. It was so nice as it had the view of the hills of tea plants around. The picture below is my favorite and is one of the pictures I managed to take using my camera that was running out of battery (I could not find my battery charger!!!).

Next we travelled up of Mount Brinchang, the highest point of Cameron Highlands (about 6666 feet above sea level). Before reaching the summit, we made a stop to make a little walk in the mossy forest to find some picher plants. It wasn't really that fascinating since there were just a couple of little withering picher plants that we saw amidst the slippery and muddy trek (good decision by Eypooh and Liana to skip this trek). But going to the summit was worth seeing, because the panoramic view of the highlands. Although I think the best would be to go to the summit during sunrise (there was a Sunrise tour available as well but it starts at 6am). Nevertheless, the view was still nice, the picture below was taken by Chuvanescense from his camera.

Last part of the tour was a visit to the village of the Orang Asli tribe, the semi-nomadic natives of Malaysia. It showed how the natives are living in the mainstream, with the government encouraging them to settle in this village to prolong the lifespan of the natives. The government provides them solar cells for each house for a source of electricity. This was the part of the tour that me and my friends did not feel comfortable about and we were wondering why they included in the tour. Personally, I think the Orang Asli tribe should be left to live as how they are used to, to preserve their culture.

In the afternoon, we took the Agro tour where we went first to see a conventional vegetable farm. Nothing new for me really because in my childhood, we have a vegetable farm in our province, where I had the chance to harvest some vegetables. But the succeeding parts were quite interesting: the visit to a Chrysanthemum flower nursery and the water cress farm, the tour of a lettuce farm where lettuce are being grown using hydrophonic farming (method of farming that uses water and its vibrations/sounds), then to the Cactus valley where I've seen sooooo many varieties of cactus (I didn't know there were A LOT!) and where huge lemons the size of melons, grow. (First 3 pics courtesy of Chuvanescense and Aoisoba, the picture of the cacti is another of the few photos I managed to take using my camera).

There was also a visit to a strawberry farm to which turned out not as I was not expecting to be. I thought we were going to a strawberry field, because in the Philippines I've been to the Strawberry fields in La Trinidad (just beside Baguio city). Anyway, the strawberry farm turned out to be a small nursery where strawberry plants were grown using organic farming so the plants were not on the ground. It's not really that inviting to pick strawberries in that type of farm as to picking strawberries from strawberry fields. Anyway again, strawberries is Cameron Highland's flagship fruit I suppose because there were strawberry items of all sorts, even non-food products like T-shirts, key chains, balloons, wallets, and all other items imaginable in a strawberry motif. I was not able to resist it myself, I bought a strawberry designed floor rug. :)

The last part of the afternoon tour was a steamboat dinner at a restaurant. We had fun cooking our food in the boiling soup and yes, we were so full in the end! ;) After dinner, we had a little walk to their Market where we bought some magnets for souvenirs before going to our hotel for the night. We stayed at Equatorial Hotel and I was surprised to find out that this hotel was Cameron's Five star hotel considering that the travel package we took was relatively affordable. Although, the rooms were not fancy, just basic, but the location of the hotel was perfectly situated-- right in the center of Cameron, and the view of the mountains from our hotel room was magnificent. (The picture below was taken by Chuvanescense from his camera on Sunday morning.) The rooms do not have airconditioning unit, by the way, because the weather is already cold. (It was 20 degrees celcius at high-noon!)

On the way back to Singapore, we passed by Kuala Lumpur and changed bus (from a VIP coach to a "Super VIP" coach where each seat had an entertainment system to watch movies ;-). I saw the familiar landmarks I've been to from my trip there last April. It was a fun, fun weekend, another adventure with my friends that keeps me recharged to get me going. Cameron Highlands is truly a great discovery!