Cameron Highlands Trip - Day 2

After a night of good rest, we were be heading to quite a number of places to cover our sightseeing tour on the second day of visit. Apart from the Strawberry Farm and Tea Plantation that we are looking forward too, we are also keen to explore the Rose Valley which consists of 400 over varieties of roses in all shapes and sizes from the 'Black' rose, 'Green' rose and etc.

Breakfast was served a local restaurant 5 minutes away from the resort that we stay. According to the tour guide, this restaurant which is known as “Country Lodge Restaurant” is also owned by the owner of the resort. Breakfast menu was light and simple countryside dishes with fried bee hoon, sunny side-up egg, minced meat porridge, bread (butter and homemade strawberry jam are available for spreading) and coffee.

After breakfast, we set off to our first stop at “Rose Valley” which is a few minutes from Brinchang town. This valley is basically a beautifully landscaped rose farm with hundreds of rose varieties and you can also find some tomato, white radish, Cameron apple and etc that occupied a small portion at the far end of the farm. Entrance fee: RM$4.00

Other than the lovely roses and local vegetables you can also find some other flowering plants that bloom beautiful around the valley. Take a look at these beautiful Daisy plants, I am sure they do put on a smile on you.

Outside the Rose Valley, there are a lot of stalls selling all kind of local grown vegetables, fruits, snack and souvenir. While most of the tour mates are busying with their shopping, we stop at a stall and enjoy the steam sweet potato and tapioca which is a good enjoyment during cold weather.

Cameron Highlands Bee Farm is the second attraction on the list while waiting for the transportation to visit the BOH Tea Plantation (click HERE) up hill. EeFengGu is situated 5km from the central of Cameron Highlands. It is a must to visit when you are in Cameron and it opens from 8:00am to 7:00pm daily. Upon visiting the farm you will realise that Bees are not confined but roaming freely from flower to flower around the sanctuary to collect nectar. In this case, do not provoke the bees while touring around the sanctuary unless you wish to be sting by it :p

Lunch was at “Kea Farm Strawberry View Café Restaurant” that is located at the center of the Kea Farm market after our discovery tour from the BOH Tea Plantation. The dishes are consider as good "at sight” but rather average "in taste" and most of the dishes are “cold” when served due to the cooling weather. For this reason, the tour guide always suggests that we shall have steamboat for dinner instead of the usual 8 course meal.

Kea Farm is not just about vegetable markets, there are also various stalls selling roses, carnation, freeze dried flowers, etc. Souvenirs ranging from simple key chains to T-shirts with Cameron Highlands prints are also available at most of the stalls. And the vegetable markets in Kea Farm are no exception. The roadside vegetable markets nearer to the T-Junction are priced higher; you can check those prices but refrain from making any purchases till you explore the vegetable markets located further in. Another interesting items is the delicious looking bi-coloured sweet corns that comes in several grades; such as grade A, B, C based on the size of the sweet corns and will be priced accordingly.

After lunch, we are all excited and getting ready to explore the long waited Strawberry Farm (click HERE) which is one of our main attractions on this tour. But before entering the Strawberry Farm, we stop by at the "Time Tunnel" (click HERE) and Cactus Valley which is just beside it. This valley is the newly built tourist attraction with numerous types of cactus on show. Its hillside location makes for interesting viewing of the cactus and other plants which include Strawberries, Roses, Apple & Peach trees, Orchids, Cherry Tomatoes etc.

Other than resting at the resort while waiting for dinner time after the strawberry farm visit, we decided to take a short walk to the Brinchang Market to grab some fresh fruits and souvenirs before heading back home on the next day.

From the photo above, you can see that their coconut outer skin is toward "Black" in colour instead of the normal "Green" that we have over here. Along the roadside, we also spot a stall selling "durian" which makes us so tempted to try some.

At the fruit stall, we bought some “Pepino Melon” which is also known as “Cameron Apple” because it was planted in Cameron Highland. When we first heard about Cameron Apple, we are still looking for that “red” usual apple until we realise that actually the physical “Cameron Apple” is not what we thought of. We bought 2 of it for RM$1.00 and surprisingly it taste great with a sweet scent like honeydew taste.

Dinner was at another local steamboat restaurant known as "Restoran Highland" which is different from the previous day. The steamboat at the restaurant are served using Charcoal and traditional steamboat pot which long vessel to prevent the ashes of the charcoal from dropping into the soup.

Overall the food over at this restaurant is far much fresher and better than the one we had yesterday. Guess having steamboat on cosy weather is always a good choice and everyone of us enjoys our meal heartily with the extra local green vegetables too…..