Now may be a good time

School holidays is over, traffic in the cities is back to a crawl with rush hour traffic a chore to grind through everyday. Well for those who traded one congestion of the cities to the congestion of Cameron Highlands resort, just too bad. I know, I know, your children cannot take time off from their school studies and you just have to schedule some cuti-cuti Malaysia during the school break, so happened everybody thinks the same and what have you? Voila! Traffic nightmare in the highlands. It can't be helped, the roads are narrow and can't be widened anymore to accommodate the tourist.

But wait! How about those of you who don't have a full nest or even those whose children has grown and left the nest? Yes, DINKS, and retirees, this will be the best time to head on over to Cameron Highlands for a REAL relaxing break. No maddening crowd. Perhaps just the two of you, have yourself a romantic dinner, hmmm, a romantic getaway vacation sounds just enticing, don't you think?

Now this would really be great!

Cameron Highlands Blog

Decided to change the Cameron Highlands blog look and feel a little bit. Well actually I was using the old HTML style, but would like to use the new Blogger layout to use those new features. Oh, well since I'm a one leg kick kinda guy, creating this Cameron Highlands travel website writing content, researching and photography, and of course doing web hosting maintenance and design and who knows what!

Fortunately I know how to do it and have learned quite a fair bit ever since starting out on my Cameron-Highland-Destination.com website adventure. It has been a great long 5 years (how time flies!) and I have just renewed my expensive but very good SBI package. And yes, it has been growing steadily and I should believe it is one of the best website about Cameron Highlands judging from the heaps of compliments that I receive from my comments section. Drop me a line would ya?

Meanwhile, it is back to hacking my Cameron Highlands website, so I'll be kinda slow in the article writing department. Not withstanding my first baby was also born so looks like I'm going to be super busy!

Worker Shortage In Cameron Highlands

Seems like worker shortages might spell the end of Cameron Highlands. I hope the government will lift the ban coz this is not good for the Cameron Highlands tourism industry, the tea industry, the nurseries, vegetable farms, and all round causes a bad name for Malaysia. If government is sincere about their efforts to promote tourism Malaysia, they need to look into the manpower problem.

Sure there may be unemployed locals, but are they willing to take up the vacancy? Agriculture is not for everyone, you got a green thumb? But that is not the same. Doing gardening work and actually keep an acre of vegetable growing well without weeds and insects wrecking havoc is not everyone's cup of tea.

There may be vacancies available in Malaysia, but those types of job aren't just suitable for locals. It could be because of social status, like, "die from hunger also don't want to do because how will I face my family/relatives/neighbour/blah blah blah" you know that kind of thing. If you ask me, yep there are certain kind of jobs I wouldn't want to do either. And so it is that we will have labour shortage in certain job sectors, and over supply of employees in other industry because it looks great, hip even and glamorous, because everybody wants to do it. IT seems to be one of them. And when you have oversupply, the pay gets depressed. Grads pay are still the same since the last ten years, but inflation has eroded the disposable income.

Let's hope the government will come to its senses unless they need a stand off just like the sugar, flour licensing issue just so to wake them up to do something positive about it!

School Holidays

How time flies! It is already pass the middle of school holidays. Days are hot and sometimes it rains. Cameron Highlands is no different when it comes to kooky weather. The world climate is topsy-turvy and so is Cameron Highlands. So take your chances and see if the weather in Cameron Highlands is cool or just plain balmy like the English weather. Then you can go for a dainty afternoon tea and scones top up with Devonshire cream and go a bit English.

With World Cup going on, might be nice to hole up in some bistro that has World Cup feature in their nightly watering hole. Perhaps the Jungle Bar at Kang's Travelodge? Or Father's Guesthouse video room? Twinpines perhaps? Or go all snobby and try out YTL Cameron Highlands Resort?

I'll catch the World Cup finals later. Too many things to do. Still have to slog it out at work. But I like the school term break rush hour traffic. It's not as bad and I can get to work several minutes ahead than non-school holiday traffic. Just one of those little silver linings in life to be thankful for!

Budget accommodation

Sometimes people ask where is the cheapest accommodation to stay in Cameron Highlands? Well be careful what you ask for! Because the cheapest accommodation is not necessary where you want to stay! This cheap lodging goes for about RM10-RM15 per night per person. And they are usually dormitory style or room share style.

This type of accommodation is for those backpackers who are traveling on a shoestring. Usually students are just fresh out of college or university and decided to see the world before settling down to find a job, get married and raise a family. Very different from us Asians who normally after graduating would be all raring to go find a job and start earning an income! After all, graduates have just burned a big hole in their parents pocket and to ask for some more pocket money to go traipsing round the world? You got to be joking!

Anyway, for those who are adventure hungry and don't mind roughing it out, budget accommodation like this are just perfect! Easy on the pockets, but a little rough on the luxury part! Hey, that's the spirit of adventure!

So where are the cheap hotels accommodation of this sort in Cameron Highlands? There are four that I know off, namely: Kang Travels, Father's Guesthouse, Twinpines/KRS, and Cameronian Inn.

Coach Bus Transportation

An interesting conversation with Gerard. When a guest enquired on which bus coach service to take, Gerard replied, “You pay more for the bus service that breaks down the least often.”

Intriguing. The cheaper the coach bus service, the more prone the bus you're planning to take will breakdown. And if you have a connecting flight to catch, you are in big trouble!

Murphy's Law also plays a part here too!

When related an incident, one group who booked a coach bus service in the morning to travel from Cameron Highlands to Penang, the morning bus broke down. So the bus company relegated them to the next coming bus on schedule. And what do you know? That second bus broke down too on the way up to Cameron Highlands!

So what the bus company did was to place them on the normal public bus service to take them down to Tapah where they can catch another bus coach to Penang. And that public bus too broke down, and have to wait for the next public bus service.

All in all, it took them some more than 12 hours to reach their travel destinations!

There's a lesson to be learned here. Cheap is not necessary good.

And the conclusion, go for Kang Minivan service. Best all rounder!

Jamu from Rafflesia Flower

Interesting how this traditional medicine ‘jamu’ using Rafflesia flower azlanii bud for reducing weight, to shrink uterus after giving birth and for supposedly sexual strength for men. The UKM study found out that it works in a way but there is a unfortunately cost to using this Rafflesia flower bud, it damages the liver and spleen.

This highlight shows that using ‘jamu ‘ made using Rafflesia flower bud is not safe for consumption. When they fed it to the mice subjects, they did find the size of the mice decreased, which you meant if you want to lose weight it works, but at a cost of damaging your liver and spleen which also decreased in size despite the fact the liver was able to detoxify the body from the harmful substance.

Perhaps this warning should help to preserve the Rafflesia flower plant from being harvested (and sold for about RM9 to RM25 depending on the size), AFAIK, which is an endangered species. Perhaps the Rafflesia plant azlanii specie is not so endangered? Well I’m no botanist, but I do know there are many traditional medicine be it Chinese, Malay, Indian or Western, all must be studied carefully before simply consuming them. You never know the active ingredient may have some other undesired side effect.

Like recently I just learned that Ginseng does boost your blood circulation and metabolism (they managed to isolate the active ingredient during their research) but is not good to be consumed during childbearing because it dilates the blood vessel and would cause excessive bleeding during delivery.

My dad also advises me not to mix Western medicine with traditional Chinese herbs and medicine as it might cause undesired effect or it might cancel out each other’s potency.

Anyway as far as Rafflesia flower plant is concerned, I just want to view the largest flower in the world and not so much about taking it as a traditional medicine.

Some facts about Rafflesia flower plant

Wesak Day coming up

Wesak day coming this 28th May. Will be a super long Malaysia holiday weekend . Quick checking, Singapore also got Vesak day holiday on 28th May, so make that a double super long Malaysia Singapore holiday weekend!

And the verdict? A super traffic scrunch in good old ever popular Cameron Highlands resort holiday getaway travel destination!

Better plan for another time unless you absolutely must go (well, fed up of the heat wave, must see greenery, and the children must go somewhere... etc). Must go, must go, but well, make your wise decision, there are many other tourism Malaysia travel destination that you can go.

If not, join the scrunch in Cameron Highlands.
Have some patience and courtesy and goodwill to your fellow holiday makers!
Cheers!

School Holidays in June

School term break, Malaysia holidays and Singapore holidays coming up! Cuti-cuti Malaysia, yes? Hey, do watch out for holiday scrunch in Cameron Highlands and if at all possible don't come up during the weekend. You might regret it from the traffic congestion! Cameron Highlands is very popular getaway travel destination so plan wisely!

Malaysia School Holidays 2010
Second mid-term break from 5th June to 20th June

Singapore School Holidays 2010
Semester 1 Term 2 from 29th May to 27th June

Plan well and avoid the traffic jam nightmare in Cameron Highlands!

Cheers!

Related post:
Malaysia Holidays and school term breaks 2010

Starbucks Summer Tasting Special

Starbucks in Cameron Highlands is part of the Summer Tasting Special promotion amongst the Starbucks Malaysia chain of Starbucks coffee shops. Check out the list and see if you can get some free coffee on that day on the 27th May 7.30pm. Since I not there in CH, I won't get to try it up there, but I still can try them coz there is one near my house in Petaling Jaya!

Check out the list of Starbucks coffee shop location for the Summer Coffee Tasting event!

Cheers!