A Malaysian Road Trip For My Youngest Son

"...Father! I like going on trips with our family, uncles, aunties and cousins. When can we go on a Roadtrip to Malaysia with them?..."

My youngest son, Budi Hayat and me at Cameron Highlands

When can we go for a road trip to Malaysia? This was the question that my youngest son asked me several times in the second half of 2018. He was 10 years old then. He was curious to see more of Malaysia after our 4-day trip in June 2018, to Kuala Lumpur, the capital Malaysia. Suddenly one morning in August 2018, I found myself "joined"in a whatsapp group named "Malaysian Road Trip" created by him. There was just 2 participants; him and I. He said that we could add the rest when the Road Trip was more concretised. What could a father do when your child does something like that. So I went about to start planning our Malaysian Road Trip 2018 in December that year. The trip went like this...

So we finally reached the day for us to depart for our Malaysian Road Trip. Seven of us; Shahri, Sarah, Huda, Raihan, Jasa, Budi and me will be spending 8 days together on a road trip. We’ll be going to KL-Ipoh-Cameron-Port Dickson. We rented a van together with our usual driver, Jun.

This trip was planned as a request by Budi cos he enjoyed the previous road trip that he requested for another one and so I agreed.

Day 1 - 7 December

The day started early, around 7.15 am as we left our place to fetch Shahri and family at Yew Tee. I decided to leave early so that we can go for Friday Prayers as I’ve missed the last 2 due to my trip in Sumatera. Not nice to miss again.

The morning drive was smooth. We did our Solat Jumaat somewhere near Seremban. It was a neighbourhood mosque. Nothing spectacular.

We reached Ascott around 3pm and then we checked-in. At about 5pm, we left for Amcorp Mall; my favourite Mall in KL area. Bought a couple of stuff; mostly tin toys. After that, we were pleasantly surprised to find a section of the carpark opened up a food truck that evening. Had some snacks and we were off to KLCC to have dinner at Chilli’s.

Then we were informed via friends, relatives and hotel staff that there will be a big demonstration in KL. I found out that the venue, Dataran Merdeka, was just 2 km away from the hotel. So we made a decision to leave at 10am for Ipoh, right after breakfast.

Budi with the food truck area in the background.

The kids enjoying the food here!

Flea market at Amcorp Mall. Excellent picking place for nice vintage items.

Day 2 - 8 December

We left KL slightly after 10.30 am. It was surprisingly a longer than usual ride to Ipoh. We took around 3 hours when usually it would only take half that time. We stopped by the Old Town for a bit of sightseeing of the street art and heritage building. We also had lunch at a cafe called Nellys. Then checked-in at Weills Hotel. We went to the Sunway Hot Spring that evening. It was quite a nice place. The boys and me enjoyed ourselves. Raihan decided not to go in the water when she saw the number of kids there. Had room service for dinner.

Street Art at Ipoh Old Town

At the entrance of Sunway Hot Springs.

It was an enjoyable time spent at the Hot Springs. Before our trip here, we did not know that Ipoh has such nice hot spring places.

Day 3 - 9 December

Woke up early to go for the weekly Pasar Karat at Jalan Horley. This is the second time that I visited this night market. The first time was in September this year with Zaki after our Mount Korbu climb. As I grow older, I really enjoy going for all these flea market type of events and buy old things. I try to get my kids to like the concept of picking and buying pre-loved items. Doing this, we are actually preserving history, 1 item at a time. Also, we help to reduce purchases of new items. Our small contribution to Sustainable Living. Some of these values have rubbed on to my 3 sons.

Anyway, for this trip, we bought almost RM 500 worth of “junks/treasures”. This included the items that was purchased earlier from Hassan Sas. Left at 11 for a quick lunch and change to go for a short rafting trip down Sungai Kampar.

Soaking in the flea market atmosphere.

Junk/Treasure galore!

We reached the start point for rafting session at around 3. After a short briefing, we were good to go. And it started raining. I was kinda nervous since the memory of Sungai Berkail was very fresh in my mind.

All set for the rafting. This would be the second river rafting session for my youngest son.

At the midway point. Taking a breather!

This was the second river rafting session for my youngest son.

The rafting was quite easy. Maybe one grade 2.5-3.0 drop, a few grade 2 and a many grade 1. It was a good rafting session for the my family and Shahri’s family too. Not dangerous but had some excitement.

After the session, we went back to the hotel to change. Dinner was at a Dim Sum place about 10 minutes away from our hotel. After dinner, we went to Ipoh Parade for some dessert at Secret Recipe.

That night we called Bakti to confirm that he was unable to join us. It would have been nice for him to join us but it was too complicated and costly for him to join us only for 2 days. So yeah.

Day 4 - 10 December

Had a good soaking session at the rooftop pool of the hotel. Checkout the mountaintops in the background. Due to the low hanging clouds, the mountaintops look as if they're hanging in mid-air. Cool!

We had a good buffet breakfast at the hotel and left at 11.30am and made our way to Cameron Highlands. After driving for about 3 hours we reached Cameron Highlands and went to Lavendar Garden first. It was a decent flower place. The ladies were very happy.

My niece amidst the flowers.

After about 90 minutes, we drove to our hotel, Hotel De La Ferns. It was quite an old place but decent. After about 2 hours, we went for dinner at a Pizza Place. The night ended at around 9pm. When we were back at the hotel, I watched the Suzuki AFF Championship between Malaysia and Vietnam. In 2013, we watched this competition too in Langkawi. That time it was Singapore vs Thailand. And Singapore won. This time round the teams drew 2-2. Malaysia is gonna have a tough time for the second leg in Vietnam.

Day 5 - 11 December

Woke up early today to go for short walk/jog. I covered around 4km in about 45 minutes. After breakfast, we set about on our plans. We had a busy day ahead so we left just after 10am. But the traffic was crawling at snail’s pace. The area was jam packed with tourists and the roads were all 2 lanes road. Some lanes were blocked by vehicles stopping by the side to buy things and also some had water ponding due to the rain the night before. Felt like KL or Medan during peak hours.

But we still managed to do all the things that we planned to do except strawberry picking. By the time we made it to the farms, it was late afternoon and all the strawberries had been picked for the day.

A visit to the Boh Tea Plantation was first on itinerary.

Followed by a game of billiards and lunch

A visit to the strawberry farm

Last on the list was to eating durian grown on Cameron Highlands.

But I consoled myself by buying 2 durians at RM 110. It tasted quite good too. We had to eat it outside the hotel though.

That night after; Raihan, Budi and myself went to the pasar malam to buy dinner for all since the rest were too tired or lazy to go out for dinner.

We retired for the night at around 10.30. No stargazing again since it was still raining.

Day 6 - 12 December

Woke up to another misty morning which was cooler than the day before. I went for another short jog. But the clouds brought along water droplets so the jog was cut short. Had breakfast after that and checked-out. Along the way to Port Dickson, we passed by 3 fresh small landslides that were the result of the rain the night before. I was pleasantly surprised that the roads affected had been cleared earlier. The Malaysian workers seemed to have improve in their efficiency. If this was 10 years back, those landslides would only be cleared in the afternoon.

A couple of pictures of the landslide sites.

Once we cleared the mountains, it was a smooth ride to PJ. We were gonna have lunch at Rimba & Rusa. We reached the restaurant around 3pm.

I just had some fries and a bite of sabsuka. I wanted to be hungry for my favourite dessert there - the sago pudding with ice-cream. Really enjoy that dish.

Lunch at Rimba & Rusa - our favourite cafe in Petaling Jaya.

I had my favourite sago pudding with ice cream. This is an awesome fusion dessert.

After lunch we made our way down to Port Dickson. We reached Lexis Resort at around 7.30pm. The first impression of Lexis was that it was kinda cheesy. We reached there together with a group of noisy China tourist and they were loud! Then we were informed that we have been upgraded to the water chalet at no extra cost. They sent us by buggy to our rooms. And it was a pleasant surprise. The water chalets were nice! That night after settling in, we ordered (over-ordered) room service. But the food was good.

That night Budi slept with us. Jasa was more than glad to have his room to himself.

Day 7 - 13 December

We spent the day at Port Dickson. After breakfast, we went to the beach. Incredible beach cos even after walking out to the sea for almost 300m, the water is just at my groin level. And the other nice thing was that the whole strip beach where we were (about 200m long) was empty except for us. It was a like on a private beach. I guess that’s the benefit of being there from 1-2.

Nice beach on the Straits of Malacca side. Of course the beaches on the South China Sea side are much better. However, this one was nice.

After the beach, it was time to hit the swimming pool. Again, we were the only ones using the pool. And then to the games room where we were the only ones also. Cool ah!

In the evening, we booked a limo and made our way to Pavilion in KL. It was about 90 mins drive in a nice Toyota Vellfire.

Did some shopping for the boys there and then went for dinner. We met Wani (Raihan’s friend) and her family there. Fancy that - meeting our Bukit Panjang neighbours in KL.

When Singaporeans go to KL. Shopping is a must!

Met our fellow Bukit Panjang neighbours and family friends in KL!

Day 8 - 14 December

And finally, we reached the last day of our road trip. It was the usual late breakfast so that we can skip lunch. Checked-out, took a few pictures and it was time to leave. It was quite a smooth ride all the way to JB. We stopped for about 45 minutes to solat and grab a quick bite of Ramly burger at the Machap rest point. Then it was straight to Paradigm Mall in JB. Did a bit more shopping and had dinner at the Chicken Rice shop. We left after we did our maghrib and reached the Tuas bridge at 8pm. Took an hour to clear customs and immigration. Reached home just before 10 that night.

Thus ends an eight-day road trip initiated by a 10-year old!