Cameron Highlands - Day 1

Monday August 23, 2010

Somehow Ali and I ended up packing this day full of activities. We visited a butterfly farm, a honey bee farm, a strawberry plantation, and visited the local “Kea Farm” market. We started our adventures early (around 8:30pm and finished by 2:30pm) and then we were able to relax in the guesthouse for the rest of the day.

The very first morning in the Cameron Highlands Ali and I woke up early to catch the first local bus (8:30am, $1.50 each). We caught the earliest bus because we were informed that it was most reliable for leaving on time. The bus ride was about 20 minutes. It left from Tanah Rata (the small town where our guesthouse was), went through several other small towns, and then arrived at the butterfly farm.

Kea Butterfly Farm

Because we arrived so early to the farm, we were luckily the only people there! Unfortunately for the first 45 minutes or so the butterflies were still sleeping (it was not sunny and warm enough for them yet), so we spent the first chunk of time looking at flowers, insects, birds and reptiles. We took a ton of pictures. As we were walking through the greenhouses taking pictures an employee came up to us and started to show us things excitedly. He couldn’t speak English so he would instead use gestures, wave us over to look at something, or bring something crazy over to us to see our reaction. He showed us “leaf insects”, he brought us into a cage with giant walking sticks (he took one and put it on Ali’s arm and she freaked out a bit!), and then he showed us a lizard (he had it down his shirt and asked us to reach into his shirt (yeah, kinda sketchy) not knowing what it was, and grab it. I had to do it because Ali was too scared of what he might be hiding. After a grabbed out the little lizard he wanted us to put it down our shirt too – we refused haha!) Soon enough the butterflies started to wake up and they began to fly around the gardens. There were so many different sizes and colours of butterflies. Ali loved it. We spent another hour or so looking at the butterflies and then decided to leave for the honey bee farm around 10:00am.

Honey Bee Farm

We left the butterfly farm, walked in the wrong direction for about 30 minutes (we got some nice pictures of the countryside at least!), realised we were walking the wrong way, and then turned around and finally found the bee farm. We spent about 30 minutes here walking around the farm, taking pictures, sampling pure honey, and seeing all the bees hard at work. There were tons of boxes for the bees to make hives in, and often the bees had even extended their hives beyond the box – you could see bits of honeycomb  covered in bees dangling from the edges of the wood.

EQ Strawberry Farm

We really wanted to go to Raju’s Strawberry Farm because we had read the farm made handmade strawberry ice cream and jam, but when we arrived at the gates we discovered that Raju’s was closed that day! Super disappointed we decided to settle for second best option– EQ Strawberry Farm across the highway. The farm itself was a little disappointing – we were only allowed in this caged corridor which meant we could not get good pictures of the strawberries though the fence, and to top it off the owners were kinda rude. Even though we were disappointed we could not bear to leave without some sort of strawberry treat. Thus, we both ordered a strawberry and vanilla ice cream sundae. They were really good, so we left feeling not completely disappointed by the experience. We also had a handmade strawberry popsicle when we left which helped make the walk along the hot Malaysian highway much more bearable.

Kea Farms Local Market

Quite close to the strawberry farm was the Kea Farms market. We decided to look around a bit while hoping a bus would stop near there. We bought a case of strawberries and a case of cherry tomatoes from a local vendor. Both were very fresh and very tasty.

No bus was within sight when we left and we had no idea where any bus stops where, so we decided to start walking towards town in hopes a bus would pass us along the way. It was a 13km walk so we didn’t want to have to walk the whole way back in the 35-degree weather. We lucked out, and soon after we started to walk, a city bus pulled up behind us and let us on. We got back to Tanah Rata around 2:30pm. We then decided to get some envelopes, folders, and food from a local store, grab lunch, and then head back to Father’s Guest House. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the guesthouse washing clothes, using the internet, writing in our journals, and watching movies in the common room. It was a relaxing end to the day J