Had a strong urge to migrate to a cool place for the weekend to escape the scourging of the KL sun. That is when Camerons popped up on the list.
It has been nearly 10 years since I stepped foot on that side of the peninsular and unbelievable yet, my spouse has never been to Camerons.
Feb 26, 2010 being a public holiday, made it almost impossible to book a decent accomodation for a fitting price. Fitting price? What am I saying? Its Camerons, there is no such thing as fitting price! Yes, it is true. Food and lodging are insanely overpriced. Even the most budgetest of a budget hotel is nothing less than RM160 on a public holiday. Normal days do not fall far from this price.
We were lucky as my DIL had a friend who happen to own a budget hotel in Brinchang. Via that network, we secured a room at Hotel Jasmine.
From KL, the drive up the highlands took us around 3.5hours before we reached Brinchang. It seemed like it was slowly getting understandably crowded in Tanah Rata and Brinchang as more people came in from different parts of the sounding states. Sadly, I did not manage to get my money's worth out of my new sweater as the weather was WARM. Light chills only crawled in briefly at night.
Anyways, we checked-in at 2:30pm and came down to have a quick lunch before we start our exploration. Our first stop was at the Bee Farm. We were introduced and shown the bees at work in their hive.
Soon we made our way to the Boh Tea Plantation and Factory. It was a crazy 16km winding route up the hill - I could literally hear my poor car crying! We parked near the Boh Tea Shop and further climbed the hill to reach the peak or the view point, what a view it was...lets just say, it was WORTH IT :)
We did light shopping at the Boh Souvenier shop and dropped by the Boh Tea Shop. Unfortunately, the tea shop was unappropriately closing its business hours - At 5:15pm! Isn't it still tea time?
However, it was a blessing in disguise. We made our way down and stopped at Cameron Valley - Bharat Plantations on our way back to Brinchang. Cameron Valley is another tea plantation with its own tea and souvenier shop. The Tea Shop overlooks the plantation and is strategically located by the winding highway at Tanah Rata. We enjoyed every crumb of the fresh homemade scones that they serve with homemade strawberry jam, butter and whip cream. Their masala tea is a perfectly blended to give a tasteful yet warm feeling. Don't get me started on their Teh Tarik Float! It was sooooo gooooodddd. I even finished the froth :P Though the menu seemed a little pricy(like every other thing in Cameron Highlands!), it was beyond satisfactory.
We made a quick stop at the souvenier shop to get some strawberry tea. All items sold here seemed averagely priced.
Later at night, we meet up with Uncle Rengesamy and his friend for dinner at the famous Restaurant OK Tuck at Brinchang(next to Hotel Jasmine). We have quite a variety of dishes and all were awesome! Definite recommendation.
After dinner we walked up to the night market. Was great as they sold so many different items that you can never get from the night markets at KL. There were honeycombs, strawberries coating of your choice, sweet potato balls, etc. We couldn't help ourselves and bought all the above :) YUMMY
The next day we made our way to The Smokehouse for a hearty English breakfast. They were in huge servings, so we opted for 2 of us to share of 1 serving.
The major attraction of The Smokehouse is...The Smokehouse! Its beautiful tudor design and setup gives you the 'tudor experience'. Service there was generally good (especially this young waiter who slipped in an extra cup of coffee for us ;)and breakfast was satisfactory. After breakfast we lingered around and snapped a few shots just to take a piece of this scenic structure back with us.
We checked out of the hotel and headed toward Blue Valley. On the way, stopping over at the Strawberry Farm. They did have the 'pick-yourself' strawberries but we opted for the 'just picked ones :) After a little walking around, we continued our journey to Blue Valley.
We meet Uncle Rengesamy mid way as the further routes were not accessible but car. He took us further in with his pick-up truck where we had an enjoyable experience standing at the rear bed and clinging on to not fall over as the truck heavily jerks through potholes, mud and rocky ground.
We finally reached the Uncle's flower farm (was on the top of a hill)only to be amazed infinite span of blooms! We got a chance to see the growth of the main status of the flower. The uncle was very generous in sharing his daily cycle of working with the flowers.
We then had a quick lunch and continued our tour to the vegetable distribution centre in Blue Valley. We watched the cleaning & segregation of tomatoes(according to weight), packaging of capsicum, leavy veggies, etc. Was a great experience as it is an eye opener to what the veggies go through before thay reach our digestive system :)
Soon after the tour, we stopped by Uncle Paneerselvam's cabbage farm to pick up some doors gifts, yes, freshly cut cabbages.
We then said our goodbyes to Camerons and started our 3 hour journey back - what a fulfilling getaway!
EXPERIENCE RATING : 10/10
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