The last time I've been to Cameron Highlands was when I was still in primary school. Back then, my family went with two other of my father's best friends family. My my, what fun we had! Going back there again after so many years got me really exited. Despite all these years, I can still recognise the place we stayed, the place we ate and the place I played Counter Strike with my other friends. Good times.

Thanks to the annual Cameron Highlands Ratha Yathra, my family had a reason to go back there again. Ratha Yathra in a cold weather was a one-of-a-kind experience! Definitely beats getting wet in the rain... hehehe. Nevertheless, all that is a pleasure in itself. Anyways, since I'm all grown up now (well, half way grown up) my version of family vacation has changed a lot since I was a child. Instead of spontaneous decisions that we used to make, I planned my trip this time. I wanted to cover all the places that we missed out the last time, plus re-visit some places worth going twice. Below are some pics of the places I visited. More pictures are coming up in part 2!


The view on the way to Boh tea plantation factory. The whole area covers a total of 8000 acres! The largest in Malaysia.... so far. The journey here was awesome! Well, maybe not much if you're the driver. For me, I love driving on windy roads, so I enjoyed the ride. You gotta be really careful on most curves, you can't see the oncoming car. So I honked before taking each curve (irritating, but I had like 5 other souls in the car, so had to be extra cautious), just in case. Saved me a few times.


Dad and myself felt a little bored after touring the Boh tea factory. We decided to take a short walk to the back of the factory. Found these logs stacked right opposite the conveyor used to transport the tea leaves into the building.


View at the peak of Gunung Brinchang! Some people call this place Gunung Batu Brinchang. This is the 2nd highest mountain in Cameron Highlands, boasting a height of 2.031km above sea level. Height of Gunung Irau (the highest) on the other hand is 2.11km above sea level. This mountain is located at the Titiwangsa mountain range, almost at the border of Perak and Pahang. You can see how the mountains looks like they're overlapping each other from here.

They always say, "It's not about the destination, but the journey that matters". To get to this place, you can either drive or hike all the way up above. Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances, I could not go for the hike. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the drive (But I'm quite sure the hike would have been better. Too bad.). The road was extremely narrow and windy. At some places, the road was quite uneven, got me worried if something bad would happen to my tyre. The view on the way to the peak made the drive worth it.


This was the view from the Mossy Forest. Mossy Forest is located few minutes drive before reaching the peak of Gunung Brinchang, so you can get to this place on the way to the peak of the mointain. The tower you see there is the peak of Gunung Brinchang. The picture above was taken from there.


The specialty of this place is the thick growth of moss on top of the tree branches. Entire scenery there looks like Avatar movie set. No, not the air bender Avatar; loved the cartoon, not the movie. There were few signposts here showing tourists that they were standing right at the border of Perak and Pahang.


You get to walk deep into the forest. Can you see a thick branch blocking the way right below, that's the end of this trail. Well, not really the end. We can still walk further (plus there is also another path going all the way down on the right if this picture), but it may not be a good idea going all the way down. A really big bee kept circling over my head, probably doing its job protecting its territory. To think about it, you have to jump across that big trunk, and then there might be chances of spotting the brothers and sisters of my annoying friend.Is it worth it? Nope, not when I have family beside me ;-)



Besides the moss, old trees and ferns, I was surprised to spot some flowers there! If I'm not mistaken, those are wild rose flowers. This plant definitely stood out from the rest of the plants there.


This little one was spotted at Lata Iskandar Waterfall, on the way to Cameron Highlands. You can spot various insect (and arachnid! One spider was almost the size of my palm) species here. This one was spotted easily thanks to its distinctive color on the rock. The species name of this moth is Dysphania Subrepleta. This was what I found after some Googling. I'm still a little confused whether or not it can be Dysphania Militaris. If I'm not mistaken, the latter is bigger. This one is quite tiny. This particular species is a day-flying moth, and they like moisture. This explains why it was hanging around the waterfall area. One website stated that the blue hue on its forewing is poisonous. Not sure how true is that.

There are more pictures and crazy stories of this waterfall. I'll post it in the second part.

Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) is definitely a place to go for nature lovers. It's located at Selangor, just on the outskirts of Kepong and Selayang. There are various facilities provided there, such as; badminton court, tennis court, football field, jungle tracking (with canopy walk), primary school, auditorium, museum, waterfall and the list just goes on. Just head on to their website for more details. They update it quite often.

For me, I love going for a 'walk' along the forest. You can observe various nature wonders there! I've covered a bit about their famous camphor trees in a previous post. In this post, I would like to share some images I took few months back. All these images were already shared in my Instagram account.


There are about three main ponds in FRIM, and this one is my favorite. This pond is located just at the back of the Arapaima pond. Yeah, they have few Arapaima's in FRIM.



These are FRIM famous camphor trees. Notice how the leaves of different trees never touch each other? It's a special trait of this tree called crown-shyness.


Those fibrous roots grew really wide across that area! Now, try to imagine if those were long slimy tentacles... Kinda reminds me of Davy Jones. Nope not the real one, I'm talking about the one from the movie.


Apparently, this particular species of butterfly is quite rare. If that's the case, I'm quite lucky to get this shot! Via quick Googling, I found out that this butterfly is called Fluffy-Tit (Zeltus Etolus). Cute name.


Nature is simply amazing and beautiful. Had anyone ever wondered how come water is ALWAYS flowing from the top of the hill all the way to the bottom, 24/7? The behind-the-scenes works of nature is not easy to comprehend sometimes.


Not sure if it's that, but I think this mushroom is called Pigskin Poison Puffball. That's quite a mouthful to pronounce. If I got the name right, this one is quite poisonous! Just sayin', if the name is not obvious enough.

My whole family traveled to Kuching, Sarawak about few weeks back. Though it was just over the weekend, we had lots of fun travelling around. The main reason for our Kuching trip is to join the Ratha Yatra there, organised by ISKCON Kuching. Before attending the festival at 4pm, my dad's friend lent us his car, so we took the opportunity to drive around the area.

We drove to various places around the town, and managed to get a little lost. Thanks to Waze, we somehow managed to get back on track. One of our main destination was Kuching Waterfront.


Pictured above is the river view of Kuching Waterfront. The weather was nice that day, and by nice, I meant not raining. You can see the beautiful cloud formations.


I couldn't get the official name of this building, some says "Square Town", some says "Square Tower". Personally, 'Square Building' makes more sense to me. This colonial building (during the Brooke's era) used to be a jail. You can see "1879" on top of the entrance of this building. That was how long back this building goes. The scenery along this area is really beautiful! There's not much activity you can do here, besides enjoying the scenery and taking a boat ride across the river to Astana palace and a village.


Not sure if you can see, it says 'Dewan Undangan Negeri Sarawak'. This is Kuching's state legislative building. Too bombastic? It's their parliament building. As you can see, this building is quite new. It was officially opened in 2009. This is located just opposite the river.


To cross the river, you need to pay this nice uncle RM0.50. He will take you for a short boat ride. As I mentioned before, after crossing the river, you get to see the Astana Palace and a small village.


The modern art above can be found at the back of Kuching old courthouse. It's located just opposite Kuching Waterfront, the famous clock tower and Charles Brooke Monument. This old courthouse was constructed in the year 1874. All three places mentioned just now are just walking distance of each other. One portion of this old courthouse has been made into a museum and a restaurant.


On the way back to KL from Kuching International Airport. I took the early morning flight, unfortunately, not early enough to see the sunrise from up above. Nevertheless, the scenery just before takeoff was awesome!

I've always had a major fear of heights since I was a small boy. Acrophobia sucks... I rather not explain the details of my fear. Honestly, it's quite embarassing. Anyways, I became sick and tired of living with this fear. Imagine going to a high raise apartment, standing on a really high balcony or staring down from a really high place and feeling a chill sensation on your legs. Gosh!

One day, I decided to face my fear directly! It's the least I could do for myself. I stumbled upon SkyTrex Adventure website and decided to go there myself. What better way to combat your fear, than to challenge face to face with it. Hey, it worked! Giving myself a huge dose of my fear was the cure after all.

For those of you who's been there, you'll know that some of the challenges there are.... well, challenging (you'll feel that it's not THAT challenging after all after completing the stations though). For the benefit of those who are hearing about this place for the first time, SkyTrex Adventure is an aerial obstacle park. Different obstacles were designed and suspended from tree to tree. Your motive is to pass through all these obstacles. They prepared three different obstacle sets; Little Adventure, Big Thrill and Extreme Challenge. BTW, I took the Extreme Challenge, just sayin'. I do not want to spoil the fun entirely for those who are planning to go there, so no spoilers here.

To register, you need to pre-book via their website. Payment is made immediately. SkyTrex Adventure is located at Shah Alam Botanical Park. From the Shah Alam KTM station you can get a taxi to the said place. Just mention Bukit Cerakah to the taxi driver. Mine didn't know the place when I mentioned "Botanical Park" and "Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam" (what its called now). The standard charge should be somewhere between RM10 - RM15. Do prepare another RM3 for the park entree fees, plus another RM3 if you wanna buy gloves from them. You can bring your own if you want.

Camphor were known as 'Malaya Chandan' in the Vedic scriptures. This was simply because, at one time, Malaysia were famous for our camphor's. Well, time changes things, and we are well known over the world for other things now.

The picture you see above are camphor trees (Dryobalanops Aromatica or Borneo Camphor if you will) at Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM). One special trait of these trees are, leaves from different trees would not touch each other. So, when you look up, you can see a map-like view up above. This phenomenon is called 'crown shyness'. They look quite cool when you see them on a sunny day.

There are a couple of places at FRIM where you can spot these trees. One particular place (probably THE place to see these trees) is now restricted to public access after achieving their UNESCO world heritage status. You have to pay to enter into that area, where you will be escorted with a representative. He will bring you around, explaining some research done by FRIM in that area, plus of course, showing you these trees. For the benefit of those who are curious about the said location; it's beside the Arapaima pond. It was quite a disappointment for me, personally, who frequented FRIM for jogging during the weekends since I was 6 years old, and now not be able to enter into that area freely. In fact, I studied in the primary school in FRIM. Ah, good times :-)

After some explanation by the people in charge there, apparently some joggers who enter into this area steals some plants. One particular plant is Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma longifolia), planted there for research purposes. My humble request to anyone who's reading this post, please do not damage or steal plants, especially if it's planted for research.

Another place where you can spot these trees are, at the jogging trek, on the way to the entrance of the canopy walk hike. There will be one part of the trek where you will be walking up a steep hill. You can spot these trees on the way up the steep hill.

Every Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) student knows that their university life will not be completed without exploring our famous horse stable... at night. Insert hashtag #studentlife. This is the entrance to our riding arena.

As for me, I cycled here once at 3am in the morning. Hey, it was Friday night, and I was bored in the hostel. The only transport I had at that time was my awesome LeRun. Why not take it for a spin at night? The breeze was cool, the road was deserted, the street lights were dim, and the environment was quiet. Well, you can say it's quiet if you ignore the background insect sounds. I was really enthused about spotting some ghosts! Unfortunately, I came back to the hostel catching a cold. This was during my foundation days.

About 2 years after that, I came back here at about 2.30am with some of my friends. This time, we came prepared. Well, sort of. We recorded our drive there. Me with my iPhone of course! One camera at the front of the car, and the other at the back. Once reaching this place, we switched OFF the lights from the car. We took a slow drive around the area while randomly observing the environment. You would expect to see something in an eerie almost abandoned area, like a horse stable. Unfortunately, we went back empty handed. We reviewed the video once back at hostel. Nope, no luck.