A Weekend Getaway to Cameron Highland

I have just remembered. I went to Cameron Highland not so long time ago and I haven’t blogged about it yet. It would be my second time there after my first visit as a Uni student more than 12 years ago. Cameron Highland is always mistaken for Genting Highland and vise versa.

A lot of people would go to Genting Highland expecting to see a wide expanse of agricultural farms and all and disappointed when they don’t see any.  Genting Highland is very much in the vicinity of KL while Cameron Highland is not even in Selangor but in the far corner of Pahang – the biggest state in the Malaysian peninsular.

Instead of taking the old road via Tapah, I ventured taking the new one via Ipoh. Of course, driving to Ipoh already took quiet much of our energy. But it was after Ipoh when I really felt like the ride was going to take forever.

The view along the way was stunningly beautiful. The road was a zig-zag but it was comfortable to ride on. I could see wooden huts lined up on the roadside where orang asli (aborigines) were selling all kinds of fruits and stuff. I couldn’t help but feeling a little bit of sympathy for them knowing that they’ve been here far longer than any other people of other races. I still believe they should be doing better than they are now.

You know you are in Genting Highland when you are served with fresh vegetables at its restaurants. They are so fresh you can almost feel them crush under your teeth when you eat them.

IF there was one thing that I gotta tell you about Cameron Highland, I’d say never go there on a school holiday. It was super crowded and the traffic was maddeningly crazy. There is only one single double-lane road that connects one end to the other so there is no way you can ever escape the traffic.

I mean, I live in KL where traffic jams are a norm but still the traffic jam in Cameron Highland that day was super-crazy even by KL standard. Imagine having to keep pressing the brake and clutch for many hours on end when a few feet of progress would take like forever to make.

I had always been against buying an auto for a car, thinking that it is more meant for girls and not quite for guys who are supposed to be handy and all. But battling the traffic jam across the hilly Cameron Highland had changed that thought forever. 😛

WE stayed at a hostel called Twin Pines. It was not the best hotel around there but it was certainly one of the cheapest. I only wished the room was a little bit more soundproof. Some stupid Arabic man came very close to the window at two in the morning and chatted with somebody on his loud-speakered i-Pad I had to go out and shoo him away before he took away more of my much needed sleep.

Of course if there was one place that I really wanted to visit in Cameron Highland, it would be the famous tea plantations. There are at least three major tea plantations in Cameron Highland. Given the limited time that we had there, we only managed to visit two of them and I was still as awestruck as I was when I went there 12 years ago.

The greenery was just so captivating. I wish I could change into a running outfit and do a little bit of trail run across the tea plantation. I heard they had one in Sri Langka. I hope Cameron Highland would one day do one too. I’ll be the first one to register.

A trip to Cameron Highland would never be complete without coming down to one of its strawberry farms. I’ve never really been a big fan of strawberry. I mean, I don’t think it is meant to be eaten raw.

Strawberry for me is very much for its flavor and not quite for its taste. The sourness can pretty much squeeze the beejesus out of you when it is eaten raw.

We spent our only evening in Cameron Highland walking about and do a little bit of shopping. Shopping in Cameron Highland can be very interesting. They are many things that we can’t find back in KL so I ended up buying more than I had expected. Eateries are quite aplenty and the foods are surprisingly reasonably priced too.

Of course, having mom in the trip means we had to attend church comes rain or shine. I was a bit worried that we wouldn’t find any church in Cameron Highland. I began to panic when I couldn’t find any on the internet too. I ventured asking around driven by the fact that it was once resided in by British colonists. I was more than relieved that there was a church not quite far from the hostel that we stayed.

The church turned out to be one of the most beautiful churches that I’ve seen so far in Malaysia. The landscape is so well-taken care of and with a beautiful surrounding and atmosphere like Cameron Highland; it looks like straight out of a picture postcard.

The mass was attended by a decent number of attendees too. They are quite a mix of everything, from Chinese to Indian to Vietnamese and of course Filipinos. Our being there as Sabahans seemed to complete a perfect mixture of races in attendance. I was especially impressed by the Priest who performed the service switching from one language to another – Chinese in one phrase and Indian in another and sometimes in Vietnamese too!

As much as I liked Cameron Highlands, I couldn’t wait to get out of there considering the fact that it was so crowded and I was beginning to get choked by the slow-moving traffic. We did however stop at one of the open markets to check out the variety of vegetables on sale.

My mom couldn’t content her excitement at the variety of vegetables and fruits and most importantly the prices. She couldn’t stop comparing them to those in Sabah which she said have grown much more expensive that they were back in those days.

Ahh, and it was in Cameron Highlands that I finally had my first close encounter with Lavender. I’ve been to quite a few places where Lavender is supposed to exist in abundance but I had never had any encounter with them. It’s funny how I found them in my very own country instead. LOL!

Of course, being in a high elevation where the weather is cooler, Cameron Highland offers quite so many plants and fruits that are hardly found in the lowland. Some of them were so unfamiliar to me I had to ask the seller what they were.

WTH is this?

Of course, I leapt in excitement when I found the Havanaro chili, or Mexican chili as it is called by many, which is said to be one of the hottest in the world. I was first introduced to its taste by a friend when he brought it to my house because nobody in his family could take its spiciness. It burned through me instantly when I had my first taste of it but the more it burned through me, the more I liked it. I had it all eaten within one week. LOL!

I think I became quite greedy and ate one whole of it in a single meal. I really thought passing it through my mouth would be my only obstacle in enjoying it. I forgot one thing – my stomach. My mouth could tolerate it but my stomach couldn’t – apparently.

I had one hell of a painful experience I actually ended up rolling on the floor in a wild tantrum fit and at the same time trying all I could to stay sober before I kill myself to end the painfulness once and for all;It felt like a knife was slicing away from within.

Apparently, drinking water to flush away the pain wouldn’t work. In fact, the more I drank the more painful my stomach would become. I even thought of driving to a hospital but I couldn’t even bring myself to walking to my car. It was THAT BAD.

So, back to my trip to Cameron Highland, after spending an hour or so at the market, we returned to our long journey back to KL. We made one last stop at another tea plantation before making it back to KL.

I would probably go back to Cameron Highlands again, probably to do a little bit of trekking which is what it is quite well-known for.