3 January 2023, Tuesday

It’s a special day today because it’s dad’s birthday, and that’s why we came on this trip in the first place, so happy birthday dad! This morning, we left Uncle S and Aunt V’s apartment at 8am and drove to a kopitiam nearby for breakfast. When we arrived at 8:08am, there were still many empty tables, but by 8:30am, it was completely full.

It was a typical kopitiam, with many food stalls selling a variety of local food. We ordered a few dishes to share – Hakka noodles (which was like Yong Tau Foo with minced meat noodles and fat bean sprouts), Chee Cheong Fun, Char Kway Teow (Penang-style, dry version) and of course, strong Ipoh white coffee.

I found it interesting that the kopitiam here in Ipoh is “same same, but different” from the coffeeshops in Singapore. The concept is the same – a collection of food stalls (usually fewer than 10 stalls) located within an eating house, but here, the stalls are small, mobile individual stalls on wheels, and they can be moved around, as hawkers are meant to be. In Singapore, the stalls are larger and they occupy permanent spaces built for each stall. Another difference is that here in Ipoh, the stalls line the perimeter of the kopitiam (along the walkway) whereas in Singapore, the stalls are inside the eating house, away from the walkway.

At 8:45am, we left the kopitiam and commenced our drive to Cameron Highlands, about 90km away from Ipoh. Along the way, we stopped for a 15-minute toilet break at a petrol station. After we left the city and headed into the highlands, the scenery got better and better. As we climbed the winding roads up the mountains, we were surrounded by lush greenery everywhere.

At about 10:15am, we drove past entire valleys filled with greenhouses of vegetable and strawberry farms housed underneath their white curved roofs. Dad and mum recalled that when they visited Cameron Highlands many years ago, the farming was nowhere on such a massive scale as it is today. And we could partly be contributing to the problem.

Cameron Highlands occupies an area of about 712 square kilometres (just slightly smaller than Singapore’s 730 square kilometres), with its eight settlements nestled at elevations ranging from 800 to 1,603 metres above sea level. The three major towns are Ringlet, Tanah Rata and Brinchang. The mean annual temperature is 18 degrees Celsius and the daytime temperature rarely exceeds 25 degrees. The cool and wet subtropical highland climate makes it conducive to grow vegetables, tea and strawberries.

Cameron Highlands produces 40% of all vegetables grown in Malaysia. And according to statistics from the Singapore Food Agency, Malaysia supplies 69% of imported leafy vegetables to Singapore, with a large portion of that coming from Cameron Highlands. Almost all of the tomatoes and cucumbers (94% and 95% respectively) we consume in Singapore come from Cameron Highlands, and lots of leafy vegetables like lettuce too. Hence, the demand from Singapore partly fuels the increase in supply here.

Besides changing the physical appearance of Cameron Highlands drastically (the greenhouses are quite an eyesore actually), the mass agricultural activities also lead to environmental problems like soil erosion and landslides. Not only that, more land has also been cleared to provide accommodation for the workers and tourists. During weekends, the roads are also heavily jammed as the locals head to the cool highlands for a quick getaway. The traffic situation is exacerbated because many of the roads here are single-lane, as the infrastructure has not kept pace with the rapid development. We didn’t encounter any traffic jams but I have heard from others that it gets really bad during weekends and public holidays.

At 10:47am, we dropped by Ee Feng Gu Bee Farm at Brinchang for a visit. Entry is free, but there were not many other visitors. We had to walk through a very dated gift shop and take the stairs down for about three levels before we reached the lowest floor, where the garden housing the bee farm was located. The bee hives were contained in wooden boxes, but there were only a few of them, and we didn’t see any bees or any beekeepers at work. The whole place had a neglected feel and there was nothing very interesting, so we left about half an hour later.

Feeling underwhelmed by our first stop, we next headed to Big Red Strawberry Farm, also at Brinchang, about 10 minutes’ drive away, hoping it would be a more fruitful visit (see what I did there?). Admission was also free. I had been looking forward to picking my own strawberries, so I was disappointed when I found out that strawberries were not in season in January. For future reference, strawberries are in season from May to August. Nevertheless, we still spent some time at Big Red Strawberry Farm because there were other things to see there.

Besides strawberries, the farm also produced large amounts of hydroponic vegetables. The main vegetables grown here were lettuce – green and red leaf lettuce. The veggies were grown within long, white plastic tubes laid out in neat rows and fed with nutrient-rich water, which flowed continuously through the tube. Like the strawberries, you could also harvest your own lettuce, with a minimum of two lettuce per basket for RM8.00 (S$2.45). The lettuce looked so fresh and tasty but we didn’t have any use for it so we didn’t buy any. The freshness from directly harvesting the vegetables at the farm is unbeatable.

There were also many potted plants and cacti for sale. The flowers were extremely beautiful, with their colours so vibrant and rich. The cool and sunny climate at Cameron Highland makes it very conducive for garden plants to grow. Actually, one of my childhood ambitions was to work in a farm or a nursery. I tried gardening once when I was in primary school, but unfortunately my hands developed many blisters after that session so I don’t think I am suited for it.

In all, we spent about 50 minutes visiting Big Red Strawberry Farm. Even though strawberries were not in season, we still enjoyed walking around the spacious grounds and taking pictures with the pretty flowers. Worth a visit.

Next, we drove to the Brinchang town centre for lunch. We found a Chinese restaurant that looked decent, Yow Ho Seafood Restaurant, and ordered a few zi char dishes to share. The bill came up to RM139 (S$42.80) so it was pretty affordable for seven people.

At 1:20pm, we left Brinchang and drove towards Tanah Rata to visit a tea plantation. 15 minutes later, we arrived at Cameron Valley Tea House 2, owned by the Bharat Group. Bharat Company was established in 1933 by a North Indian man named Shuparshad Bansal Agarwal who migrated from Uttar Pradesh to Taiping in Perak when he was 17 years old. He initially assisted his uncle in running a provision shop before moving to the foot of Cameron Highlands to set up his own provision shop and rubber estate. In 1933, he acquired land from the British government and started selling tea leaves. Today, the Bharat Group grows and sells their signature brand of Cameron Valley tea.

The open-air carpark in front of the tea house was full so we parked by the roadside a short distance away. There was a gift shop next to the café/tea house, which overlooked the plantations situated within a large valley below. The viewing gallery offered a wonderful view of the tea plantations and the rolling hills beyond. The estate was pretty well-maintained with a wide footpath for visitors to walk through.

Even though the carpark was full, there were not many people dining at the tea house. Most people were gathered at the viewing gallery taking photos. There were also not many people walking through the plantations below so I don’t know where all the people were. The view was great but we didn’t really like the ambience as the tea house was located right next to the busy main road. After about 15 minutes, we decided to leave and look for another tea plantation.

At 2:15pm, we arrived at BOH Tea Garden at 39000 Ringlet. BOH was founded by an Englishman named John Archibald Russell in 1929. Spanning over 465 hectares, this is the largest and oldest of BOH’s tea gardens, and home of BOH’s first tea factory which was built in the 1930’s. BOH has another estate in Cameron Highlands called Sungei Palas Tea Garden, located at 39100 Brinchang, and this was acquired by BOH from Danish planters in the 1960’s. The Sungei Palas one has a more spectacular 20-foot overhanging balcony, but the BOH Tea Garden is the original.

The main BOH Tea Garden building is located about 2km away from the entrance of the estate. The drive to the tea garden was very scenic as we passed by rolling hills of tea plantations. The road was just a simple track filled with potholes, and barely wide enough for one vehicle to pass through. It felt much less commercialised than Cameron Valley Tea House. Upon alighting our vehicle, the aromatic smell of tea permeated the air, and we liked it already.

The BOH Café and gift shop were located in two semi-concave buildings called Nissen huts. These are prefabricated steel structures made from half-cylindrical skins of corrugated steel. Nissen huts were originally designed during World War I and used extensively during World War II. The two Nissen huts here at BOH Tea Garden were built in 1949 during the Malayan Emergency (1948-1956) to house supplies for troops stationed in the Cameron Highlands. These historic colonial buildings added to the heritage and quaint country ambience of the tea garden.

We ordered three pots of tea to share, and I also got a slice of matcha green tea cake to go with my tea. Sitting there, sipping tea while taking in the scenic views, I was reminded of Ella, a hill station in Sri Lanka, which I visited in 2012. The fresh air and the cool weather in Ella was really lovely, and I yearned to go back again. Click here to read about my visit. After enjoying our relaxing afternoon tea break, we left BOH at 3:05pm and made our way to our Airbnb apartment at Golden Hills in Brinchang, arriving 35 minutes later.

The apartment was very big and nicely furnished. It had four bedrooms, with more than enough beds for the seven of us. It was a cosy home for our one-night stay at the Cameron Highlands. Diagonally across from our apartment was a large plot of empty land, which would transform into the bustling Brinchang Night Market during the weekends. It is also known as the Golden Hill Night Market due to its proximity to the apartment. The market relocated here after its original spot made way for redevelopment. Unfortunately, it was a Tuesday when we visited so we didn’t get to experience the night market.

After a coffee break, shower and short rest, we left our apartment at 6:05pm and drove out in search of dinner. We didn’t really have anywhere in mind so Uncle S just drove around. Acting on a hunch, he decided to make a turn up a small hill and it led to Strawberry Park Resort. When mum and dad saw the resort’s buildings with their characteristic semi-circular balconies, they immediately recognised this as the place we stayed when we visited Cameron Highlands in 1989. We decided to stop here to reminisce for a bit.

It was nostalgic to walk around the resort. A plaque at the main building showed that Strawberry Park Resort opened in 1985, so it was still pretty new when we visited in 1989. Even though I was only 7 years old then, I had a hazy impression of the place from the photos that we took during that visit, especially the building’s black-and-white exterior and balconies. It was a very nice resort indeed – quiet, cool and relaxing. It would be lovely to stay here again if we were to ever visit Cameron Highlands in the future.

We discovered that the resort’s restaurant, The Lantern, was running a promotion for their steamboat dinner, where it cost RM45 (S$13.85) per person, and the fifth person could dine in for free. The restaurant’s ambience was nice, with light piano music playing in the background. Because of the cool weather, we were looking for a place to have steamboat anyway, and the price was reasonable with the promotion, so we decided to have our dinner here.

The meal came with a lot of food – fish, chicken, prawns, scallops, cuttlefish, tofu, fishballs, mushrooms, beancurd, veggies, eggs and noodles. It was definitely filling and more than enough for the seven of us. It was the perfect way to celebrate dad’s birthday with a nice meal and a dash of nostalgia.

We left Strawberry Park Resort at 8:30pm and drove to Tanah Rata for a walk. We saw a small night market by the carpark and popped over for a look. One of the stalls was selling durians, and the durian lovers in us couldn’t resist to buy some for dessert. Uncle S bought two Tekka durians for RM60 (S$18.50). I had never heard of Tekka variety of durians before because it is not common in Singapore. The durians were good, better than the ones we had in Ipoh yesterday.

At around 9:10pm, we left Tanah Rata and went back to our apartment and called it a day. It was rather cold that night, around 17 degrees C, and I wore my jacket to sleep. End of Day 2…sweet dreams!