Took the underpass on crossing the border and walked up to annapoorna's to have sme nice south indian veggie food. After food we got a taxi for 40 mry to cenai airport. The cab driver on knowing tat v r tamil started non stop abt all the discrimination happening against tamils and the partiality towards "bhoomiputra" malays. It was a nice time pass & history lesson for us till the airport.
Arrived @ the airport & we used the well maintained tandas facilities there :). luckily we managed to get a hyundai sonata instead of the proton waja we were told. I took the first turn to drive & it was amazing, the longest car I had driven so far....got some helpful directions @ the airport, so was able to reach kota tinggi without much difficulty, though we stopped @ few places to confirm we were in the right track.
We reached kota tinggi abt 12, it was a flowing stream of water starting as a waterfall at the top,with many places for people including kids n ladies to just enjoy the cold flowing water, at the top most point u can see the actual falls & there is a nice place for some photography there.
My friends had a dip in the water but unfortunately I had to miss out cause I went in search of a mosque for my friday prayers. I found one outside and offered my prayers there. Oops I almost forgot to mention there was a queue to get into the kota tinggi waterfall and there was a lady selling malay version of "south indian puttu". It was soft n hot n sweet.
So from there our journey started again; KL our next target. On the way we stopped over for lunch @ a south indian restaurant and no prizes for guessing, we had sme rice, parotta n dosai@ finished off with teh tarih. We reached KL around 8 pm, however as usual we got lost getting into KL, thanks to the myriad of confusing signs!!!
There's not been a single trip to kl when we have not cursed the directions board in KL. Finally after some time we ended up in Klang valley!!... Stopped over at a petrol bunk asked further directions and finally managed to reach tune hotels by 10 pm!!
Parking cost us about 2 myr for the night... The check in quick since we had pre reserved everything.. The room had nice warm shower and a good bed... However the moving space war very limited.... So just gud enuf for two ppl in a double room...
There was an indian restaurant nearby where we had again dosai and parotta.. Me decided to try a nasi lemak ayam...ordinary I must say...came back; inquired at the reception abt frasier hill & cameroon highlands..
We were advised that Frasier hill though near; the road is winding and not very good and will end up taking longer travelling time than Cameroon highlands...so we decided on cameroon highlands.
Next day early morning arnd 7 we started our journey to Cameroon highlands. Caught the highway to Ipoh and the drive as usual was amazing.. With the rolling mountains and the sun rising between the mountains.. Unfortunately we dint stop for a photo shoot :)... However we had managed to take some night photographs at KL with my new camera tripod...
We took the Tapas exit in the ipoh highway.. Proceeded straight and took the exit for Kuala Woh forest to go to the hot springs...since we had left early there was not much crowd at the hot springs... There was a nice stream of water with some rocks spread arnd and soft sand...the amazing part was the water as expected the water was really very cold.. However at some places from under the sand there was some really hot water bubbling up... It was a fun experience to feel the cold water on ur feet with the base of ur feet boiling in the sand... Wud hve been nice if v had some eggs cud hve boiled them there..:)..
Took some scenic photos with some funny poses in the water. Vinod was able to show me his great balancing skills when he slipped on one of the rocks while attempting to take a photograph and managed to get his lower half in the water but managed to hold his camera up high; away from the water. We then proceeded towards a hanging bridge which was the way to a musuem.. Unfotunately the musuem was closed....so again took some snaps & left the place. We were really hungry by now for some breakfast... Hmmm my nokia e61i is behaving like its abt to crash... Words r appearing only a few seconds after I have typed them...anyways.... We got back on the route to cameroon...
After some time of gng uphill we reached lata iskandar falls, there was a thankful relief of fresh fruits available there...coconuts, bananas, guava..a few shops selling honey, medicinal herbs...there were shops with some nice handicraft mainly woodcraft and clay stuff...Me and Vinod bought a nice clay flower vase for 25 myr each.
We proceeded further up to Brinjang. Visited the Big Red Strawberry farm. That was an amazing place wit a lot of everything based on strawberry... Strawberry pillow, chairs, key chains, shampoo, paste and a whole lot of stuff all of course strawberry based.
We decided to try out some stuff and ordered some strawberry muffin, strawberry sundae, strawberry tart, strawberry fried ice cream and strawberry milk shake :) now thats a lot strawberry for one day isnt it :) Venky !#!@# spilled almost all of the strawberry milkshake on the floor!! Thankfully we had ordered two milkshakes.
Ok back downhill now..on the way took an exit to Boh tea plantations.. Nice place for some refreshing walk through the plantations and great landscape. We stopped over for some tea... I tried the peppermint tea...hmm i guess i would prefer the lipton black tea at office :).
After the tea v decided to check out the view from the viewpoint. Climbed up a fleet of stairs till v were almost out of breath to reach the top most point. You could just stand there and let ur eyes feast on those green rolling hils, the sun casting its rays on the green tea plantations while the shadows of the clouds covering the rest of it.
The mild fresh breeze made me feel fresher than the peppermint tea I had earlier. Took a few snaps and decided to head back before it gets dark since it would be difficult to maneouvour downhill once we lose natural light.
Started our journey downhill and joined the snake of cars heading downhill. Finally got on the exit to KL, there were a lot of ppl heading back to KL like us. We even came to a complete stand still couple of times on the fastest lane in the highway.
However after a while the road cleared up and we were heading back straight towards KL. As usual missed the exit for KL and got lost. Stopped for directions again and got things cleared. Finally entered KL and realized we were almost going out again when we saw a sign for genting highlands. A little study of the map and realized we were in jln pahang. Traced the route to our hotel and took a u turn back into the city.
However we took a short deviation to jalan puduraya as I wanted to buy some cheap pc games. Unfortunately we were a bit late and the mall had closed; however I took a quick walk down jln petaling, there were a lot of shops selling the latest movies for 10 myr, since I cud get them cheaper in jb I decided to give it a skip. I was shocked when I was offered porno movies when I asked if they had games...hmm maybe that was some sort of secret code? ;)
V returned back to the hotel & I headed to the room for a warm bath. My friends decided to have some food first. The warm bath was really refreshing, changed clothes and headed down for some food. This time decided to have some noodles and ordered "mee goreng ayam" and "teo ice limo". Got my energy back again and made that long overdue call to my wife. Talked for sometime got a bit chastised for not having called earlier and for not returning all the missed calls from her.
Went back to the room & fell asleep like a baby. The next thing I remember is my roomie waking me up in the morning. Caught some more sleep while he took bath; finished my beauty bath and we headed downstairs to checkout and continue our journey this time to Genting Highlands.
Morning breakfast was subway sandwitches; I had some tuna while my friends settled for veggie. We went back to puduraya area so tat I cud purchase the games I needed, bought abt 5 dvd's for 50 myr and got 1 dvd free :). By then my friends had taken a U turn and come back to pick me up.
We took jln raja laut & then jln pahang to find the genting highlands road sign; of course after a while the road signs did not mention genting & v got lost as usual. So we stopped over for directions from a passerby and he asked us to take a U turn and take a right into the highway.So we proceeded on the route suggested and thankfully got back on track to Genting again.
We reached Genting I think after about an hour of travel maybe.. however I am not very sure since I had falled asleep very comfortably in the back seat ☺
This time we had decided to use the cable car to the top of the mountain since we have done the drive up the hill before. We reached another cable car point called Awana; however that was not the one we were looking for and we had to travel back down to the skyway cable car which stretches for about 3.4kms; is a really long one but it does it quickly. Some research on the internet told me that it’s the fastest in the world. No wonder it was quick ☺
The view is very green as well; you get to see some tall trees; cool breeze and dense think forest. Once we reached the top we made our way in to the lobby of the first world hotel and proceeded towards the casino which was our target destination for this journey.
I was a bit worried if I would be allowed since I was a muslim and gambling is prohibited in islam. I had no plans to gamble and just wanted to be a spectator and give company to my friends.
I managed to slip inside before the lady at the security gate decided to change her mind and call me. The place inside was really very crowded. Of course cameras weren’t allowed inside. The place was filled with Chinese. Most of the tables were full of old Chinese ladies throwing around 1000's of ringgits in cash to the dealer. We couldn’t understand anything of what was happening on most of the tables.
Venky decided to try one of the machines for 10 myr and all he did was ended up punching a button a few times without understanding what the hell was happening.
He also tried the roulette game where he had to bet on the number that would come next. No luck this time as well and another 20 myr down the drain. By then I had developed a very bad headache cause of all the smoke around.
I left the place telling my friends that I will meet them in half an hour outside near the locker. I went and found a place for my prayers and felt much better after saying my prayers. My friends by the time had returned and found a place to eat as well.
We all had rice for lunch and decided to head back before its too late since we expected a huge crowd at the Johor Singapore border.
However on our return we missed the exit for Seremban and ended up taking a very long straight route to KLIA. The route was like a long run way with nothing in sight for many many kms. As usual me fell asleep like a baby. My friends finally managed to ask for some directions at an R&R exit in the highway and found the way back to Johor. By the time we reached Johor it was like 12:00 mid night. Venky successfully managed to drive around 400 kms or more on his own in one stretch; yeah of course he did make a lot of his usual visits to the tandas (malay for toilet) :) .
We managed to find a taxi which charged us 60 myr; 20 myr above the usual charge since it was past midnight. By the time we crossed Malaysia immigration it was past 1 AM and we had just missed the last SBS bus.
So there was no other option than to walk across Singapore Malaysia border; which was a first for us. However the walk was not very long as expected and we had a lot of people walking with us for company ;)
Finally reached Singapore immigration and finally caught a taxi and was on our way back home!
~~And this ends yet another eventful holiday to Malaysia!!~~
