Cameron Highlands Apartments for Rent!

  

Juan Or and Little Sprout, holding hands as they walked up the hilly tea plantation at Boh's Tea Centre at Sungei Palas, Cameron Highlands. 



Not too long ago, Papa, Mommy and Juan Or had organized a one-day big family trip to northern Perak to visit the beautiful cave temples. However, after further discussion with Little Sprouts' parents, we finally decided to go to Cameron Highlands instead to enjoy the mountainous view and the fresh mountain air. However, in as much as we would like to stay overnight in Cameron Highlands, we could not do so because the hotel stay (let's say minimum 3-star type) for 7 adults and 3 kids would not come cheap! The cost of hotel stay for 7 adults and 3 kids in just one night can easily come up to RM800 to RM1000!

Just yesterday, Mommy discovered this Malaysian travel website called iBilik. This website offers apartments, homestays and budget hotels for short term rental in Cameron Highlands at affordable and economical prices. The good thing about the accommodation is that they are fully furnished, can fit a variety of maximum number of people (maximum from as few as 2 people to as many as 15 people!) and most of them offer cooking facilities as well so that you can still enjoy home-cooked food (and save money!) even though far away from home. And their rental prices are very attractive too, ranging from RM180 per apartment per night for maximum 10 people to RM320 per apartment per night for maximum 15 people! But of course if you are looking for more comfortable accommodation akin to villa, this website also offers RM750 per family villa per night for maximum 4 people, which is still cheaper than actually staying in a hotel-type villa. So if you are going for vacation as a big family and staying overnight, then Mommy recommends browsing this website for good accommodation offers.


Well, had Mommy discovered this website earlier, we could have gone for overnight stay in Cameron Highlands without having to burn a big hole in the pocket!

Cameron Highlands Trip with Little Sprouts

On 1st Sept 2011, Juan Or had the opportunity to join a day family trip (with Little Sprouts and their parents) to Cameron Highlands. In the trip, Juan Or's favourite Grandpa and Second Uncle were in too, so Juan Or had a really good time being cuddled by Grandpa while on the way to Cameron Highlands. However, Grandma stayed back home because of painful legs.

Our first destination was the Boh Tea Centre at Sungei Palas. The road leading there was really narrow and easily jammed up. Nevertheless, we managed to go through that and parked somewhere. After that, we had to climb up a substantial amount of terraced steps and wooden stairs to actually reach the tea centre. Both Juan Or and Juan Juan held hands all the time while climbing the steps/stairs. How sweet!

Finally, we have almost reached the top.....

...and now at the Boh Tea Centre.

We looked for an empty table to sit and found one. Both Juan Or and Juan Juan eagerly sat down together....

......until the food arrived. What food? It was a set of English tea, strawberry cakes and scones.

And surprisingly though, Juan Or finished up the entire strawberry cake - not something he would usually do!

Mommy managed to take a quick tour to see the tea processing factory, whereby there are exhibits of their tea processing machinery.

Then it was all the way down to the car park again. Again, Juan Or and Juan Juan held hands while climbing down. Notice the sun was high up already but it was not noon yet (but near already).

Of course, as expected of young children, their itchy fingers plucked some tea leaves out of curiosity.

Our next destination was to the Kew Market but Mommy did not snap any photos there because the place was crowded and narrow. Mommy did not buy any vegetables there because the price was not at all comparable to the prices offered by NSK hypermarket in Kuchai Lama. Imagine we went all the way up there and yet those 'Cameronians' cannot afford to sell their vege any cheaper than the vege that has been send down to the lowlands for sale! The only vege Mommy bought was the fresh tiger lily buds - 2 packets (each 600g) for RM10, simply because you can't find them selling here in the lowlands.

After the market, we headed to a strawberry-cum-garden salad farm (can't remember which farm is that) and we had garden salad as snack together with strawberry milkshake drink. Shown here is Papa and Second Uncle taking their garden salad serving and Juan Or fooling around in the background.

Here's the salad....

....and all three - Juan Juan, Ah Xuan and Juan Or - were very eager to wash their hands before handling the salad. However, Juan Or did not eat a single salad even though he washed his hands.

Mommy took some snapshots of the farm....

....and an amusement corner of the farm (for children who are bored about vegetables!). ^_^

There is also a souvenir shop corner to which Juan Or tried on one J.W.W. Birch hat with a cheeky face!

By then, it was already lunch time and our final destination was to a nyonya restaurant.

Mommy didn't take photos of the food because the situation was not very conducive to do so and that everyone was so busy eating. As for Juan Or, he was satisfied with eating only white rice and drinking his own 'home-made tuak' which is actually his white rice poured into Chinese tea!

A closer look of his air tuak.

On our way down from Cameron Highlands and heading home, Mommy stopped by an Orang Asli stall to buy bamboo shoots. According to the Orang Asli, this breed of bamboo shoot is known as rebung manis (sweet bamboo shoot).

There are five pieces in a packet selling for RM10 and the whole packet weighed about 2.5 kg. Mommy sliced them...

....then boiled them to get rid of the strong smell and also so that the bamboo shoots can be stored in refrigerator for a longer period of time.

After boiling, drain the water away, wait till the bamboo shoots cool down and then store in refrigerator.


Anyway, many thanks to Little Sprouts' parents for treating us to the food in Cameron Highlands! :-)

Trip to Cameron Highlands (Part 2)

This is a continuation of Part 1.

After the Lata Iskandar waterfall, we headed up to Cameron Highlands. On the way up, Mommy could see many Orang Asli stalls along the road side selling petai, honey and bamboo shoots. Mommy wanted to buy petai and bamboo shoots from them but Papa asked to do it only later because it would be too troublesome to stop the car halfway. Our first stop was at the Bharat tea plantation. We merely parked at the road side to snap some photos, enjoy the scenary and fresh air - no stopover to drink the tea whatsoever! ^_^

Our next stop was the Sam Poh Tong Temple at Brinchang. This temple is supposedly dedicated to the Chinese Muslim eunuch and admiral of the Chinese fleet, Zheng He (Cheng Ho), according to this website. Pictured here is Juan Or and Papa walking towards the entrance of the temple. Mommy's not in the photo because Mommy was busy trailing them from behind to snap photos.

Basically, this temple feels just like any other temple - nothing outstanding about the architecture or the ornate decoration. We didn't spend a long time at the temple, but just sufficient time to snap some photos for remembrance.

Typical scene at the temple.

Here's Juan Or getting himself comfy while waiting for Papa to come out from the washroom.

After the temple, we headed straight to the vegetable market in front of Kea's Farm - Mommy's favourite stop at Cameron Highlands simply because Mommy's loves to buy vegetables at bargain prices! Sorry, no photos were captured at the market because Mommy was too preoccupied with looking out for good bargains of vegetables! ^_^ Here's what Mommy got from the market:

Cherry tomatoes (4 packets of about 400g per packet for RM10) and strawberries (4 packets for RM10 - 1 packet is about that much that you see in the small basin).

From left to right: Shoots of a gourd plant unknown to Mommy (3 bundles for RM5), asparagus (iinitially was 3 bundles for RM10, but later the seller gave Mommy one more free bundle!), and choy tam (8 packets of about 200g each for RM5).

Our next stop after the vegetable market was a cactus farm, but Mommy has already forgotten the name of the farm. Many types of cacti were displayed for sale, even pitcher plants were offered.

The plants are the main attraction of this farm, well, at least for the adults, but for Juan Or, his main attraction at the farm would be.....

.......the kiddy rides!

There was also a small plot of strawberry plants at the back of the cactus section.

After that was time for lunch, so we decided to stop over at a popular Chinese restaurant which Papa googled in the internet before but Mommy couldn't recall the name of the restaurant. We found the restaurant but too bad Juan Or was already asleep, so we decided not to have lunch at Cameron Highlands because we did not want to wake Juan Or up from sleep and end up having a fretful and crying baby! So we went on to exit from Cameron Highlands via the Simpang Pulai way. On the way down, Mommy reminded Papa to make a stopover if he sees any Orang Asli stall, but distance after distance, we couldn't see any stall and Mommy's heart began to sink. Finally, after quite long, we spotted one stall and Papa immediately made the stopover to buy for Mommy.

Petai in 3 small bunches for RM5.  

 Six pieces of bamboo shoots for RM5 (very cheap!).

Once at the lowland, Papa decided to stop at a Chinese restaurant in Kampar for lunch. We have eaten at the restaurant before in a trip long time before Juan Or was born. Once there, again our heart sank to see the restaurant closed. So we went on down towards Bidor's direction and found many restaurants closed along the way. Finally we stopped at Bidor and was glad to find at least a Chinese restaurant open. By then it was already something like 2pm already. This was what we ate there.

Mantis shrimp cooked with salted egg yolk and sweet potato leaves in belacan.

Fish slices stir-fried with spring onion.

Papa also bought tau sar peah from the restaurant - 3 packs for RM7. This restaurant's tau sar peah has a limey taste to it.

We reached Kuala Lumpur again by around 4 or 4-plus pm, just in time before the traffic-jam started (we went on a weekday, remember?) and stopped over at Haji Samuri's satay stall at the KESAS highway to buy satay for dinner before heading back home to Puchong.

Overall, how successful did Mommy consider of this trip? Mommy would consider it a 98% success because Juan Or was able to withstand the long distance with minimal fretfulness (fretted when we stopped at Bidor in the morning), plus Juan Or did not vomit at all nor show any sign of dizziness. In fact, during the journey up, Juan Or teased Mommy by saying that he wanted to vomit, but he laughed after that, so Mommy knew he was trying to pull Mommy's legs! Since Juan Or has passed his first long distance trip test, so there will be more long distance trips for Juan Or in the future! Yippy!

Trip to Cameron Highlands (Part 1)

On 30th July 2010, both Papa and Mommy decided to take leave from work to go for outstation trip to Cameron Highlands We felt this is the best time to go to Cameron Highlands, reason being it is not a weekend nor a school holiday season, so there shouldn't be any traffic jams which Papa hates so much. This will also be Juan Or's first ever long-hour trip. Both Papa and Mommy were keeping our fingers crossed as to how much or how long Juan Or was able to withstand such 'long' hours of travelling in the car.

We set off from home at 4.30 am, went through Old Klang Road to reach Kuala Lumpur (Jln. Kuching area), then off towards Rawang direction, then went up towards Perak and headed to Cameron Highlands via Tapah. Before we reached Tapah, we stopped by at Bidor to have breakfast because we have been longing to eat chee cheong fun with prawn filliings in one morning market where locals frequent. However, Juan Or was still asleep, so Mommy tried to wake him up gently to minimize the possibility of him crying non-stop. Turned out, he cried and fretted which pissed Papa off, so we decided to cancel the plan and head straight to Tapah and then to Cameron Highlands. So Papa merely made do his breakfast with a frankfurter bun that Mommy had packed for him.

By about 8.00am, we reached Lata Iskandar - the big waterfall that Mommy had been telling Juan Or a few days before the trip and which Juan Or has been longing to see. Papa handled Juan Or all the way at the waterfall because Papa is known to be very steady in his movements (unlike Mommy who is known to be clumsy!). The moment Juan Or saw the big waterfall, he started squeeling in delight - his usual way of reacting to something that he likes very much.

We allowed him to dip his feet in the cooling waterfall water and he enjoyed the feeling very much! Well, Papa and Mommy enjoyed the dipping too!

And here's the waterfall.....

.....plus a video recording of the waterfall ambience.

Stay tuned for Part 2!