Thursday, January 25, 2007

First Time at Fraser’s Hill - Part 1

First Day – Feb 9, 05

I was really surprised to be notified immediately that my booking for Bank’s resorts at Fraser’s Hill was approved. I was just trying my luck as I did not know what to do for the long Chinese New Year long weekend. I was browsing the list of the resort the day before and one item stands out was Fraser’s Hill as I have never been there and I thought it would be good for me to check it out this time.

Ngah and family came to the house shortly after 9 am and together we left the house at almost 9.30 am for Fraser’s Hill. Along decided to stay behind as I understood he wanted to spend his holidays with his friends. I can understand that as when I was his age I did the same. I purposely took the old, it is certainly the same old route but definitely not and old road, trunk road to Kuala Kubu. So much have changed along the way but the traffic is still the same. I took the trunk road firstly trying to avoid the highway as I tend to speed on the highway as I wanted to take it slow and easy to Fraser’s Hill. Secondly, I wanted to see what sorts of developments have taken place along the way. They are a lot. And thirdly, I knew there will be a lot of traffic roadblocks along the way and it would be easier for me to be aware of them if I were to drive on the trunk road. On the highway, I could be careless. By 11.30 am we were already passing Kuala Kubu and climbing towards Fraser’s Hill. The road still winding and my family did not like it. To ease off the long winding travel I stopped at the new Hulu Selangor Dam commercially known as Splash. It was a nice photo break as well. We arrived at the Gap around 12.15pm and it was the turn for the downflow traffic from Fraser’s Hill and our turn going up would be at 1 pm. So we queue our cars on the side and waited. It was a good lesson for my children and I explained to them what was going on.

I did not expect too much from Fraser’s Hill as I knew it is just another hill resort to relax and it is not Cameron Highland. What I like about it though was the colonial feel that it projects through its old building. Somehow it manages to project a sense of nice and cosy small place. Feels like you want to be tucked at a corner somewhere within it. That’s how I felt when we approach the Fraser’s Hill gate.


My first intention when we arrived up there was to locate Pines Resorts immediately. However, my sense of direction failed me and we ended up going round and round until finally, I saw a sign says Jeriau Water Fall and I thought the resort was along the way. I was even sure when I saw the Golf Club and Resorts signage. When we got to the entrance of the waterfall I knew I made a mistake and Pines Resort was definitely not there. However, since we were already there at the waterfall I decided to check it out and my children and their cousins decided to take a swim. The place is a bit too far for my wife to walk to from the parking lot so I drove her and my sister-in-law to Pines Resorts. Kakak, Imah and Dibah decided to follow us and I left Kak Cik and Baqir with Fatah and An at the fall. I managed to locate Pines Resort on the first try as I decided to ask somebody and when I go to the junction I saw the signage and I wondered how come I missed that before.


The three-room condo was more than enough for two families so we laboured our luggage up to the top floor (C17). Mainly it was me exercising myself going up and down carrying them. Around 4 pm I drove back to the fall to pick up the rest and when I got there they were done with swimming and ready to go. So we drove back to the condo and relax for a few hours until my wife said, ‘Don’t we want to go out and explore the place? Just a few minutes after 6pm we drove out with no definite direction. We just drove around to check the place and we passed BNM Bungalow that is so secluded that I do not want to stay there unless we have a platoon of relatives with us. There were a lot of nice holiday homes owned by corporations and a few by, no doubt, rich and famous. We actually passed the nice home of a couple featured in the newspaper not so long time ago. It was put up for sale and I stopped to have a look. I could not see much from the road but by the look of it, it is nice. But even if I have the money I would not be buying it – too secluded for my wife liking. In the end, we stopped at the town square, there is no town in Bukit Fraser anyway, and walked about taking photos at the famous clock, buying stuff and window shop. We went back to the condo just before Maghrib.

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