Harlo!! Planning a trip to Cameron Highlands? Better get some few tips here to make your journey more fruitful.
I made this trip at a super peak period. It was a Malaysia public holiday on Monday and I stayed in Cameron Highlands over the weekend.
If you are travelling to Cameron Highlands over the weekend like me, make sure you are an early bird. If not, you will end up spending your holiday in traffic jams and human crowd.
This is a super leisure and cozy trip which means no jungle trekking, adventure or waterfall activities. We basically eat, shop, drive, sleep and repeat…hahaha..
Accommodation
We booked our stay through Airbnb near Golden Hills Apartment where the Weekend Night Market is just right outside of our condo.
This is a super convenient place as it is in between Brinchang town and Tanah Rata. Furthermore, the house that we stay provided us with enough kitchen tools to make our own steamboat. We can easily buy the vegetables from the night market and other grocery stuff at the convenient store nearby.
Day 1 : Breakfast and BOH Tea Plantation
We departed from Kuala Lumpur at 4.15 am and reached Tanah Rata after a long dark drive at 7.00 am. The jam had not started and not many shops were opened yet. So we managed to have our first breakfast at Amsterdam Cafe.
The price is slightly on the high side but overall is okay. If you are craving for western breakfast and decent coffee, this will be a good place.
After which, we were still not satisfied with the amount of food we had. We headed to another place for breakfast at Yong Teng Cafe.
This cafe serves basic english breakfast, pancakes, nasi lemak. One thing to mention about this cafe is that it is operated by a pair of old couple who uses sign language to communicate.
Yup, really salute them. Well, don’t expect too much from their cooking but it definitely will not disappoint you with its homecook taste breakfast.
Next, we drove half way back to where we came up from to Ringlet. This is where the BOH tea plantation locate. Way way up into the mountains and driving can be abit challenging with single lane route.
The plantation opens at 9am and it is best to visit early. If you reach later, you might forced to park at the lower parking area and walk towards the entrance. We saw tourists walking up the driving road as the parking at the entrance level was full. It can be rather dangerous and tiring.
At the BOH tea plantation, you can hike a 173 metres tea hill and reach the top of the view point. From there, the scenery is sooooo awesome and indescribable. However, it will take you a super panting 15 minutes hike but so worth it.
After which, you can visit its factory where you can see the machinery used to process the tea leaves into final tea products.
After the climb, we rewarded ourselves with cakes and teas after the hike. But turns out, we think just the tea would be fine.
The rest of Day 1
We ended our BOH tea plantation visit rather late at around 11am. We decided to go to the next destination as there were crowds of tourist flocking into the plantation.
By the time we knew it, the whole of Cameron Highlands is full with vehicles!! It was a “day-mare”!! We have to reschedule all our plans to the next day. It took us about 3 hours to travel from Ringlet to our accommodation stay instead of the original 30 minutes.
Steamboat preparation
We checked-in at 2pm and settled ourselves down. The night market outside our condo were already preparing for the night surprisingly. So we went to stroll around and get something to eat.
Also, we bought out steamboat ingredients from night market – all the vegetables, meatballs, eggs, noodles, etc. All for less than RM50 bucks for the four of us! There is some leftovers so we kept for breakfast the next morning…haha..
Day 2 : Lavender farm, Kea Market, Sam Poh temple, Cactus View Farm and Night Market
Horrified by the tremendous amount of cars, we got up really early for breakfast before departing to our first destination of the day : Lavender Farm!!
To our surprise, there was a queue already to the ticket counter! We were fortunate enough to park our car at the designated parking area.
The ticket counter opened 15 minutes after our arrival. Entrance fee is RM10 per person. I think is fair enough for the ocean of colourful flowers will start to greet you as you enter the farm.
The farm is so enormous that you can take plenty flower pictures of many kinds, the mountain view, pluck your strawberries (if available), sit and chill for cakes and tea, etc.
On our way back, we stopped by at Kea Farm and market. This is one of Cameron Highlands’ attractions where tourists buy corns, strawberries, vegetables, cherry tomatoes and souvenirs.
Well, I did not manage to take any pictures here as I was too busy munching on a sweet crunchy corn during the whole visit here. 😂
Sam Poh Buddhist temple
At Sam Poh temple, we were here reminiscing the days visited here when we were much younger. This temple is at least 40 years-old now and it calms me down with the cool breezy air and light josticks scent.
Cactus View Farm & Restaurant
Our coming destinations were rather challenging as the traffic showed almost stagnant conditions in Brinchang. It took us about 20 minutes drive to reach Cactus View Restaurant which is only 10 minutes from Sam Poh temple.
Luckily, we manage to find a parking right outside the restaurant. I was told that the steamboat here is pretty good and turns out it was really awesome!!
It was RM25 per person and the steamboat is charcoaled-fire base which is very authentic.
Then we walked our way into the Cactus View Farm from the restaurant. There is no admission fee to this attraction. One thing about this place is that it is located at a rather high altitude of the hill.
Stairs and steep roads are to be expected during the whole visit. However, the beautiful flowers, vege farm and the cold air are definitely to distract you from all the tiredness.
Then on our way back to our stay, it took us almost one hour adventurous drive up the steep hills with cars bumper to bumper. At the Cactus View Farm, there is another parking area at the top of the hill.
As we were exiting, cars were moving slowly to look for parking and hence we stuck in between that and the traffic jam started from the main road.
Steep road, not moving cars, and tired legs are the three worst things you can encounter when driving.
Weekend Night Market
We managed to skip most of the jam area using Waze and reached homestay about 30 minutes drive. We rest for a bit before starting to prepare for our in-house steamboat.
We made our soup base using the provided rice cooker with soybean, drumsticks, chicken cube and cabbage. We had a little snack at the night market as I was craving with their corn.
We had a little night snack after our dinner before we head off to bed.
Day 3 : Cameron Tea Valley
On our last day, we checked out at around 10am. We visit another tea plantation which was crowded with tourist on the first day.
Basically, we came here for the view and the tea. The view is magnificent only that there was a little haze that day.
That’s the end of our Cameron Highlands weekend trip. Here are some of the tips take away after this trip if you are planning to visit Cameron Highlands during weekends with attaching public holidays:
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Always depart early
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Visit the most desired attraction first
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Bring snacks to distract attention in the jam
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Buying corn – price is quality, the cheaper the lower. Three types of corn – Pearl, Honey and Milk. Occasionally you will find Red type.
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Eating out at restaurants is always pricier, make own steamboat if possible.
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Check the altitude as well apart from distance and operating hours when planning your journey.
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Remember tip no. 1
That’s all for now. Be sure to check out my next coming posts for more food and travel tips.