The Great Cameron Experience

By De Ming

I took careful steps down the fourteen step stairway of my house. How can I be so sleepy after so many hours of hibernation? My droopy eyes fell on the clock; it was already four in the evening. At last I reached the bottom of the stairs; I slumped tiredly unto the sofa and heaved a sigh of relief. In a few minutes, I was found sleeping quietly on the sofa. It was only until seven did I open my eyes and when I did; the first thought that came to me was that there was something wrong with me today. I picked up the phone to call my Mom; I needed to see the doctor.

It was ten when a car drove into the porch; I stepped out of the car holding onto my medicine and swung the gate open. The doctor told me I had a fever and I was rather upset because in two days, I was to leave to Cameron Highlands on a family trip. I remember three years ago, I had just come back from a four day long school trip in Langkawi and I went to Cameron two days later. I remember I had a fever then and my teeth were chattering all through the night. This year was like history repeating itself, I had just come back from my youth camp and I am now having a fever.

Two days later, a Naza Ria was seen winding up the curvy old road up to Cameron, within that car was a family, my family. The beginning part of the journey was filled with silence as all of us (except my father, the driver) were sleeping. I was greatful that by then my fever had subside. The later part of the journey, my sister was not feeling that well and was lying down uncomfortably. I guess she’s not such a good traveler, or maybe it’s due to the fact that she was sitting behind.

The total time for the journey was three hours plus and all of us were glad when we finally reached the bungalow. We drove into the front gate of the property and went up a very steep road. As the car finally find a place to stop, I jumped out of the car and began greeting my grandparents (mother side), my two aunties and uncles, my three cousins and Mr. William the owner of the house. As I stepped into the bungalow, the thought that came to me was, “I wish this was mine!” There were two floors in the house, the bottom floor had three rooms, a dining table, a living room and a small kitchen. On the top floor there were two rooms, a dining table and a living room. But the best part was this two wooden box like thing with stairs and sofa thing. Please see the picture, some things are just hard to describe.

The front view of the bungalow

Sideview

Corner view?

My bedroom

The living room, noticed the wood thingy?

A better view of the thing.

That night, right after exploring to a nearby Jungle Walk, we had dinner under the cloudy night skies. At seven, two tables were already placed nicely on the soft green grass of the bungalow’s lawn and the caretaker was already busy barbequing sausages, lamb, corn, chicken, beef, pork and prawns. By seven-thirty, all of us were soon diving into our food. Personally, I do not think I am someone who is very generous with compliments, but this was one of the most delicious barbeque I have eaten and add on to the company of my cousins and my siblings, the dinner was just brilliant!

My brother in action. That looks good does it not?

Dinner...

The next morning, I woke up at eight-thirty; it was not a very cold morning although it was raining last night. I had a really bad dream that night and I went to sit outside on the rocking chair and stared at the mountains that lay scattered in front of the bungalow. It was misty there and the view was really nice. The peace within the bungalow calmed me down a bit.

An hour passed and soon all of us were dressed in our sports attire, we were going to follow the Jungle Walk recommended by Uncle William! After a five minute ride, we got down from the car and began to walk up a slope and along the sides of some vegetable plantation. I expected something easier, and was rather shocked that we had to walk along such a narrow path (barely 15cm\ 6 inches) and since it was raining the day before, the path was exceptionally slippery. At times we had to walk up a small but steep slope and after some time, we arrived inside a more jungle-ish place.

Must take photo in case some one dies!

The jungle part of the path was still slippery, and it was tougher, for there were some branches covered with thorns and logs in the way. But after a few near death cases, the path soon began to be more manageable and we began to enjoy the walk more. We met a few people going the opposite direction and I am sure that from our behavior the visitors will most probably think that all Malaysian boys are very ‘nice’. The first people we met were an ‘ang mor’ couple, I asked my brother and cousins to stand aside a little to let them cross and I gestured politely for them to go pass by. They smiled and said thank you and I smiled back and said no problem, then I told them quite bluntly that the path was going to get much tougher and then we broke out laughing. The second group was another ‘ang more’ couple and this time they probably got the impression that Malaysian boys were noisy. Why? Probably it was my fault, we were walking and we caught sight of a house in a breaking of the trees and I said it was our bungalow. After that I ended up joking around and shouting for my grandfather who was still in the bungalow. We resumed our walk and I was talking about writing a book called ‘Teh Tarik Heart’ co-authored by the Gan brothers when we saw the couple. I did not dare say anything but “Hello” to them because I was rather embarrassed and I really hoped they did not hear my shouts.

Nature.So thus, we set forth.

A hero in action.

Would you go up?

Or down?

What's that up there?

The walk lasted for two hours, which was really not expected since we were informed that it would be a forty-five minutes walk. When we arrived home that day we referred to a map and realized that our path (Jungle Walk 9) was split into two, 9a and 9b. We had started from 9a instead of the proper 9b, therefore we ended up taking a longer time and going through all the suffering and near deaths. But to be fair, I really enjoyed the walk and although it was dangerous, we were given plenty of chances to help each other out and during the whole walk, I had a good laugh talking and scaring the ‘ang mor langs’!

We had lunch in a nearby shop and my uncle called my parents to pick us up from Tanah Rata. Seeing as the car was not big enough to fit everyone in, my mother, brother and I decided to walk around the shops and take a look at the souvenirs. It was quite enjoyable and we ended up getting some things before the car came to fetch us back.

We rested for a few hours and decided to go to the strawberry farm (much to the horror of Jeremy and my brother who were sleeping). We went all the way up to Brinchang to find Rajuu’s Strawberry Farm. To our disappointment, the strawberries were all light green in colour and Mr. Rajuu explained that the rainy weather was the culprit to this. We ate some strawberries there but did not buy back any. In Rajuu’s farm, De Ming decided exercised him influence. He started to walk up a road and soon everyone was following him although in truth there was nothing there!

The path.

We arrived home with hot scones waiting for us, thanks to the caretaker Jessica and we enjoyed it very much, especially since we had an option of marmalade, lemon, blackberry, and strawberry jam. Once again Aunty Jessica is able to smile because of our compliments.

That evening, we decided to take a walk down to the nearby flower shop. There were many of varieties of flowers and plants there, my personal favourite was the pitcher plant, but I doubt that it can survive in the hot Subang weather. Because of that I decided to get something else: two Wilma Goldencrests (something like a Christmas tree). My sister bought a flower called Impatiens and Joelle bought a cactus. She could not buy anything else due to the limited space in Singapore.

We arrived back in time for dinner and that night Uncle William had readied tent like thing. Dinner that night was steamboat and once again I was stumped by Aunty Jessica’s cooking skill. It was the best steamboat that I have ever eaten! I loved the soup! Table arrangements were the same as the day before, kids one table, adults another. I pointed out that day that it was the first time Jia Huey (my sister) and Jon (my seven year old cousin brother) were able to communicate without all the fighting, shouting, biting and calling of names. It was definitely an improvement! Dinner that night was as good as yesterdays and we definitely enjoyed sitting in that cool atmosphere eating nice hot steamboat.

When dinner was over and the adults done cleaning up the site, we gathered together to watch the photos taken by my father and uncle. The surprising thing is that in most of the jungle walk photos, Jeremy was caught in really awkward places. There were pictures of him squatting down with a huge leaf blocking his lower part of his body, squatting down in almost every picture, sitting on a log like a horse and standing above a small trickle of water! The whole family was soon laughing our heads off. I kind of pitied Jeremy, but I still laughed along with them.

We distributed the presents after watching the photos on the television. Christmas celebration for us was early because my aunties and uncles will not be in Malaysia after that. It was a simple event, where the giver would present the present to the receiver. As usual, I received books for both Christmas and birthday presents. Well, what was I to do; it is not easy to find presents for me! De Ming is complicated.

Presents!

Me receiving mine.

Happy moment

The next morning, I woke up at seven, and as usual, I was the first of the boy cousins to wake up. We went to breakfast at nine and then set forth to the Boh Plantation. The road up there was a ridiculously narrow one way path and at every turning, we had to press on the horn so that we do not collide into a car coming the other way! It was misty when we arrived in the plantation; we could actually see the mist moving a few feet away from us! The nice thing about the plantation was the view and nothing else. There were rows and rows of striped bushes covering the hills. I decided to do something stupid then, I saw someone picking the leaves there and I shouted out “Leng lui!” The person turned around and to my surprise it was a man! I immediately ran away, some how I have a talent of embarrassing myself.

Noticed that my sister is slanted? Haha... my fault!

We reached the bungalow at eleven and were soon packing all out things into the car. It was a tight squeeze as we had an extra passenger, Jeremy who was going to say with us for a few days while the rest went to Singapore, but at last we managed to squeezed it all in. Once again, Jia Huey was not feeling comfortable on the way down and even my brother complained.

As I sat in the car that day, I remember thinking that it was a really meaningful trip. Although it was a simple place, yet the company made a world of a difference! In short I believed that it was the best trip with my cousins ever and I certainly look forward to next year’s trip.