My friends wanted to go Cameron Highlands in Malaysia for the Christmas period and I decide to tag along. Unfortunately, they made the decision quite late and are not able to get any transport to Cameron Highlands from Singapore. They all sold out when we enquired about it about 2 weeks before Christmas. There are also no answers from the hotels that we asked about. If they did, it's to tell us they have no rooms.

They decided to just go Johor Bahru the week before and see if we book get any coach from there. The hotel we can hunt for it when we arrive at Cameron Highlands.

[IMAGE: Tapah bus ticket]

We did managed to get coach tickets, but it's not to Cameron, but Tapah. Cost us RM$60 each. Tapah is about 2 hours away from Cameron. We can get a taxi or bus ride from there. Pretty exciting plans I must say. And we have not settle the trip back. Elaine wanted to get back on the 26th, but Sharon, Sotong and TH wanted to come back 1 day later. I will accompany Elaine back on the 26th since she is scared of traveling alone. :P That and also I have to settle some work stuff ASAP.

[IMAGE: Kranji MRT]

The coach leaves JB at about 9:30 am on the 24th. We decided to meet at Kranji MRT at 5:40 am. That's the 1st train from Ang Mo Kio. The 1st train from Jurong East is about 10 minutes earlier. Unfortunately, the 1st train from Bouna Vista to Jurong East is 6:10 am, reaching Kranji about 25 minutes later, which is too late.

So I packed my stuff to my sister's place at Yew Tee the night before. I reached home at 11:40pm on the 23rd. hurriedly packed my stuff and rush to the MRT station. I need to take the train by 12:05 in order to catch the last train to Yew Tee from Jurong Est. In my haste to get to my sister's place, I forgot to bring sandals along. And instead of wearing track shoes, I wore leather shoes. Grr. And I left my hand phone charger in my sister's place when I left the next morning. Talk about having a bad start to a holiday. At least I am not late this time. I met Elaine on the train and we were 10 minutes early. Sotong and Sharon are about on time, with TH being the only 1 late. By 10 minutes. But that's because I smsed him earlier to ask him to bring for me a pair of slippers. :P

Since we are this early, we managed to clear the customs pretty quick. There's a bit of jam on the bus ride to both customs, but the queue at the customs is not that long. We went to this coffee shop and have our wanton noodle breakfast. Except for TH who said he wanted to have prata instead. So after we had finished our noodles, we went to the prata shop to for a second round.

[IMAGE: Wait at tour agency]

By the time we finished our breakfast, it's still only 8+am. The shopping center is not opened yet, so we went to the tour agency where we booked our tickets and wait.

[IMAGE: Toilet Graffiti]

The toilet near the tour agency has quite a number of graffiti. :P And some of it are of gay theme. Hmm... I thought gay is a definite no-no in Muslim countries?

[IMAGE: On the bus]

Sharon is very nice and kind to gives us a star shaped cushion each as Christmas presents. The blue dino in the picture has been her companion to a lot of places. The Tigger is Sotong's Christmas from her brother. I have brought my Spotty along. :P

[IMAGE: Rabbit Satay]

It's a long journey to Tapah. There's quite a number of stops along the way. Almost 1 every hour. We reached there at 5pm. At 1 of the stops, 2nd I think, I saw this board at the stall. They've got a lot of kinds of Satay there. And under the special (istimewa) Satay section, the last item, it's the rabbit Satay. Sounds yummy. I like rabbit meat. *slurp*

[IMAGE: Tapah bus station]

We wanted to take a taxi from there to Cameron Highlands. It cost RM$70, and they take only 4 persons per taxi. There are 5 of us. 2 taxis seem to be too expensive, so we took the public bus, which is only RM$6. The seats are lousy.

[IMAGE: Waiting for bus at KFC]

We've got 1 hour before the bus leaves, so we goes KFC for some snacks.

[IMAGE: Cameron bus ticket]

The bus to Tanah Ratah, the Cameron Highlands town where our hotel is, takes more than 2 hours. We reached Cameron Highlands at about 8pm.

[IMAGE: View from Tapah bus]

The bus is quite lousy. No aircon, but that’s not really that important as it gets cold as we goes higher up the mountain. The seats are really uncomfortable though.

There's a tour agency at the bus station. We booked a 1/2 day tour (RM$20 each) from there and the return bus ticket as well. They do not have bus to Singapore, so we bought the ticket to KL. The guy, he looks like he's the boss, told us there are seats available on the 26th 12am for me and Elaine. And on the 27th, it's at 9:30am. Unfortunately, the tickets for the buses are in other offices which are locked and he says he doesn't have the key and that he'll bring us the tickets the next morning when we go for our 1/2 day tour. The boss doesn't have the keys to his office. Hmm...

[IMAGE: Steamboat dinner]

Anyway, the guy offered us a ride to our hotel, but he's busy working at the moment, and we have not eaten our dinner yet and it's about 9 already, so he brings us to a steam boat restaurant nearby for dinner. The items are mostly yong tau hu stuffs with little meat, and it's fixed quantity. Luckily there are not many heavy eaters among us and the quantity is enough to fill all our stomachs. Elaine, Sharon, TH and me shared 3 bottles of beer with me drinking the most. :P

[IMAGE: Hotel]

This is our hotel. It's not really a hotel, more like a guesthouse. In fact, it's a retirement home. Looking at the 3rd storey, you can see the name, KRS Pines Retirement Home.

[IMAGE: KRS Pines collage]

We actually looked for Twin Pines Guest House, but they are fully booked. And they refer us to their sister company, the retirement home. We've got 2 rooms. Me and TH share a room, while the 3 girls share another. The girls room is actually 1 room with 3 beds in it, not those kind where they add a temporary bed to the room. There's no TV in the room, just 1 at the reception, and it's got Astro. There's no balcony in the rooms, but there's 1 for every floor. There's a bath room in the rooms and hot water for bathing. Overall, it's a good enough place to stay in. There are still a number of rooms left.

[IMAGE: Christmas Tree]

They also have an interesting Christmas tree at the reception counter.

[IMAGE: Lift]

They have an interesting lift. There's a lift door on each floor, but there's no door on the lift itself. So if u sticks your fingers everywhere, you can get it stuck between the lift and the wall.

[IMAGE: Gift exchange]

we have a gift exchange that night. The biggest present is from Elaine. My present is not wrapped, so I reused Sharon's wrapping for the star cushions. : P


We played a dice game that night until quite late. I supposed we made quite a lot of noise. I wonder if those Indian other fellows staying in the same floor are complaining. : P

[IMAGE: View from balcony]

Woke up early the next morning. The 1/2 day tour starts at 8:45am.

[IMAGE: City view]

what the city looks like during the day.

[IMAGE: Twin Pines]

the coach is supposed to come pick us up at the hotel for the 1/2 day tour. But the road to our hotel is quite bad and the tour bus can't go there. So we walked about 100m out to this place to wait for the bus.

[IMAGE: Smart Reader Appointed Center]

Saw this building on the way to Twin Pines. Smart Reader Appointed Center. Hmm.. Wonder what it's for.

[IMAGE: Temple]

The 1st attraction that we goes to is a temple. It's a temple like other temples in the region. It's certainly not the grandest or nicest. It's just a temple. Since this is an Asian country, I guess they tour agency feels they have to bring us to a temple. Even the guide is not too interested in this temple. We stayed here for only 20 minutes. Just to take some pictures.

[IMAGE: Cactus Valley]

The next stop is at the Cactus Valley. They have a lot of cactuses and flowers and fruit plants.

[IMAGE: Flowers]

They have so much flowers in there that I lost count which is which.

[IMAGE: Cactuses]

Cactus of various shapes and sizes can be seen there.

[IMAGE: Pond]

Elaine and I were busy looking at the flowers and taking pictures that for a moment, we lost the others. They had gone ahead without us.

[IMAGE: Wind vane]

I asked Elaine the term for this thing in Mandarin, and she told me 风车 (windmill) ...

[IMAGE: More Cactus]

More cactus. There are just so many of them.

[IMAGE: Souvenirs]

This dice soft toy keychain has lovey messages on all sides except for 1 side that say "My friend". Ouch.

[IMAGE: Big flower]

This flower is pretty big. Either that or Elaine has small hands. It looks like Hibiscus to me, but I am not sure. There's no labels.

[IMAGE: Small flower]

Nice colours this flower have. Maybe Elaine's hand is not that small after all...

[IMAGE: Apple?]

Some fruits. I think it's an apple. Can't remember exactly...

[IMAGE: Tomato]

At first I was puzzled about this tomato tree. I thought tomatoes do not grow on trees. On closer look, I realize that there's a rope running from the ground to the top and the tomato plants are coiled around it.

[IMAGE: Ipoh apple]

The yellow-colour-with-black-strips fruit is the Ipoh apple. Doesn't look like an apple to me. Tastes like a mixture of starfruit, apple and honeydew.

There are a lot of things to see here. We spent about an hour at this place. The longest we spent in a place.

[IMAGE: Strawberry farm]

The 3rd place that we visited is the strawberry farm. There's nothing much to be seen here, just strawberry plants, which we have seen in the Cactus Valley as well.

[IMAGE: Yummy strawberry products]

The strawberry ice-cream is yummy. The milkshake is not bad, a bit sour though. The jam is nice as well.

[IMAGE: Among the strawberries]

The sections where we were allowed to go to are where the strawberries are not ripe. So that we can't pluck them to eat.

[IMAGE: Me and Sharon]

The main reason for being here is to eat the ice cream and buy the jam. We spent slightly less than 30 minutes at this place.

[IMAGE: Boh tea plantation]

The next place is the Boh tea plantation. According to the tour guide, a tea plant can be productive for 120 years. This plantation is 70+ yrs old. In recent times, not so many locals want to work in the tea plantation anymore. So, most of the workers are foreign talents. Wonder what this part of Cameron Highlands will look like 40 years later.

[IMAGE: Bus]

This is our bus. :)

[IMAGE: On the bus]

That about concludes the interesting part of the tour. What's left is a honey farm and market place. There's actually an insect farm that we visited before Boh. But we did not go in as there is an admission fee, and we feel that we have seen the insects in Sentosa. So we bump around in the souvenir shop outside.

[IMAGE: Honey farm]

Nothing much here. We go there listen to the pp introduce the farm a bit, then drink 1 free shot of honey water. It's raining at that time, so we did not go explore the place.

[IMAGE: Act cute TH]

It's drizzling, and TH wrapped his windbreaker over his head.

[IMAGE: Marketplace]

It was raining quite heavily, and there's no shelter for the customers in this stupid market, so we did not walk around much in this place. But from what we had seen from the outside, it's not interesting at all.

[IMAGE: Tour guide]

Having mentioned him a few times, this is what he looks like. With that, the 1/2 day tour ended.

[IMAGE: Lunch]

We had our lunch at a public listed restaurant in Cameron Highlands! Haha! Anyway, the food is lousy and takes a long time to arrive. What’s worse is that I ordered additional items, and they never record it. Despite the waitress coming back to me for confirmation after I made the order.

[IMAGE: Chio bu?]

I took these 2 pictures during lunch. I thought they look quite nice. The pictures I mean. :P

[IMAGE: The T Cafe]

Sharon has been looking for this place. She wanted to have the scones for breakfast.

[IMAGE: Signs]

And this is what we see when we reached.

[IMAGE: More hotel pic]

It's back to the hotel to laze around a bit before coming out for dinner. We played mahjong cards while Sharon says she's sick and sleeps the afternoon away. We play 1 fan RM$0.10, with a max of 5 fan. Very friendly rates. I won RM$6.

[IMAGE: Dinner]

For dinner, we walk around town and came to this bistro restaurant. I ordered steak. Looking at the setup, I did not bother asking for medium rare, nor did they ask me. The food is ok. After finishing our food, we played 3 games of pool. Me + Elaine vs. TH + Sharon. My team wins 3-0. :)

We had a walk around the town before going back to the hotel. Most of the shops are closed as it's almost 11. We found a night market, but none of the stuff on sale interests us.

It's more games at the hotel after that. Elaine went to sleep at about 12. The rest of us played mahjong cards again. Quite an exciting game. From the 1st game, I keep losing. Then I win a moderately big 1 which brings me near to break even, and then I keep losing again. Then I win another moderately big 1, which brings me to near break even point again. Then it's back to the losing streak. Finally, at the 3rd last game, I win a big 1 and become positive. Ended the game winning RM$0.80. TH is the only loser. He wins much more games than me, but they are all small ones. Lucky me.

[IMAGE: Breakfast]

We went to a prata shop for breakfast. Sotong had mee goreng while the rest had nund. I ordered beehoon goreng. But they serve it very late, so I packed it and bring to eat on the bus.

[IMAGE: Going home]

Going home soon. Actually it's only to KL. We still have to find our way back from there.

[IMAGE: KL Bus ticket]

This is our ticket after it's torn by the conductor.

The ride is very long. And the seats are quite bad. As bad as the bus from Tapah to Tanah Rata. But that's only for 2 hours. This time it's for 6 hours. There are a few stops along the way, but I did not alight the bus, though Elaine did a few times. We played Jim Rummy (is that the right spelling) mostly on the bus if we are not sleeping.

[IMAGE: Johor bus ticket]

We reached KL at 3pm. We managed to get coach tickets to Johor, Larkin, after going to a number of agencies. The lady told us the timing is 3:30. I have a hurried lunch at the shop beside the agency. And left my Timberland jacket behind. :(

When we went back to the agency, it's more waiting and there are no seats. I should have eaten slowly. After a long time, we were lead to the bus, except that the bus is not there. It's more standing waiting again.

[IMAGE: 5pm]

When we finally board the bus at about 4pm, it still doesn't leave. Not until 5pm.

It’s another 4 hours bus ride to Larkin. At least the seats are better. But it's still a 40 seater. Cost us RM$30. Later I heard from Sharon that they got those 3026 seater coach straight back to Singapore. It cost tem only RM$35. Oh well. There are much more people going back on the 26th as it's the last day of holiday.

After reaching Larkin, which is after 10pm already, we took bus 170 to the customs. Cleared it pretty fast. Again, there's a bad jam for the cars. But the bus is fast.

By the time I reached Kranji MRT, I realize there will be no more connecting train to Bouna Vista. So I decided to alight at Bukit Gombak with Elaine and have my dinner there. It was about 11:30pm. Turned out I remember the last train timing wrong. Elaine heard the announcement for the last train to Jurong East for the connecting train to Pasir Ris. Anyway, we go ahead to have our dinner.

It's a long day and feels like a short holiday. Out of 3 days, 2 are spent traveling. But no matter what activity we are doing, the people we do with are always more important. So I can still say it's a fun trip. :)

[IMAGE: What I missed]

This final collage is what Sharon, Sotong and TH do after me and Elaine left. Apparently they found a small waterfall, went to a neighboring town, took a 31 and 1/2 hour hike back and had beer and games in the hotel.


More accounts of this trip at:
TH: Days 1 and 2
TH: Days 3 and 4
Elaine Day 1
Elaine Day 2