A Weekend Getaway In Cameron Highlands

It has been almost seven years since I last went to Cameron Highlands. Back then, my little cousin sister who came along for that trip just started primary school and I would carry and swing her around in the park outside our apartment. Now she’s half way through secondary school. Seven years man!

Dad took us up the new road which didn’t seem very different compared to the old roads. The roads would wind and weave all the way up to the top. It was pretty scary for my brother and I because we’ve not had many chances to observe how people overtake on a two way road. You’d have to speed fast apparently so that you won’t collide with the car on the opposite lane. Then there’s the whole art of trying to plant your butt firmly onto the car seat so that you don’t roll around the backseat.

Dad told us about how my grandfather would take him and my aunties up to Cameron Highlands every other month. They would always stay at this quaint restaurant-hotel called Kowloon Hotel and Restaurant. I vaguely remember staying at this place when I was four when my dad came up with some colleagues.

Here’s the view from the apartment that we stayed at over the weekend. RM300 okay for three rooms and we couldn’t get any of our other relatives to come up with us. Plus the condition of the place nearly made my father lose his cool. Faulty lights, weird ass door knob that has a special technique to lock(we mastered it after a phone call to the owner) and cranky heaters. Sigh. Oh well, family time is more important ya!

Surprisingly, it was colder than Genting. Genting is *so* KL these days. We no longer need to stay over but a 45 minute trip is all it takes to go up to the peak for a cup of hot mocha. But Cameron loses to Genting in terms of mist. I love mist and foggy breath. This is the story of my life – sad girl who has never seen snow before. No, Snow World in Genting doesn’t count. Though I was pretty impressed. Heh.

Here’s the town area of Brinchang.

This is the Kowloon place I was talking about. It’s nice that the owners of the place still remembers my dad.

While we were there, the owner told us a thing or two about the generations of residents that grew up in Cameron Highlands. Most of the children have fled the highlands to go study in the city or even work overseas. Every now and then they would go back up to the chilly mountainous area to see their family.

We heard about rich government servants who were granted acres of land and leaving it to their daughters after they’ve passed on. I was already forming a damn dramatized version of the story in my head all for my eeedle weedle darling blog*kisses computer screen* but I’m not very good when it comes to memory work. I was dramatizing it so much that I was hoping that someone(HELLO VISION NEW MEDIA THE GENIUSES BEHIND HOMECOMING!) would make it into a chinese serial.

*Imagine that a trailer of this potentially popular drama series starts to play*

The life and times of a simple family up in the mountains, a place called Cameron Highlands. Vegetables and strawberries are a thing of the past as the children yearn to break away from the organic way of life and crave for the vices of Kuala Lumpur. Heartbreaks!(“Why you don’t want to plant sai yong choi anymore? WHY?!!”) Scandals! (“Did you know that Chee the Durian seller’s son is seeing that girl from the orang asli village?”) Romance! (“Oh, your kisses are as sweet as the strawberries that grow wild in my home,”) Revenge! (“Mr. Boh, they’ve come to torch your tea plantation. Hurry!”)
Cameron Highlands. Where simpleness is a facade.

There, that’s my pitch. Who wants to produce the show?

Besides the veggie was pretty tender! This childhood place of my dad’s served very reasonably priced food. Four of us had lunch there and it only came up to about RM50. We had soup and about four dishes.

I managed to snap a photo of the very pretty kitchen. So old and rustic. *heart*

Just your typical chinese restaurant but with very good food.

We stopped by some really nice resort to snap a few photos of the plants because they were so pretty.

Wah, not bad right. My macro function wei, MINE!

Uhh, you naughty naughty boy! At least that’s what it’s supposed to be called. I think it looks more like someone giving someone else the finger.

You know, whenever there’s an opportunity to look like I’m in a disney cartoon, why not eh?

Apparently it costs like RM1000 to stay in the Ye Old Smokehouse. Pricey but oh so beautiful. *sigh*

Who would’ve thought that you find such pretty plants lining the sides of a drain?

Ye Old Smokehouse was really going all out for that old british look.

Heart shaped flowers or cherry in shape?

Ahh, only RM2.50 for a blow up strawberry ball. I bought one and I’m still hugging it.

Well, that’s the whole purpose of going up to Camerons right? To see plants and more plants. It’s a nice change from racks and racks of low cut tops and slinky dresses further enticed with “70% off!!” signs hanging everywhere.

Strawberry jeruk! Damn sweet. Too sweet for me. However, if you put it in the fridge it’s not that sweet anymore.

Magnolia?

I love the colour in this one! So many tones of orange and pink. Almost like the icing of a cake.

Imagine if someone pissed you off, you could like smash his or her head into the cactus. Sweet revenge.

LOL I don’t mean to be corny but..*breaks into a theatrical mood* OF ALL THE PAINS AND THE SUFFERINGS IN THE WORLD, BELIEVE AND YOU WILL FIND BEAUTY IN THIS WORLD.

Oooh! You know those cheapo fluorescent squeezy rubber balls that you find in those pasar malams? I found the pastel coloured version of it. So pretty right! If they didn’t add the ugly face I’d buy one of each colour.

My brother lah, ask him to take a photo of me extending my arms to the beauty scenery..-_- but it’s nice also. Can do lah.

Imagine if you roll down, and roll around and around the hills. How fun right?:) We were at the Bharat tea plantation. They serve mad ass expensive scones. RM6 for one small scone okay! Go to the Boh Tea Plantation. 50% cheaper if you want scones badly.

Just having my Memoirs of A Geisha moment here. Don’t mind me, move along..move along..

Cheers to the beauty of mother nature.

Expensive scones.

My brother says cheers too.

Hehehe don’t know what my mother was doing.

A very nice photo of Dad and I. 😀

Take my word for it. As beautiful as it looks, do NOT attempt to walk down. Don’t be fooled by the temptations of the waterfall at the bottom of the valley. I nearly died trying to walk back up. It’s like so steep that if you put a ball on the slope it’ll just go all the way down.

Tea and me!

I managed to persuade my mum to do the pose as well. Heehee.

I’ve always wanted to be in a field of something and take a photo like that.:D Tea plantations will do for now.

Preferably a running photo.. but we don’t want any headlines in the next day’s papers going “Girl, 20, rolls down tea plantation slopes and drowns in waterfall.”

This is the part where I would break into a musical!

Again I forced my poor mum into the bushes.

Uh huh, yeah so?

What’s one to a billion? .. maybe they meant don’t pluck the tea leaves to bring home to make tea.

I thought I was weird.

Mum saw a toad in a hole on the slopes.

An authentic jagung aunty.

They were selling strawberry lollies. It was at that precise moment that I realised I’ve totally come out of my childhood. I threw it away because it was too sweet. All around me there were kids scrambling to buy the RM1 lollies and crying when their mother didn’t buy it for them.

The strawberry farms were kind of sad. I bet they keep the juicy strawberries in hidden farms, away from the tourists.

This was when we were heading down for dinner. I bet a lot of people would remember this area.

Steamboat in the cold weather. Piles and piles of watercrest veggie. MMMmmmm.

During the trip I made to Camerons when I was four, I thought we were having dinner in this restaurant and scrambled up onto the high chair. But as I mentioned, since I was four, I got stuck and couldn’t come out. The adults thought that I was with another adult and so they forgot about me and went to another restaurant. Luckily some uncle lifted me out of the chair and asked me where my mummy or daddy was. Then after that I remembered walking in the pasar malam. That’s the very same high chair. I’m sure.

Not many photos of the pasar malam because they all sucked. I mean the photos. Pasar malam is well..pasar malam. Flowers, veggie, same ol same ol.

Oklah, but whoever heard of a strawberry fondue with the chocolate still dripping from the strawberry?

A dentist’s nightmare.

Mum bought tea for my aunties.

Just your average pasar malam but out in the cold!

I was trapped in a store selling many strawberry toys! I bought a few, yes. 😀

Coincidentally, Poh Yee and her boyfriend Derrick were up in Cameron for the weekend as well! And yes, don’t laugh, I bought a beanie from the pasar malam. It’s powder pink! What’s not to like?

Poh Yee was damn funny. I have to say it in cantonese to show you the effect: “Chau kai yeng siong kang hai Jolene ge ah ba lei ge la..” (Taking photos all over the street, definitely Jolene’s father). Hehehe, she said she spotted my dad first.

..*squints at photo* By the way, I realise I look like a dickhead with the pink beanie. See the crest at the top of my head?:(

Putu Buluh?

The view from our balcony at night.

In the morning, we headed out to the market. See this? These are roses. I love the smell of roses. Mmmmmmm. You know that roses in KL cost an arm and a leg right.

I bought like 5 packets. Because they were selling it for only RM10 for 5 packets. The lady even gave me a free bundle of five roses. So I had like 30 roses for RM10. If I was a guy about to win a girl’s heart, I would drive up to Cameron’s and buy like a whole lorry.

Probably the cutest a cactus will ever get.

The lovechild of Hello Kitty and a strawberry. Clearly, Strawberry Kitty didn’t learn a lesson. Still humping another poor innocent strawberry.

Pretty purple flowers. Please be patient because I went to Cameron Highlands.

Strawberries galore! I really wish I bought more but because strawberries spoil really fast I didn’t buy an entire farm.

Cherry tomatos were nice too!

Me and my bundle of sweet smelling roses. 🙂

They are really generous with their RM10 packet of strawberries. It’s like four times the size of the boxes you find in Carrefour and furthermore, they pack it to the brim. *salivate*

Looks nice to photograph.

It looks like that one! From Australia apparently. I know, I also asked them what is it doing in Cameron Highlands then. ;D

The way of life, vegetables and more!

Alot of jagungs for sale in cameron highlands!

Why are the cactuses so cute?

Damn adorable looking pumpkins or some mini melons.

A very typical looking stall in Cameron’s.

More plants. Gotta love the colours even if you’re bored with photos after photos of plants.

Delicious cherry tomatoes! Just rub them on your shirt and you can eat it just like that!

i’d stick my hands into the basket of tomatoes but that would be gross for other people.

They really exploit the cuteness of the cactuses.

It looks like the flowers that they use to decorate Cleo! I’m not sure if they are still using it(malas to refer to the magazine) but I remember cutting out flowers like these from the magazine to decorate my files and stuff back in high school.

Now, now, you’d do the same too if you had a pink beanie and a blow up strawberry ball.

Posing with a beanie AND a beanie of another kind. They actually sell strawberry beanies! So much better than just soft toy strawberries. I like beanies! My favourite kind of soft toy!

Beanie hair.

I must say, what an ingenius method to store one’s beanie.

A rose blooming in its full glory from a pot.

Monkey jars? Periuk kera?

I didn’t know that it was the digestive secretions but I thought it was rainwater inside the ‘periuk’.

But then water isn’t so slimey, is it? Look at the stream of the liquid pouring down. Doesn’t look very watery.

Awwww! So sexy! They sell rose petals for that relaxing warm bath after a long day.

Mum was going crazy at the cheap vegetables on sale.

They call this Tong Chung Chou. It literally means Winter Worm Grass. Would you believe that these things become worms during the winter and turn into plants in the summer? So illogical right? I didn’t buy into it either.

Next up, we went to visit a Sai Yong Choi(watercress) farm. It was so vast and beautiful! After kangkong, this is my favourite kind of vegetable. Wait, maybe after broccoli.

Can you spot me peering out into the big farm?

I was just doing something for the camera.

Dad and mum looking for a spot to pose.

So cute right this photograph. 🙂

Dad once said that he wants to open a farm in Cameron Highlands. But that was 10 years ago. I bet he has better plans now.

Water everywhere to nourish the watercress.

A small river runs through the farm.

We were driving up narrow and winding roads to the Boh Tea plantation when we saw this: Workers plucking tea leaves! How cute and quaint!

Very very narrow road. Had to keep honking to alert the cars coming in the opposite way.

When we arrived at the Boh Tea plantation, I saw this beautiful house up on a slope. So pretty! Imagine watching Astro(I saw a satellite dish) there at night while looking out to the tea plantation which would probably be engulfed in darkness. WAIT, maybe they might be illuminated by the moonlight and the stars. Oh my god. So romantic. I WANNA GO I WANNA GO…(inilah akibatnya of thinking too much)

There, this is exactly opposite the pretty house. So romantic right? Who wouldn’t die for a house like that!

Bushes and my head again. But with a prettier background.

My brother against his own choice of background. At one point, we couldn’t believe we were really in Malaysia. As for me, at one point, I wonder how Pak Lah would feel when he visits this place and look around thinking, “Oh. My. God. I’m like the leader of all these!” Must be a nice feeling.

Dad was more energetic than the three of us. He will do anything to get that perfect shot.

So not Malaysia wei. So not.

Mum, dad and myself. Nice shot, Mervyn.

I was laughed at by some tourists. But who cares. I got the shot that I wanted.

Hills and valleys. *sigh* It was very cold up there!

This was the look out point.

On our way down, we stopped by a fruit stall. This is a passion fruit. I’ve never actually seen one but it’s very light. Like you’re holding a fake fruit or something. And it has this weird wrinkle all over it.

Eh more of those dried flowers. Used to buy a lot of these as a child. Now big girl already so buy roses.

Ahem, I’d LIKE to think there’s a reason why they call it a passion fruit. But I can’t quite place a finger on WHY and WHAT does it resemble. If it does resemble what I think it’s supposed to resemble, all I can say is “Here, take some Ketoconazole”

So many vegetables. But lousy photography. 🙁

You can never get enough of them roses. 🙂 So beautiful.

I was perpetually amazed by the orang asli settlements built along the road side all the way down to the foothills. It’s so authentic. They had stalls selling all kinds of things that they scoured from the jungle. I thought that they were a little more modern already. Then when you come to think of it, why would they build their villages at the side of main roads? Well, a good reason would be for easy access.

We also came up with a theory that perhaps it was to serve as a visual entertainment for travelers. After a long day’s work of pretending to be authentic orang asli, they’d walk back up to their apartments at Ringlet(the lowest level of the four areas in Cameron Highlands) and turn the tv on while they munch on KFC.(the only fast food restaurant I saw up north.)

If that’s not true, then wow. 🙁 Atap houses wei. 🙁

Upon returning home, the roses get to go into a vase and placed as a centerpiece on the dining table.

Dad painstakingly arranged strawberries and cherry tomatoes to be given to his colleagues the following day.

We bought Angel a strawberry soft toy. She wasn’t really into it at first.

But she warmed up to it soon after.:)

🙂 By the end of the trip we had a strawberry collection. Mum bought the floor mat. It’s placed awkwardly at the foot of her bed. She bought a few strawberry hairbands. I got the red one.

And now for some un-Cameron related things:

I went shopping at Sg. Wang on Monday with Lie Yuen and Poh Yee! I know it seems like I’m very deprived…but I needed pants and a bag. And got slightly carried away. But oh well.

Total damage: Rm200.
Big bag=Rm30
BLUE PATENT SHOES!!!!! =RM50. When the love is strong, the love is strong.
PINK PATENT SHOES!!!!!! =RM40.
Mirror = RM8
Elianto Face Pearl Powder = RM18
Pink Hairbrush = RM3
Jeans = RM40.
Cute t-shirt that doesn’t fit after all T_T = RM10. Shevie, help yourself to it when you come for your piano lessons this friday. It’ll be in my pale green drawers. Top drawer. T_T

Tell me, how can you NOT love patent shoes? I thought that they only had ‘wild colours’ like sunshine yellow and… er, Amanda taught me a new shade- Cerulean blue, Grape purple, Fire Engine red…etc you get my gist. But this shop in Sg.wang(sixth floor! cannot see from the outside one, must take lift and all one!) sells a WHOLE lot of patent shoes. In every shade imaginable. They even had baby lime green okay! So pretty! But I preferred the turqoise one of course. And salmon pink. Oh the list goes on.

The good news is that this shop that I went to(I can’t remember the name, but you won’t miss it one.) said that they’ll be opening a branch in Sunway Pyramid. JOY! At least the Lala crowd that now haunts pyramid in throngs has brought in some worthy tenants. Yay.

And I’ve been meaning to pose these up for the longest time: My NUFFNANG CHEQUES!

About RM180. =) More than enough to buy a few things to put a smile on my face.

Alright, time to pack. Leaving for Singapore tomorrow.