My first Cameron Highlands trip was as a 16-year old RMC student on a camping trip 57 years ago. That was for one whole week. This time it was just three days and two nights. But Copthorne Hotel is also on Brichang, just as our RMC camp was in an ex-army base on a barren Brinchang hill-top. But while the hotel is luxurious by any standard, the camp was exposed and barely kept dry by the semi-circular zinc roof, and only the army-green mosquito nets kept the millions of flies from the nearby vegetable gardens out and made life just bearable.
I remember the tortuous drive from Tapah in the army trucks that made most of us sick, and the drive was forever. But traffic was sparse, and the weather really cold and we all lowlanders shivered to our tiny bones. This time around, it was wet all three days and that kept it cold, too, especially the two nights, and especially on the Strawberry Resort dinner drive. But, my God, the traffic reminded me of Bandung, with the same type of narrow, winding roads. This was nothing like my first trip and the many trips in-between. Somehow it spoiled the "holiday atmosphere".
I could talk some more about that RMC camping trip, the "locate C.T. camp" excersises, Mr. Sekhon's picking a chemical-dusted tomato and promptly falling sick for it, and so on, but that calls for a separate posting. This last Mubarak-organized trip was, on reflection, as enjoyable for its own reasons.
There were 20 of us old men and women, the oldest being 83, the youngest 60! But nonetheless we enjoyed ourselves. Except, maybe, poor Ponniah. All 79 years of him ! On the second day, a Friday, we had to make adjustment for a Friday-prayers break. The non-Muslims, Ponniah included, of course, were supposed to be "free-and-easy" while we were at the mosque between 1 and half-past two. At the appointed time and place, everyone was there except Ponniah. The problem is, he doesn't carry a mobile phone, or wears a watch. He must have been lost for time and unreachable, but had enough common sense to get a ride back to our hotel, while Chong, Alan and Yazid kept on looking until Alan called the hotel and got the information. Otherwise, our 3-day stay was pleasant enough.
The government clearly has made an effort to make C.H. a bona fide tourist resort, with its cool climate as the main draw. I saw many Thais and the European types, and they seemed to enjoy themselves. Many of the attractions are in fact privately managed, and clearly government funds should be channelled to make them better-run. As it is, everywhere I saw the "Malaysian malaise" of poor maintenance which somewhat downgraded many of the tourist attractions.
We all parked our cars at Royale Chulan, Seremban, and took the charted bus that left the hotel at about half-past eight, Thursday morning, and after making many pit-stops (we're senior citizens, man) arrived at our Brinchang hotel at about 6 p.m. in a steady drizzle. We left Brincang on Saturday (to-day) at 9 a.m., and after, again, many pit-stops, arrived back at Royale Chulan at 5 p.m. We enjoyed the 3-day trip, and many agreed to the idea of doing this again. Maybe Australia ?
While in C.H. we heard the long-awaited news of the dissolution of Parliament to make way for GE14, now fixed for exactly on the same date as the last one, on 5th. May. In fact the news was a bit of an anti-climax. Yusof Misai, Sainy and I got into some loud arguments with our opposing views - me, alone, for Mahathir, and the other 2 for Najib. Yusof Misai even challanged me to a wager over Sikamat, which was won by PKR in 2013 by a small majority of about 500! I said BN will lose again. I accepted the bet - one week's lunch for the winner.
I'm looking forward to the lunch.
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