Wonderboy

It was 2:30 in the morning on the 13th of October, Yellowbanana was filling up his 4×4 Myvi to the brim with fuel because our destination for the day (night) was Cameron Highlands! After picking up EnigmaZ at about 3am, we departed from Bah Kut Teh heaven and headed for our destination. With Wye Jun as the co-driver, we took the old road from the Tapah exit up to Cameron Highlands. At about 4:45am, the road was deserted and there weren’t a soul around and the road up was pitch black. The old road up was also narrow and has lots of hairpin turns that puts the Mt. Akina road to shame. All the twists and turns made Wye Jun throw up on the way, haha clubbing summo la.

After climbing up for about 45mins we reached the Bharat Tea Plantation. As it was still dark, we decided to take a nap in the car there till the sun decided to show its face. BTW, the sky that night was clear and it was filled with stars! It was a sight to behold - I’ve never seen that much stars in the sky before. Too bad my camera can’t capture it… so you can only trust my word on this and see it for yourself ;).

At 7am the sun was up and we started our shooting spree…

As you can see, it was quite misty and the temperature was quite cold..

After we we’re satisfied, we headed up to Tanah Rata for our breakfast. We parked our ass at the Rosette Cafe beside the Roselane Hotel. The food guides online doesn’t say anything about this cafe but surprisingly the food there was great, I highly recommend it! I ordered the Rosette Chicken Chop and it was fabulous.. even the mash potato was fantastic, much better than KFC’s. After refueling ourselves, we headed to the butterfly garden before Tringkap (Refer to the map).

There is an entrance fee of RM5 per adult and you get access to the butterfly farm, a flower garden and a small zoo filled with a few insects and reptiles you don’t see everyday.

Here are some of the fauna you can find there:

Scorpions..

Beetles:

Snakes:

And the butterflies:

Lots of Raja Brookes here..

Taking off..

Some of the flowers at the garden:

Large hibiscuses..

Next up, we were off to the Boh Tea Centre at Sungai Palas. To go there, take the small road uphill to Gunung Brinchang at Tringkap near the vegetable market. The road is very very narrow, and can only fit 1 car at a time, so you have to wait for incoming cars to pass before moving forward..

Took this piture on the way up to the Teahouse.

The Tea Centre..

Amazing scenery surrounding the tea centre.

We took a break there and had our afternoon tea on the balcony.

Yellowbanana enjoying his tea.

The view from the tea house balcony.

You can also visit the Boh Tea Factory for free. There will be a periodic tour guide who will guide you in the small factory.

Huge grinding machines:

On the way back, we took a detour through the road towards Gunung Brinchang and found this place to take our group photo:

The invasion of the clones! (edited by Yellowbanana).

Before heading back to Tanah Rata where we will be camping, we dropped by the Smokehouse and shot some photos.

Since we are not allowed to enter the premises as the sign “For Patrons Only” was plastered everywhere.. I decided to take some macro shots instead..

As it was getting late, we headed back to the Forestry Department where we set up our camps for the night.

Since we still have a little time before it gets dark, we visited the nearby waterfall, the Parit Falls. We were quite disappointed because the place was filthy, rubbish everywhere… Car tire also got, niamah! Really like longkang…

See the rubbish by the waterfall, sigh. The rubbish most probably came from the camping site.

Took this interesting fern near the waterfall.

Well that’s all for day 1… for more coverage, head on to Yellowbananainc