Flowers Galore

Everyone should know that the main source of income for Cameron Highlands is the Tea Plantation and also the vegetable industry. However there is one more main income source which is the flower industry. The cool temperatures in Cameron Highlands is great for flowers and boy do they bloom nice here in Cameron Highlands. We have been going to this place to see flower for the past couple of times we have been there. I cannot remember the name of the place.

This is the place I first saw the most exotic orchids. They have the normal orchids you see in most places...

and of course they have the exotic orchids...

The other very popular flower you see in Cameron Highlands are the Gerbera flowers. They appear in many different colors and are usually pretty bright colors. We went to a place on the way down which we never been before and they had a whole load of Gerbera flowers.

I also caught sight of this "mutated" Gerbera....

Doesn't it look like co-joined twins? Lucky Amy brought her Macro along so I did some macro shots as well of the Gerbera. They are perfect for macro because they have a whole load of filaments in the middle of the flower.

We also spot some bright yellow Sunflowers on the way down. I have always liked Sunflowers because they are bright yellow and if taken care off, it gets SUPER HUGE. My neighbour used to have some huge Sunflowers but I haven't seen it bloom for a long time now.

The Sunflowers were huge as well and just to show you how big it was...

Ok I do not have that huge hands but look at how big the flower is. It is close to twice the size of my hands. Now that is what I call big.

Heritage Hotel, Cameron Highlands

While we were at Cameron Highlands on our little road trip, we stayed at Heritage Hotel Tanah Rata. Now the stupid thing about this story is that I accidentally booked the wrong hotel. Initially we wanted to book Equatorial Cameron Highlands. However I don't know why I was so blur that day and I booked Heritage Hotel instead.

The hotel looks pretty nice from the outside, kinda like a old English building. However most hotels in the Cameron Highland kinda looks like old English buildings.

The hotel wasn't fantastic but it wasn't that bad as well. It was kinda a little old and we couldn't switch to the newly renovated room as we booked the cheapest room available. The room was pretty big but maybe the carpets need a little bit more vacuuming. The TV reception wasn't fantastic as well. 

However we shared the same hotel as Gerakan leader Dr Koh Tsu Koon. When we first arrive at the hotel, our room wasn't ready and while waiting at the lobby I caught sight of a guy that looked like him from the back. We finally found out Gerakan was having an AGM in the hotel and we saw him again in the flesh during breakfast. He is quite un-assuming and didn't even see any bodyguards around.

The hotel had 4 "towers" which you could climb and I actually climb 2 of them it was pretty tiring.

One of the towers that I climb was facing toward Brinchang town and it had great views of the forest areas. I had to climb 3 flights of stairs and I did it twice for the first tower. We got back from breakfast and I decided to take a walk. Didn't bring my camera on my first climb and when I saw the fantastic views, I had to run back to get my camera.

The other tower I climb was facing to towards Tanah Rata town.

Overall I think Heritage Hotel is not too bad, it is actually within walking distance to Tanah Rata town. We made the track a couple of times and it is pretty clean-ish. However maybe the 200 bucks price tag per night was a little steep. We got out hotels in Langkawi for only 135 per night and it also included breakfast. Maybe the newly renovated rooms will be much nicer.

Food Glorious Food

We as Malaysian, we are passionate about alot of things but the most important thing is of course our food. We are surrounded by food all day all night and all kinds of food. Recently Amy and I took a nice drive up north of Malaysia going through Cameron Highlands, Penang and finally ending up in Langkawi. Here is a sample of what was making me fatter day by day.

The first stop on our journey is Cameron Highlands and you cannot go to Cameron Highlands without having some food at The Lords Cafe. This small little cafe is located on top of Marry Browns in Tanah Rata town. The entrance is just to the side of Marry Browns and you go there mainly for 2 things.

The scones are one of the best I have tried in Malaysia and maybe the best I have ever tried. It is nicely heated up and it crumbles easily. Eating it with the provided strawberry jam, butter and cream makes it the perfect combination. I am already drooling as I blog about this. They are also famous for their chicken pie which has an Asian twist to it. It is very fragrant with some kind of asian herb which I am not sure what it is.

This time around we were there during lunch time, so we also ordered a side of lasagna and french onion soup.

The lasagna was quite interesting as it had shredded carrots in them. It is quite an interesting twist to the dish. Never had shredded carrots with my lasagna before. The french onion soup was pretty good as well. It even has cheese in it. We were seated and a lucky table.

Another favourite food to have in Cameron Highlands is of course steamboat. It is one of the few places where you can have steamboat in Malaysia without sweating. Our favourite place for steamboat in Cameron Highlands is Highlands Steamboat. It is located at Brinchang town near Rosa Pasadena Hotel. It is not on the main road but the road behind the main road in Brinchang.

The best thing about Highlands steamboat is they use charcoal to heat up the soup.

The soup that comes at the beginning is already so sweet that you would think they put in alot of Ajinomoto. However we never actually felt thirsty after dinner. This is the 3rd time we have been there and it is still just as good.

 

The food was so good we walloped everything including the noodles and the soup.

Now back to Tanah Rata, we have been walking alot in Tanah Rata town and we saw quite a few people having the mamak food there. We couldn't resist and decided one lunch time to try it out as well. There are quite a few of them there so we decided to just walk into one. We ordered some naan with tandoori and also with some chick pea curry.

I never actually liked tandoori chicken because usually it is quite dry and the meat is quite tough. However to our surprise the chicken tandoori here was very soft and succulent. It enjoyed the tandoori for the first time in my  life. The chic pea curry was pretty good as well but could use a little more curry sauce and it was a little hard. Everything was washed down with some Masala Chai Tea.

Actually it taste more like teh tarik with only a hint (very slight hint) of Masala.

Amy actually read about this pretty good pancake place in Cameron Highlands. We couldn't really find it and had to get some directions from the hotel. We finally found it opposite the Maybank in Tanah Rata town.

Now the surprising thing about this place is that it is run by a deft and mute couple. I didn't know about this until when we were there and the lady took our order.

We had the banana pancake with a scoop of ice cream. It was really good as the banana was nice and soft and the pancake was drizzled with some honey. We also ordered the cincau which was I think going off a little. We didn't make a fuss about it, just didn't drink it and paid for it. The lady was too nice to make a fuss.

Our next stop was Penang but I didn't take much pictures of the food there. I was kinda busy eating and totally forgot about my camera :). However before reaching Penang, we decided to stop at AutoCity Juru for some tea time. We stopped at Segafredo for some coffee and sandwiches.

I think I ordered a Cafe Latte which was quite ordinary and we ordered a roast beef sandwich (croissant) to share. The sandwich was pretty nice and I was pretty surprised about it. I thought it would have sucked.

In Langkawi, one of the days we stopped at Troppo Co Coffee for lunch. It is a nice small coffee joint just before our hotel.

Now the cool thing about this place is that you have all the standard cappuccino and latte and all that. However they have 5 different blends of beans. I settled for the house blend and Amy took a different blend. Couldn't remember what is the name. This is one of the best cafe latte I had in Malaysia so far. It was a huge cup as well and we took our own sweet time finishing it. I also ordered a vege

Well all of that added to be gaining waist line and now I got hit the road and work it off. Dang.