A friend wanted to clear leave and suggested a trip to various parts of Malaysia.
So off we go.
First stop Kuala Lumpur (KL).
Booked a S$20 bus ride from Golden Mile complex from Starmart company. The bus dropped us off at Berjaya Times Square in KL City. The bus was suprisingly spacious and comfortable for S$20 bucks.
Spent two days in KL, was pretty boring actually, managed to watch Captain America Civil War at Mid Valley to pass time. Food was the usual stalls near the hotel at Petaling Street. The chee cheong fan was pretty disappointing. I realised most of the stalls at Chee Cheong Gai was pretty below par standard. As we didn't have a car we had no choice but to eat near our hotel. We did make use of Uber rides everywhere we go though.
We still managed some good food though.
From KL, we made our way to Ipoh.
We had to book a ticket from :
Terminal Bersepadu Selatan at Bandar Tasik Selatan (TBS-BTS)
As this was the labour day long weekend, the crowd was ridiculous. We managed to get tickets after some "amazing race" moments. The earliest was at 2:30pm so we had no choice but to take it, we had reached earlier at around 11:30am.
Sure enough, the journey to Ipoh took longer than usual.
The usual was 3 hours, we took 4.5 hours.
We took an Uber ride from the Sri Maju station to our hotel.
We reached Ipoh at night and set off for dinner immediately!
We had the traditional bean sprout chicken (牙菜鸡). The bean sprouts were good but the chicken rice we had in KL was better. After dinner we walked around looking for Heong Piah. We found the locally recommended one at Yee Hup shop. Pretty good tasting I must say.
We only stayed a night at Ipoh.
Early next morning, we left for Cameron Highlands.
As we couldn't get the first bus up, we had to take the 11:30am bus.
The bus terminal was at Amanjaya, Ipoh.
As mentioned before, it was the Labour day long weekend, little did we know how long it will take us to reach Cameron Highlands.
The moment we reached the foothills of Cameron Highlands, the jam started. It was an exhausting ride up as the air conditioning was not cold enough. Plus I was seating on a dirty seat, not much maintenance on these workhorse buses.
It took us 5 over hours to reach Brinchang town, man, it was tiring.
I felt relieve the moment I stepped off the bus. Luckily, we reached at around 5pm plus and it was cooling. We checked in to our hotel, the only one I managed to book before setting off from Singapore. Upon check in, we were given a free dinner steamboat coupon, this was the first time I have ever heard of a dinner inclusive stay in a hotel. We were tired and hungry after the long ride up so we hit the steamboat immediately after dropping our bags.
Did I say the weather was cooling?
After steamboat, we went to the night bazaar(pasar Malam). Bought some strawberries, oranges, jam, fruits and stuff. The night bazaar only takes place on Fridays and Saturdays and Public Holidays.
The Next 2 days we explored around the Highlands on foot and taxi. No Uber here.
We went to Sungei Palas BOH plantation, strawberry farms, flower farms, Lavender Garden, I even managed to pick some wild orchids from the roadside.
The weather here was great for me, cooling, fresh air and full of nature.
The Chinese food here was great. Lots of restaurants to choose from. The shops close quite late for such a remote place, around 9-10pm. The only thing I did not like was, on a whole, Cameron Highlands is getting more and more built up with Condos and malls. 3 years ago when I was last here, there was no shopping mall, now there is one, the number of apartments have increase two folds as well. I just hope the local authorities will control the over commercialising of such a rare place. It's not everyday you get to find a place in Malaysia where the mean temperature is below 24 degrees in the day, outdoors.
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