After leaving Penang (and spending 2 hours rounding George Town to find a place to lunch), we continued with our holidays and headed to Cameron Highlands via the Simpang Pulai way, roads are definitely wider this way, and less winding.

We arrived at 6pm+ and it was quite chilly. Even though it was low peak, when we arrived at our hotel, Century Pine Resort, it took like 15mins for us to get our room (although pre-booked). The beds were without sheets, and the day curtain was not hung up! Tsk tsk. Luckily they sent someone to fix that soon after we complained.

Our duplex room is big and comfy as well as clean. It has 2 floors, 1st with a sofa bed and a bathroom, and on the top floor another en suite room with king bed. Girls loved the room; Zara happy to get Nickelodeon channel and Zaria loved the carpeted stair case leading to the top floor; she spent a great deal of time walking up and down the stairs.

We walked to Tanah Rata to look for a place for dinner but found nothing interesting on the main street; we ended up driving to Brinchang and had steamboat.

After breakfast at the hotel on Wednesday morning, we went to the market at Kea Farm. Since it was low peak, there were very few tourists and the vege and strawberries were selling cheap.

We wanted to go strawberry picking but it was RM30 with 3 punnets given to us (that’s the max you get to pick). So the girls went flowers picking instead, mainly the morning glories, baby breath like flowers and the hibiscus that grow in abundance at the road side.

For Daddy and I, no visit to Cameron Highlands is complete without going to the tea plantations. We headed to Boh’s Sungai Palas Tea Estate after lunch. I just love the picturesque view of the green slopes, occasionally, finding a few tea pickers’ heads bobbing up and down. You have to see with your own eyes the beauty and tranquility that the camera cannot catch.

Unfortunately, the famous tea center was closed but the friendly gate keeper kept us entertained by showing us tea flowers and tea seeds, and the girls were going around searching and picking seeds from the ground (although Zaria was picking gravels on the road thinking they were the same thing).

We then had tea at Bala’s Holiday Chalet. Bloody rip off I tell you. RM18.90 for 2 scones with tea. I bake better scones than them, and they don’t even whip their own cream, it’s all sprayed out from a can (I can tell. I just can.) What we’re paying is really like an entrance fee to their English garden, quite pretty although not well maintained.

After tea, we sent Jelly and Zaria back to the hotel room, and Zara, Daddy and I took a walk on a short track just behind the hotel.

I love the moss, ferns and wild flowers found on this path. You can see them captured here (the roof belongs to Bala’s Holiday Chalet). You have to see Zara ‘manja-ing’ Daddy, “Daddy you are a strong man, carry me.” And so Daddy carried this close to 15Kg girl on his shoulder almost the whole time.

We had to turn back when the track becomes narrower and more difficult to handle with a toddler.

We went back to the hotel to find a fully rested Zaria and headed out to have dinner. This time we tried steamboat at Tanah Rata (Brinchang’s was better).

Thursday morning, we went to Kea Farm again to get our vege and strawberry. Check out the price : RM10 for 14 packs of organic vege (real organic or not, I’m not sure); RM20 for 7 punnets of big juicy strawberries.

We skipped lunch and checked out. We headed to Boh Plantation at Ringlet, thinking of grabbing lunch there.

On the way to Boh Plantation, there are quite a few watercress farms, and we stopped at one to show the girls how watercress is grown.

This farm grows eggplants and watercress. Here you see pools of shallow water used to grow watercress, and beautiful purple eggplant flowers. Surrounding the farms, wild baby breath like flowers were everywhere.

After some more winding roads, we again get to see the breath taking views of slopes with well trimmed tea trees (girls were of course not fascinated by any of these and fell asleep on the way).

The tea centre didn’t serve any hot lunch but only cakes and pastries. I took the last scone available (better and cheaper than Bala’s), the rest had some cakes and pies, the Masala tea there was so delicious.

Girls then had a good time checking out the flowers and enjoying the fresh air around.

You can tell Zaria having a good time with her many expressions.

Our last stop before heading the North-South Highway was the waterfalls. We only let the girls soak their feet in the cold water although both wanted very much to jump down and splash about. When it was time to leave, Zaria was holding on to the car door, refusing to get into the car shouting, “Don’t want (to) go home! Want some more waterfall.”

That’s an indication this was a good holiday. 😛