Camlands Cheer I: BearBack

Precarious
Swiped from williamnyk.

Hi everyone, I'm back from Cameron Highlands (or Camlands as Janvier puts it)! Quite an enjoyable trip as the pace was just right and most importantly, the company was enjoyable. To avoid the holiday rush, we went up the hill on Thursday and down the hill on Saturday. In the morning, Pikey, Bear and SK came to pick me up from my home. As SK had veto-ed the front seat for herself (a good thing also, as the driver may be too distracted!), Bear sat in the backseat with me. An adorable kid. Pai-seh2 and giggles a lot. Every now and then, Pikey would look over his shoulder to check up on Bear (takut I gigit BF dia) and they would smile sloppily at each other. If the roads up to Cameron don't make you hurl, that would. :P.

Lunch was at a restaurant near Tringkap. Ordered some pork ribs, claypot beancurd and stir-fried vegetables. Had our first taste of the cool air, but my cup of hot Nescafe was enough to keep it at bay. Our first stop was at the 'Boh' Tea Centre at Sungei Palas. On the way up, one can see the beautiful tea bushes and the workers harvesting the young leaves. Plenty of cam-whoring ensued but I was kinda disappointed when SK told me that from then on, the scenery would mediocre. :(. To better enjoy the view, we sat at the observation platform and enjoyed a cup of Cameron's best tea. It was a bit chaotic with everyone jostling to get a table with a good view. And I was quite surprised that a hot water refill for the teapot is charged. The sun was shining brightly and we took a whole lot more photos. So hysterical was the photo shoot that Bear even choked on his tea. On hindsight, I should have took a picture of that. :P.



After having our fill of the tea and scones, we went down to the factory for a 5-minute guided tour. It's all pretty basic-- roll the leaves, ferment, dry and sort. Flavoured teas? Spray the essence on the tea leaves and dry it again. Pack it. Voila! Next, we headed up to Brinchang to check into the Rosa Pasadena Hotel. Our room was so stuffy! And we were shocked to find that the room had no air-conditioning. The housekeeping suggested a table fan. I was wondering where the cool Cameron Highlands air was... And I got my answer when I read the hotel brochure at the reception counter:

A warm welcome to the Cameron Highlands

>_____________<". And so, we just unpacked and lazed around until some time near dinner time. In the evening, the air had started to cool a bit and we set off to check out the nearby shops and the night market (it was the school holidays, so it happened every night). Since the "in" thing to do in Cameron Highlands is the charcoal steamboat dinner with organic vegetables, we dined at Restoran Organic Produce just opposite our hotel. Anton's recommendation was quite good, but we weren't very impressed with the portion. We wiped everything off the plates.



Later, we bought a bottle of Merlot and some snacks to usher in the new year in our room. Chatting, boozing, snacking and in-between, we watched a horrible Aaron Kwok Concert 2008 on Astro. He can't bloody sing. More often than not, the conversation veered towards sex and it was used as an excuse to grill the brand new couple. Hehe. Anyway, 2010 kinda crept up on us as there was no proper countdown on the channel that we were tuned in to. It was all kinda informal and the fireworks in Cameron only came like half an hour later. Talk about laidback. And it was so stuffy again that I changed out of my track bottoms into my shorts. Ish. That ends my first night in the Camlands.

P.S.: Thank goodness no sounds of "Bear-taming" woke me up in the middle of the night.