Leaving Cameron

After hearing the news about Lier Ba's passing, I tossed and turned the whole night. Didn't sleep well at all. Woke up at day break for my morning jog. Couldn't go for a swim. We had to checkout by 10am and catches the bus home. I brought my camera out with me. My breath turned into vapour as I ran, as I watched the sun slowly came into sight. I'm going to miss the weather here when I reached home. Fraser Hills next time maybe?

Watched Mr. Magorium's Emporium, Pirates of the Carribean and Goal! 2 on the journey back. I was inspired by Mr. Magorium. So much that I would buy a copy of the dvd to watch the show over and over again. End up we couldn't find the chilli paste that Ah Boo's mum was talking about. And I was stoned by the time we reached Beach Road. Oh well. I should plan more weekend trips.

The CLIMB!!!

Early in the morning, I woke up and quietly went for a run in the mountains. It felt so good, as it was as if I was running in the air-con with such perfect scenery. I went easy on myself so as to NOT hurt my already fragile knee. Ah Boo was already up when I was back. I changed and went swimming. Wanted to swim the day before, too bad the whole pool was filled with screaming kids. This morning, it was a different story. I was the only one in the pool. More like the only fool in the pool. The water was freezing and I had to keep on swimming from end to end to keep myself from getting hypothermia.

By the time I showered and get back to the hotel room, Ah Boo was almost ready to get going for breakfast. We chose to eat at the balcony, enjoying the cool breeze on our face. I insisted that we do the jungle walk this morning as Ah Boo had already completed her itenery yesterday. At the day-tour counter, the person told us there is a group departing for the jungle walk. We rushed upstairs to grab our stuff and came down.

After a short bus-ride, we arrived at the highest point of Cameron Highlands, 6,666m above sea-level. We climbed up a tower and had to quickly take some pictures and come down. There was a whole bunch of people waiting to climb up and down the tower. With rowdy teenagers and rude people, we were forced to cut short our time spent at the top of the tower. Then it was the BOH tea plantation again. This time, we skipped the factory and went straight into the shopping area. We bought post-cards and wrote on each other's card. Keeping the content secret, we said we would post it at the hotel lobby after the half-day tour.

Along the way out, the tour guide stopped and let us take photo. The Caucasian couple certainly took plenty. They were a long way from home. As for me, I always wanted to pluck tea leaves. So I pretended to be one. Alas! Was too fat. Probably won't qualify unless I shed some fats!! I became the unofficial photographer for the group. Suddenly I was boosting that I was a art director. Hahaha! And this prompted one of the tour-mates to ask Ah Boo about my job. Guess the photo I took for them were impressive!! Now, I should seriously consider buying a higher-end camera. We were on the bus for less than three minutes before the guide made another stop.

Apparently, we had reached the path that will take us into the jungle. And this is the jungle walk that I walked to take. With the rain coming down like almost daily every afternoon, the ground was soggy in the jungle and we had to literally climbed our way in. Ah Boo said we just became monkeys. Our shoes were covered with mud. I had to fold up my jeans some more and I realised wearing boot cut was a huge mistake here. Our trip inside the jungle was cut short due to the soggy grounds.

Then we requested the driver to drop us at a place (hahaha...I can't remember the name of the place) where it sold a lot of farming stuff, souvenirs. I bought three pots and three turtles for the cacti I bought yesterday. Well, if they don't survive under my care, at least I have the turtles to look at after that. With plenty of time to burn, and with the rain coming down on us, we spend about two hours walking around the place. As the rain became lighter, we decided to walk back to our hotel. One of the salesgirl there told us it will take about 30minutes for us to walk back to the hotel. Why not? Good exercise.

Forgetting that we are walking up the slopes, along the highway, we embarked on our journey back to the hotel. Along the way, the rain started to pour. Finding another farm, we ran towards shelter and I bought food. Good thing I was wearing red today. As we walked up along the way, we found traffic slowing down for us since we were afterall, walking on the highway. The people running a durian stall by the roadside must be thinking, "Are these two girls crazy?"

Seeing all the traffic, Ah Boo dared not walk in front and it make sense that I, wearing RED, walked in front. Along the way, she kept screaming, "There is BUS!" To which, I responded with, "YES, I KNOW!!" Slowly but surely, we walked up and were totally exhausted when we finally reached our hotel room. And I got to shower first, being the one who hated wet bathrooms. When I came out of the bathroom, fog had came in. Thank God we arrived back in time. Wouldn't want to be caught walking in the fog. The magnitude of the danger only hit me at this time.

We stayed in the hotel room, waiting for the fog to life. In the meantime, we started packing our luggage. Can't believe we are actually going home tomorrow morning. After the fog has finally cleared, we took a cab down to the main town in Cameron for dinner. Ah Boo was still searching for organic steamboat restaurant she read in U-Weekly. Walking behind some back alleys, we finally found the restaurant. Since we already had steamboat last night, we chose to eat the Tze Char there. Which turned out to be superb and cheap!!

Night Bus to Cameron Highlands

Finally... on the way to Cameron with Ah Boo. We planned this trip for so long, and I almost thought it won't materialised. But it did. Slept for a bit on the way there. But when the uphill ride starts, both of us were tossed and turned like pasta in a bowl. We gave up on sleeping and focus on trying to NOT get car-sick. Ah Boo took her motion-sickness pill and tried to rest. I tried in vain to get back to sleep. I was feeling cold, even in my jeans! When we finally reached our destination, we went for breakfast. I only drank Milo as I think I would throw out whatever I take now. I still felt sick, even after resting and walking around the area. When I finally fall asleep in the bus, some woman from a local day-tour came on and started a speech. But her speech was so long and dry that it made me sound asleep again.

After resting for about two hours in our hotel room, we took a cab down to Tanah Rata. Ah Boo has done her research and she wanted to try the scones at T-Cafe. We ordered a banana cake (yes, that black coloured thing is a cake), apple-pie and scones to share. I had fruit salad and mushroom soup, while Ah Boo chose French onion soup and tofu burger. We both preferred our desserts to the main. Ah Boo worried non-stop about me getting hungry with so little food. Hahaha! Am used to it!!

Our half-day tour took us to the Rose Garden, which took us to one of the highest point in the highlands. Though the climb was tough, the effort was worth it! The scenery was superb. Ah Boo said she can feel her feet trembling. The sunflowers there were abundant and pretty. My favourite flower!! I got Ah Boo to take a photo for me and she said it's a weird angle to take photo. But this turned out to be one of my favourite picture!! Up next, we ventured towards BOH tea plantation.

It was acres and acres of tea plants, as the plantation workers harvest the tea leaves at different level of the mountains everyday. Their wages is count by the amount of leaves they plucked per day. It was a self-sufficient community with mosque, Indian temple, Chinese temple and church inside the plantation. There is also a school for the kids and basically, the people who worked here need not leave the mountains. Whoa!! Probably the kind of lifestyle I should have now...at least for a while. Anyway, we took a tour in the tea leaves processing factory and we bought lots of tea back. Though I could only drink de-caf now.

Then it was a visit to a Bee Farm where I almost bought honey. Once again, we have to navigate the small paths and steep stairs that took us up and down the hills. It was a workout that was found lacking in my life for quite some time. Though tired, I felt shiok. Initially, we were afraid of bees attack, but our fears were unfounded. I was actually very tempted to buy some honey back, but I managed to curb the urge to spend money everywhere and thought I should save some money to buy some chilli Ah Boo was talking about home.

After that, we make our way to a Time Tunnel of Cameron Highlands. Ah boo said the things displayed there that would touched my heart most would be the memorabilia of Malaysia Cup and the camera that shoot on film. Actually, the things that connected with me was the old provision shop that had the dried goods, rices and stuff packed in big, brown paper bags, especially the pulley system where they kept the money in tin cans. Mum always said this was how people used to run provision shops. All the shop owners knew their customers very well.

After a great workout, we had steamboat for dinner. We were so hungry that we forgot to take photo of the huge feast we had. And it was CHEAP!! Hahaha!! And we took a shuttle service back to our hotel. Ah Boo said she got this info from the spill of speech by the woman this morning. But I have no recollection of it whatsoever!

Conquering the Kent Ridge Park

Woke up this Sunday morning, fresh and awake. Made up my mind to conquer the Southern Ridges. Though I would like to leave earlier, just couldn't wake up that early. It took quite a while for me to convince Mum that I was going for just a walk. Alone! Sigh!The winding road to Kent Ridge Park was a challenge to me. Have never attempt to drive at such winding road before. But the feeling of seeing the body of water near the peak of the hill is worth it. I could see Keppel Shipyard from here!

Saw a spider spanning it's web. Didn't realise that it could be this big. Time for this city girl to get in touch with nature. Sunday morning is the time for families outing. All those who were here came from Mount Faber. Guess they all wanted to explore the Southern Ridges. Intsead of going straight for HortPark, I went searching for the area where, according to the National Park Board website, is a site for fishes and turtles. And yes, I still want to go and see turtles lay eggs in Malaysia. My obsession with turtles came into full bloom when I saw the turtle surface for air in Kusu Island. But I couldn't find the pond which the website wrote about.

Walking along, I came to this track that brought back Melbourne Memories. It certainly resembled the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, except the weather. Perhaps next time, I should go there earlier. Maybe I shouldn't strap up my left knee either. It turned out to be redundant as this route, I think, should be graded easy. Arriving at the entrance of the canopy walk, I was glad that I need not walk 4km before reaching there. This was turning out to be a walk in the park. Easy!! Probably a bit too easy.

The view from the bridge wasn't that fantastic though. Maybe you take some, you lose some. Walking in, I passby some people, most probably businessmen, talking. They were so loud that they disturbed the natural surroundings. Not that the kids weren't noisy. But they were extremely loud, comparing their work and talking shop. Please! Leave your work behind, can't you just enjoy the nature for a couple of hours? Overtaking them, I came across a directory that had "Reflections at Bukit Chandu".

This place turned out to be a museum. Undecided whether I should visit this place or not, I just wondered into the garden of the place. There were a lot of people taking a breather there. How come we never had this sort of outing when we were younger? Dad could have given us plenty of history lessons. Since my main purpose was to visit HortPark, I decided to give this place a miss and put it in my "To Visit" list. The list is getting longer. Good or bad??

Later, I noticed an uncle concentrating on taking a photo near a bench. Quietly, I walked over and realised that he was trying to captured the picture of a bird. Was quite a pretty bird, and it became the two of us trying to snap some good photographs of the bird. Then more and more people joined us, which prompted me to just walked away. The bird will probably fly away soon. Exiting Reflections at Bukit Chandu, I came into the carpark and thought the route to HortPark is probably down the road. But after walking for five minutes, it doesn't seems right. So I went back to the road sign and reconsider my options. Then I realised, I had to walk down a winding slope before I would reach HortPark. The thought of walking back up has already begun to haunt me. But HortPark was the destination, so I marched on.

The Greenhouses came into view first. A lot of people were trying to get into them. But I doubt so they can do that. As the frequent opening and closing of the doors will affect the temperature in the greenhouses which will in turn affect the growth of the plants inside. There are certainly a lot of pretty flowers inside. There are showrooms on how to incoporate greenery into one's home, be it HDB flats or private houses. With the swarms of people coming in and out of the showroom, I decided to give the showrooms a miss and proceed to the numerous themed landscaped gardens instead.

Among the many themes, the spice garden is my favourite. Though, it turned out that this was NOT one of the theme. It's a corner to showcase some of the spices growth in Asia. But I thought, it can be a theme garden. Just grow them in your garden, make it into Spice Garden. Maybe one day I can do that, and do a Jamie Oliver! Hahah!

Strolling around, the sun soon rose to a height that the heat was no longer bearable for me. So I turned back and took another route back. There were more and more peole coming through, and kids were happily chasing one another at the playground. I wondered into this patch of garden that where there were sunflowers (my favourite) and many tiny yellow colour flowers that I like. The winding route up turned out to be not much of a challenge, and I was already starting the make plans for my second visit.