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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Travel: Ipoh Day 2 & Cameron Highlands Day 1


Dear All,

Welcome back to the 2nd chapter of the Ipoh/Cameron Highlands travel and today is a busy day for both us where we have to travel from Ipoh to Cameron Highlands to enjoy our 2nd day trip. We had our breakfast at K10 located at Ipoh Garden East and we had Fish Ball Noodles at morning before proceeding to Cameron Highlands.

Place Of Interest: Sam Poh Tong, Ipoh


On the way to Cameron Highlands, we stopped over at Ipoh's most famous cave which is the Sam Poh Tong. The most attractive things to watch here is of course the tortoise pond which is situated inside the cave. Before you enter the cave, you will eventually need to pass by a temple where normally the devotees will have their prayers every Sunday morning. Once we stepped into the tortoise pond, we can see lots of tortoise inside the pond and I did feed them with spinach as their food as well. The pond are pretty huge while the amount of tortoise at the pond was a lot too, but it was not well maintained and it looks very old and smelly too. It's worth of visiting the pond but perhaps you can't stand long there as bad smell would chase you away!

Place Of Interest: Boh Tea Plantation, Sg. Palas, Cameron Highlands

Then we start our journey officially to Cameron Highlands via the Simpang Pulai route. It took us about 45 minutes to reach Cameron Highlands from Simpang Pulai route to Brinchang, Cameron Highlands. The road was pretty straight as it is not as winding as when you use the old Tapah route. In between, there are also double routes which allows you to overtake some slow vehicles as well. Once we reach Cameron Highlands at around 12.00pm, we immediately drive to the Boh Tea Plantation situated at Sungei Palas Tea Centre. In order to reach this place, you have to drive on a narrow road which is really dangerous because only 1 car can move on the road while another car has to stop. While we are on our way, we had to stop several times to allow the other side of the vehicles to pass by and that time there's a lot of vehicles heading up to the place and it was pretty jam too. Once we reached there, we can actually see a beautiful view of the Boh Tea Plantation. There's a Boh Tea owned restaurant located the the top where you can experience beautiful sceneries of the tea valley covered in green leaves. It was amazing and you can really relax when you go there and enjoy the fresh cool air up there. Enjoy a cup of tea while you're there and you will simply love it!

Place Of Interest: Cactus Point, Cameron Highlands


Then we checked in hotel at about 2.00pm and we stayed at the Equatorial Hotel, Cameron Highlands. After checking in the hotel, we decided to rest a while and then continue our journey at 4.00pm later. Then we head towards Cactus Point situated at Brinchang while on the way to Brinchang town. Inside this Cactus Point, you can eventually see lots of different cactus being displayed and you can take lots of photos over there as well. A recommended place for you if you love cactus. Then we continue our journey down and we reach the first ever museum in Cameron Highlands and that would be the Galleria Time Tunnel. This is the museum that features lots of antiques which was used in Cameron & Malaysia itself back in the 80's and 90's. You can also see the history of Cameron Highlands. This is a great place to discover Malaysia and Cameron Highlands and you should be here. Admission Fees is RM5.00 per person.

Place Of Interest: Galleria Time Tunnel, Cameron Highlands

Then finally we reached the Brinchang town and we continue our journey to Big Red Strawberry Farm & Cactus Valley located at Brinchang Town itself. Here you can see lots of strawberries are being planted and you can even opt to pick your own strawberries. Don't worry about the parking here because it has lots of ample parking space available. Then after that, we proceed to have our dinner over here. Of course, steamboat is still our choice here because since it's a cooling weather, why not having a pot of hot steamboat!

Place Of Interest: Big Red Strawberry Farm & Cactus Valley, Cameron Highlands

We have selected Restaurant Kwan Kee as our choice of steamboat. One thing I discovered about the steamboat over here is that you can opt to have the steamboat cooked either in gas or charcoal. So, without any hesitation, we opt for the Charcoal Steamboat and it was so special. I've also found out that by using charcoal, the steamboat ingredients cooked faster than using the gas. We ordered 2 pax of steamboat and the ingredients given were mostly fresh vegetables and there's some fresh prawns, fish, chicken and pork. We ordered Tom Yam soup as there are several choices to choose from including Herbal Soup & Chicken Soup as well. Well, the taste of the Tom Yam here are not impressive and good and it sucks big time. It's very sour and lack of spiciness as well but the food here are really fresh and nice to eat. The price meanwhile was quite expensive because they know we are tourist. They charged us RM20.00 per head and RM5.00 for 2 pax of Chinese Tea. If you have other chance, please do try other restaurants besides Kwan Kee Restaurant as there are several restaurants that served steamboat in the same row and I believe the price is pretty cheap too. This restaurant is situated the same row as KFC Brinchang and it's visible via the main road too. After the food, we proceed to the hotel to take some photos and went to bed early.

Place Of Food: Kwan Kee Restaurant, Brinchang, Cameron Highlands


Places Of Stay: Hotel Equatorial, Cameron Highlands


*For the full Day 2 Pictures, please visit my Facebook Page.

END OF DAY 2

2 comments:

Yennie Lee said...

nice and great photo u had. LIKED !! So sweet..

Alex Leow Sze Shen. said...

thanks my dear khai mui! Enjoy your day ya! :)