Camerons Highlands Pt. 2

I was supposed to start this post about 5 minutes ago but Perfect played on Spotify and I realised that it is quite difficult to sing at the top of your lungs while trying to type a post.

Trying so hard to clear this blog post because if I don't I'm gonna feel guilty about it.. So here we go.

JAN 07

SY literally jumped out of bed around 6am with a panicked "Belle ah.." because we were supposed to wake up about 30 minutes before that. SY had planned for a sunrise tour with us, and our ride was going to pick us up at 6.15AM. 

So we actually planned to go down at 6AM.. But oh well. Shit happens, HAHA. 

I wanted to tell SY to screw it and go back to bed because I didn't want to leave the warmth of my blankets, but I'm glad I didn't! The experience was fabulous!

We reached the lobby at 6.14AM and this jeep just rolled by.

 “那个是我们的车啊?”

“不是啦！我们叫的是 van!”

*driver steps out*

"Hi are you Ms Chiew?"

At the peak of Mt. Brinchang, with only the moonlight to light our paths. It was so cold!

I really love this shot! It was a group of Europeans who were on tour with us, and the girl on the left wasn't even their friend, in fact they were all strangers, but they started to befriend each other on this short tour and it was so beautiful to see. The asians on the other hand.. Sigh. 

Thanks SY for this! She's getting the hang of shooting manual on a DSLR ;)

Thank you God for creating such a wonderful sight.

Basking in the warm glow of the fresh morning sun.

We took SO MANY selfies because we bought a selfie stick specially for this trip HAHA.

Hopped back on the jeep to our next destination.

We were supposed to walk the Mossy Forest trail, but it was closed for developments, so our guides took us to a different trek. A jungle trek. With no boardwalk. Which is something I actually love. If I wasn't wearing my Stan Smiths.

I WAS HORRIFIED because I literally washed it just few days back! Scrubbed it clean, soaked my laces, the whole deal! I'm still quite traumatised, HAHA, but it was all good. The trek was very fun, with loads of climbing around.

The guide explaining how much Cameron Highlands have changed, and how the mountains aren't what they used to be, that the weather was a lot nicer, but with so many recent developments, even the natives don't exist anymore. He was born and raised on the mountains and when he spoke, you could really see the sadness in his eyes.

The trek back down was a lot faster, but a whole lot more slippery as well. There was this part where we had to walk across intertwined roots dangling above a pit of mud, and I lost my footing there! I was grasping at the branches nearby to no avail T_T But I finally managed to steady myself without plunging right through, and I guess it must have been pretty funny because SY couldn't stop laughing. THANKS AH. LOL.

Damage done. The shoe on the left dug right into a pile of mud. MY HEART.

SY, being the sweetest person ever, decided to clean the mud off my shoes for me. The guide commented that I really love my shoes, and SY said "and I love her". AWW. Sorry SY I had to write this down in case I grow old and forget about this very sweet moment hehe.

Driving to Boh's tea plantation!

Ngl, I wasn't very interested in looking at, or learning about tea leaves, I only wanted to drink them, but it was a very pretty place!

This was our cameron highlands set up:

1. Selfie stick + SY's iPhone + Fisheye I got from bangkok years back. 

2. OOWA wide angle 15mm lens + my iPhone

3. DSLR with 50mm prime lens

Pretty comprehensive for poor people who have no money for professional equipment, HAHA.

*insert some witty comment about chickens crossing the road*

At the factory where they grinded the leaves into drinkable stuffs. This part was pretty interesting!

At the Boh Tea Cafe (or something like that, I don't remember what the name was). The food was pretty bad but I was so hungry it didn't matter.

We were in a bit of rush because we had about 30 minutes to eat and to walk around the tea shop.

But that didn't stop us from taking a moment to enjoy the view though, although SY has been here before, but it was completely new to me!

And then things got a little bit tense between us because I was rushing the both of us to go back to the meet-up point even though we did kinda have time, and I wasn't very nice about it. Sorry :(

Driver then drove all of us back to our hotels, but we requested to be dropped off at Tanah Rata, where we were supposed to have lunch. 

Once again, major props to SY for planning this trip because everything was SO relaxed! The cafe she brought us to used to be a military barrack built by the British during World War II. The best part of it in my opinion was the beautiful garden though. 

We were there at 12PM, our spa appointment was at 3PM, so we really took our time with the food.

My carbonara.

SY's lamb chop.

Took this picture while explaining the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed to SY. Thanks for being such a patient and willing audience!

Flagged a cab down to Cameron Highlands Resort for our spaaaaaaaa! We were a bit early, so we stopped by the fish pond and teased the fishes with some bread crumbs. It was so funny to us for some reason, HAHA, I love how we can entertain ourselves over such small things.

Filling up forms while sipping on tea. We were treated like royalty there, service is definitely 10/10!

We started off with a warm mint tea bath with sugar and lime scrub, tea leaves for our face, and tea bags for our eyes. And honey lemon. They even had headphones with calming music just by your side. I wish I could enjoy baths like this every week.

Taken to some resting place while they prepared our body scrub + massage room. We were already completely nua-ed at this point. The little black dots on SY's face are remnants of the tea leaves facial scrub!

The body scrub and massage was SO comfortable that I fell asleep throughout the massage HAHA. When they told us our treatment was complete, I was like wait what? 

Happy pampered girls.

Still in a daze. Tea again!

Enjoying the breeze on a stone bench right outside the spa village.

We were supposed to have dinner at their famous night market. It was apparently only a short distance away, so we decided to walk there.

Haven't seen letterboxes like this in a long while.

We kept walking.. and walking.. and walking.. But we couldn't find any tents at all, and we were starting to wonder if we were on the right path.

Then we looked around us. And realised the road was littered with styrofoam meal boxes. And strips of blue tarp. And trampled food.

Apparently the night market wasn't opened that day :(

It also started to drizzle, and we tried our best to keep our spirits up, but it really wasn't that easy, especially when we didn't know where else to go. 

We googled for places to eat at Tanah Rata, and I think SY was feeling a little pressurised because she wanted so hard to make me happy, because she wanted this to be "my" trip. But I was happy just to be on the trip itself. Thank you for your efforts girl. 

We almost quarrelled again over our dinner place because she just wanted to find the best restaurant for me, and I didn't realise it at that point. We were soooo silly, but it was a really good experience for the both of us I think. 

Dinner at the Mayflower!

It was stil drizzling when we were done. Tried to find stalls selling strawberries (since cameron highlands was famed for it) but we couldn't find ANY. Took us really long to find a cab as well. 

When we finally got one, we realised it was a chinese driver, which is rare on the mountains! According to him, there are only 2 chinese drivers there. He charged us really high to go back to our hotel, but when we told him that we were looking for strawberries, he actually drove us to fruit stalls and even picked the best box for us! The first shop we went had old strawberries that has been there for 1-2 weeks, so he drove us to another one.

So I guess paying him so much money was really worth the service. Thank you uncle!

Went back to our hotel and we did our packing, showered, devotions, and then we settled back in bed to watch My Friends From Afar on Toggle. HAHA. I know, we were so lame. But we started watching the first episode together, might as well end it together too.

We were so reluctant to sleep because that would mean that our holiday was over. But the day's fatigue overwhelmed us quickly.

JAN 08

We woke up early the next day because we wanted to catch the sunrise again, but from our hotel. It was a bittersweet moment, I was really sad to have to say goodbye to a place where I was SO HAPPY in.

Look at her acting cool, LOL.

Breakfast in the hotel!

Went back up to take a nap (we took so many naps, this is what holidays should be made of!) while waiting for our coach to arrive at 10AM.

We were so lazy that we only left the hotel room at 9.55AM? HAHA.

Goodbye room :(

The coach ride took 11.5 hours to reach beach road...... It was so long because there were so many pickups and drop offs, and we were held up at Singapore's immigration for some reason. It got pretty frustrating at the end, but I'm glad that I have SY's companion. I remember the last time I was on a long bus ride, I was traveling from Berlin to Cologne, and it was a torturous 13 hours ride alone.

At KL, sent SL this photo because she was also in KL.

 

Ayam penyet at Tanjung Malim. Wa it's very nice eh. Maybe I was just hungry tho.

Our last box of strawberries. Should've bought more.

Half dead at Ayer Hitam.

We slept so much during the trip, it was a wonder that I was still able to sleep that night. 

All in all, this was a really relaxing trip and I'm so happy that to have finally visited Cameron Highlands! Thank you for your efforts in planning this trip all by yourself, and for all your careful considerations that you've made. To more trips to come yeah? ;)