1st Trip 2009 : Cameron Highland

I have always been longing to travel to Cameron Highland ever since I work in KL. It is just that I don't have the opportunity and guts to drive up there alone. The thought of driving up the steep hilly road with deep gorge on almost every edge and corner just scare me of, seriously! Hence, I have been procrastinating the trip until last Sunday, when all in a sudden, a close friend of mine has successfully coaxed me into following him to the hilly mountain town.

We started the journey quite late in the evening due to some unforeseen circumtances. We left KL at around half past 5 in the evening when it was raining heavily. As we were driving at night, we have decided to take the Simpang Pulai Exit, an hour extension to the journey but in the interest of safety plus not being familiar to the road, we reckoned that was the best decision. How lucky we were, the journey was as pleasant as the cold breeze that caressing my semi wrinkled skin when we reached The Herritage - The Hill Resorts - a 4 Star Hotel according to the website ~ except I forgot to check the year it was conferred such a rating!

The hotel was chosen after I have done quite an extensive research on the possible hotel candidates through the website. I was quite prepared to make the best decision for all of us based on facts provided by a website found on the Internet. How wrong I was! From the outside, I would say that the hotel is quite impressive. The tudor design makes the ambiance as English as my eyes could see. Don't judge a book by it's cover. That is how much I could advice you. The room sucks big time and it has no resemblance of even a 3 Star Hotel ~ The room has only one misserable queen size bed with old and smelly duvett that gave me rashes for few days. The bathroom, well, I should not elaborate more except mention one word - Mildew!. It was all over the wall and the thought of writing it here already make me want to puke! The only good thing that I could recall is the friendliness of the staff. The food ~ oh yeah, another interesting topic to talk about, they only achieved C Ratings and I was not even surprised judging by the sausages served which is on par with that of Ramly's Burger. Not that I don't like Ramly's burger, it is just not matching my expectation of a 4 Star Hotel that I have envisaged when I made the reservation. The waitresses were not even trained well to handle food and I encountered one waiter who even use his bear hand to transfer food from the Baine Merry to the plate. How yucky is that!

I could write a book about this hotel, especially when they are charging me an exorbitant amount of MYR210 for such facilities. Luckily my MAS ID gave me that rate or else I would have to fork out more money for a one night unpleasant experience there. Well, enough said. Now, let's talk about the Tanah Rata town. It is a sleepy town with hardly any interesting night activities except the enjoyment of watching Malaysian wearing snow cap in Malaysia while eating "Satay" by the road side Gerai and also the existence of the only kool coffee place available ~ Starbucks! At least! Other than that it is so quiet even your heartbeat could cause a ruckus when you are grasping that cold air.

To be continued......