Of Cold Weather, Ipoh Kembali and Racism

I have just come back from a trip to Cameron Highlands and Ipoh; and I shall begin my post by sharing this interesting Prayer for Tourist that I spotted in a cafe.

'Heavenly Father, look down on us your humble, obedient tourist servants, who are doomed to travel this earth, taking photographs, mailing postcards, buuying souvenirs and walking around in drip-dry underwear.' This is an excerpt from the prayer; I wish blogspot could show the original size of the pic; if u are interested in the full text, do ask me for the pic online. =D


If you wish to escape from the hot weather, get closer to nature AND savour nice food at a non-exorbitant price, Cameron is definitely better than Genting. See it for yourself:

U get the nicest strawberries here in Msia; true, they aren't that sweet but they taste really nice with honey (also readily available in Cameron).
The best deal I got is at Brinchang Night Market-RM10 for a box of bigger-sized strawberries (About 400+ grammes)


Brinchang night market has offers nice char koay teow. The stall which we tried (and like!!) is manned by a bespectacled woman with the help of 2 children (6 years old and 10 years old). She sells asam laksa too; it is worth a try though it is not as 'asam' as we like. With these info, hopefully those of you who are reading my blog for reviews succeed to find it. By the way, the Brinchang night market opens every fri and sat; but during the school holidays, it opens everyday (from what I read in website).

Nothing beats eating steamboat at night on a cold day. The place we went to, Organic Produce (this is the exact word used on their signboard *shakes head*) Sdn. Bhd. has been featured in astro programme 'Taste with Jason'. It is famous for its herbal-bean based soup,
and the 10 variety of organic vegetables. I can see steph frowning already ;p...but not to worry, they have prawns, squids, fish and beancurd skins too.



Boh tea valley is a MUST among all the attractions. My first visit there was during cny holz last year, and I was really mesmerised by it. This time round, we decided to not enter Boh but to take a turn to Gunung Brinchang (we still need to pass by the vast of tea valley owned by Boh, just that we didn't turn into their cafe & factory. By the way, Boh is closed on Mondays.)

Though we read that Gunung Brinchang is accessible by car, the road is really narrow and winding. Moreover, it was raining at that time, and mild landslide had occurred in certain areas. Putting safety as our priorities, my mum told my dad not to go further up. We found a wider space and stopped there to make a u-turn back. If it wasn't raining, we could have parked there and hiked up. Next time then!


Ye Olde Smokehouse is the BEST place in Cameron to camwhore! This English Tudor style hotel and restaurant gives you a colonial ambience! It would be nice to have tea and scones (almost all restaurants/cafes in Cameron offer this) while enjoying the sceneries, but trust me, there are better (in terms of price and taste) scones out there! My sis visited the restaurant before so we tried out scones somewhere else. Where? Read on..

It was raining by the time we step out of the car but it didn't dampen our spirits! After a while, the rained stop.

Throughout our trip, we visited several strawberry farm. This pic was taken at Raju Strawberry Farm; a small box of strawberries is priced at RM5 (most places offer this price); we paid RM6 for strawberries coated with honey. The strawberry ice-cream is nice, worth trying! The milk shake is so-so. If you wish to have drinks, EQ Strawberry Farm has really nice strawberry juice at RM 3 a cup. We didn't try their strawberry milk shake though. For the best strawberry jam, get it at KHM Strawberry Farm in Taman Sedia!

I didn't try all the scones in Cameron but the one in T-cafe is just nice, not too buttery and crisp on the outside. The one that my sis tried in Smokehouse is too dry and too buttery. T-cafe is one of the popular eateries featured in many sites and forum. I went there hoping to savour their 'warm apple pie with a warm smile' as commented by someone. Apparently, T-cafe is famous for its food and good service. I was disappointed.

Chicken lasagne and Vegetable Burger. We didn't find it nice, in fact, the patty of the burger is quite bland. We wonder why so many people have said the veg burger is their fav (in the bulletin board places downstairs). One of the house specialties, Strawberry cheesecake, is not bad but it is too sweet. The apple pie wasn't warm and I didn't find it particularly delicious. I am not being picky here, but all the good comments that I have read build up my expectations.
My sis said the last time her friends and her went there early this year, the food wasn't that great either.


I had my taste of their service when I went in at 10 a.m. on Friday morning. We had went there the day before during teatime but it was full house. As I told the staff at the at the counter (there were several of them) that there is 7 of us, she gave me a this look that reads you-are-not-welcome. We were not even ushered it to our seats so we just made our way. I was quite surprised as we have read many praises on forum about their warm service.


As I ordered my food, the waitress asked me where I was from. I said 'I am from here, KL in fact'. Then the conversation stopped there. While waiting for our food later, my sis and I read the letters/postcards pasted on the wall. T-cafe is featured in Lonely Planet too! However, my sis and I made a shocking discovery-shocking when you gave it a thought.


The postcards/emails/letters that praised T-cafe for their great service, friendly staff and boss who strike conversation, delicious food (many mentioned veg burger, lasagne) were all from FOREIGNERS. Yes, I don't see any msians; even if there were, the majority were by foreigners. My sis and I made a daring conclusion which we believe to be true, for we really didn't feel the good service even when we left. There wasn't even a Thank You as we left, mind you, it was in the morning and there weren't many customers. No excuses about being busy.

Our daring conclusion is that, T-cafe offered substandard service to its customers. Flash their warmest smile and offer good service to angmohs, and not extend the same good service to msians. They may even think that msians are occupying the space (there is limited places in the cafe) which angmohs could be seated. Assertions it may seem, but really, we didn't feel any of their warm services which are widely cited on websites and forums. I am not complaining that you go the extra mile to serve the foreigners, for I am sure every msian in their good senses would love to give the foreigners good impression about our country. Yet, you can still go the extra mile and NOT neglecting the basic customer service to your other patrons (read: msians!). It is this attitudes of the staff at T-cafe that made me frown with displeasure.


Enough about my rantings; let me continue to show you the various lovely sights in Cameron.

At Cactus Point. There are many species of plants there besides cactus- lavender, camellia, money plant etc. I spent more time looking at these plants instead of cactus. For your info, another place which house cactus is Cactus Valley, which charges entrance fee. Cactus Point is free of charge.

After spending 2 days in Cameron, we stopped by Ipoh for food before going to sg. siput. Indeed, it was aptly called 'Ipoh Kembali' by wy in her email to me; I had asked her for directions for several eateries.

I am quite proud of my sense of direction and memory too! Of course credits go to veng f and wy, whom I smsed and called for assistance. I had written the directions from wy’s email; however, we weren’t sure how to get to new town from Tian Jin as there were too many one-way streets. Instinctively, I gave veng f a ring; and what happened next really impressed the whole car. By telling vf what landmark I see, he then directed me to ‘Funny Mountain’, the place famous for tau foo fah. It was as though he had the whole map of new town in his mind. ‘you see a padang? Ok turn right’ ‘turn left and go straight..do you see McD ahead?’ . Later my dad inquired who I was talking to; when I told him it was a guy, he remarked ‘No wonder! His directions are so clear.’ Alright, I do admit guys are better in road directions, but we girls are better in shopping mall directions!!

Never would we imagine that one-way street was not the only thing we had to face when driving in Ipoh. On the last day, after dimsum at Foh San, we got into the car and thought of going for ice kacang in Greentown Cafe before leaving Ipoh for KL. I was about to call vf to ask if Greentown opens on Thursday when my dad saw something held onto our windscreen by the car’s wipers. I didn’t even have time to react as dad had gone out of the car to retrieve that white piece of paper. Slapped right into our face on the last day of our trip in Ipoh, a SUMMON!!

We sort of knew what rule we had violated, for the moment we returned from Foh San, we saw our car ‘stand out’ in a row which was previously filled with only a Penang car. The row was now filled with TAXIS. Somehow, at the instant of seeing the summon, I blame myself for not remembering what wy had told me about specially allocated parking space for taxis.

See the signboard on the far left? This signboard isn't shown on the other row of parking space.

My dad thought of paying the fine of RM40 there and then (RM40 if paid within14 days, RM 50 if paid after 14 days), but my sis had a better idea- ‘let’s appeal!’ On second thought, why not? Since the sign about taxi allocated space was not place DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF US, and it wasn’t entirely out faults that we weren’t familiar with Ipoh’s rules. My sis then suggested we took pics to strengthen our points about the signboard; hence we both went out of the car and got ourselves busy. Amidst all these, we noticed that the specially allocated space for taxi is drawn with a yellow line instead of white line (albeit faded at the space where we parked); I also had the time to blame the Penang car for parking there and making me less cautious about getting fined.

Majlis Perbandaran Ipoh.

So I called the enquiry number and got the whereabouts to appeal; it happened that the Majlis Perbandaran Ipoh is near the Greentown area. So after talking to the officer-in-charge, the fine was reduced from RM40 to RM25! Hehe. As we left the building, my sis gleefully exclaimed, ‘let’s treat the RM25 as visiting fee! We have used their washrooms, cooled ourselves in the air-conditioned lobby and checked out the exhibition area.’ Well, it is always good to look on the brighter side, ain’t it?

I would like to end this post by sharing my personal reflection on an incident. On the way back, we stopped by Tapah rest station to get some jambu batu (dad’s favourite). We walked along the whole row of stalls; checking out the vendor and the price. All the stalls were manned by Malays and were selling at RM6 per kg of jambu batu. The market price is about RM4-5. We didn’t make a stop to even try the jambu batu and before we knew, we were at the last stall when the Chinese lady asked us to try the jambu batu at her stall. ‘I can give you RM5.50 per kg if you get 2kg’.

I guess that line made the difference and we stopped to try. My dad said it outright that it was rather soft. The lady is quite persistent; she defended that the jambu batu is not soft when it isn’t so ripe. She proceeded to say that my dad needn’t buy it if we didn’t find the new one that she was about to cut satisfactory. Though the second piece that we tried was crispy, it has tinge of sourness. When my sis pointed that out, the lady sprang into rebuttal again. I was quite irritated with her attitude but if my dad likes it, I have no comment.

In retrospect, my sis and I should’t have been racist. We shouldn’t have in our mind that Malay vendors will NOT give us discounts. Even if it were so, it wouldn’t have harmed if we had stopped at a few stalls, tried the jambu batu and bargained over the price. We would still have much to gain if the price was RM6 but the jambu batu tasted better. Before we even stopped at the Chinese stall, before we even allowed her chance to ‘market’ her jambu batu, we had already fallen into our own trap of preconception. I am glad that I realized my mistake.