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Road trip to Kuantan, Lake Kenyir, Cameron Highlands and Melaka. 5th Oct Set off at 6am in light drizzle rain condition on a Saturday. No jam at SG side of causeway but slight jam at MY side. After clearing customs, hit the EDL and exited at Kota Tiniggi exit. Soon we reached Kian Kee BKT and had a nice breakfast. It wasn’t that crowded, I guess the drizzle affected the business a bit. Finished breakfast and set off, continued on Route 3. Near Mersing, the sun came out and it wasn’t raining anymore. Did not stop at Mersing, drove all the way to Pekan and stopped at Shell petrol station to refuel the car. Upon reaching Kuantan town was shocked by the road changes. Wanted to go to the latest mall, East Coast Mall but due to road works, the roads in town were converted to one way streets. My Garmin GPS with the latest map was useless as it did not indicate the roads as one way street. I had a rough idea of the mall location as I had viewed it on the google map before and just drove towards that direction. Eventually after some sudden turns n u-turns, made it to the mall. It is a modern mall, design is like the Jusco Mall at Tebrau City. Had lunch there and did a bit grocery shopping for shampoo n tibits + mineral water. Then we headed to Suria Cherating Beach Resort where it was the rest stop for this part of the trip. There was a company family day retreat at the hotel so it was pretty crowded and noisy especially at the pool. Initially was assigned to level 1 room but I rejected and they gave me level 3 room, the highest level. Facilities were basic with tiled flooring. TV was still CRT type. After a short rest, we went to the beach, took some photos and left for Cukai town. We wondered around Cukai, went to a small and rundown shopping mall, escalators were not working. After getting out of the mall, saw a roadside stall selling keropok lekor. Bought RM5 worth and it was damn tasty. Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lekor Had dinner at Tong Juan, four stuffed crabs between my wife and I. I find the standard of the stuffed crabs has dropped drastically. No more as tasty as I had a couple of years back. After dinner, we walked along the street where there were fruit stalls and bought some mangosteens(RM2) and one kampong durian(RM15) for supper, only cost us RM17 in total. The durian was sweet, creamy and tasty. Had to smuggle them into the hotel room thou as all hotels has the No mangosteen n durian policy, don’t know why. 6th Oct Got up at 8am and went to had the buffet breakfast. Not much variety, Nasi Lemak was the main course. Then we checked out and headed for the nearest Shell petrol station to fill the car up. As it was a Sunday, traffic along the road to Lake Kenyir was pretty clear, less a few slow trucks here and there. I just followed the MY cars overtaking these trucks. They drove faster than me!!! Me in relax driving mode. Was led onto a unopened section of E8 by my Garmin GPS. I was apprehensive at first, me travelling at 110km/h on cruise control. Cars start passing me and looking at me. They think I must be a kuku driver. Then I floored it. Took it to my own top speed, let go accelerator and floored it again to my own top speed. Before I had enough fun, I had to exit liao. Soon by 1pm we reached the jetty at Lake Kenyir. Parked the car at the public carpark and went to the jetty to take some pictures. Its lunch time and there were four food stalls nearby. We went to the one with the most customer. All four were selling nasi padang. We did not know how to order the food, the boss was very frenly and told us its self-service and bring our food to the counter for payment. So we took a plate, scooped our own rice and picked from the variety of food on display. The food was nice, fresh and cheap. When we were about to finish our food, the boss brought out a plate of baluku(actual name is buah duku fruit) for us on the house. They were sweet and juicy. Took more pictures of a boathouse berthed at a loading jetty and the view ard there. Then we drove deeper in to where the resort is located. We are staying at Lake Kenyir Spa and Resort for this rest stop. We had no intention to explore Lake Kenyir as this was only a rest stop for us. Just wondered ard the resort and rest in the room. The rooms here are actually individually constructed wooden huts. Interior was big with nice décor. But aircon was not that powerful and walking ard made lots of noise cos of the wooden floor. The huts were built on steep hills so you would need to call the buggy to bring you around the resort. The view at the lobby, restaurant and swimming pool was great. It had a great view of Lake Kenyir, like a picture(my wife say one). Free wifi also restrict within these areas too. We didn’t wonder out for dinner and had it at the restaurant. Only both of us eating our dinner there, guess cos it’s a Sunday. The waiter said they had 400 guest earlier during lunch. Food was ok or below average and slightly more expensive than our lunch at the jetty. The malaysia fried rice I ordered was a bit chao ta. But the fish and chips my wife had was done very well. The mixed vegetable dish had too much dried onions sprinkled on it. Overall not too bad, still edible. TV was also of CRT type and all channels were fuzzy cos of the ongoing renovations there. So we settled for Disney channel, the only watchable channel. Nothing much to do, just watch tv and sleep. 7th Oct Our free breakfast was not buffet style cos I think not much guest here only less than 10 guest at the restaurant in the morning. It was ala cart instead, just order what you want to eat from the menu. Breakfast was ok, ordered nasi lemak and omlette, wife had American breakfast and omlette. You cant go wrong with nasi lemak in Malaysia. Simply love the sambal chilli that came with nasi lemak. After breakfast, packed up and checked out of the hotel. We are heading for Cameron Highlands. The road was pretty clear, not much traffic. That is until we went past the state border to Kelantan on the Jalan Felda Aring road. The entire stretch was filled with pot holes, driving this stretch on my sedan car was really torturing. Had to go really slow and work the steering wheel to avoid them or slowly go into them. Then there was oncoming logging/goods lorries. The road was so narrow, I had to put two wheels offroad for them to drive pass me, driving slanting to the left at an angle. It took me 30mins to clear this stretch of road. My wife who usually sleeps while I drive stayed fully awake here. Somemore this stretch of road got two mandatory police road block but we were simply waved on. After getting on paved good road, was so relived. Continue our drive to Cameron Highlands. Came to a police road block. About five cars ahead was a lorry. While the police was talking to the driver of the lorry, suddenly I saw inner rear tyre of the lorry burst with a loud bang. OMG sounds like a gunshot to the rear tyre. Am I in the middle of a shootout??? Saw the police moved to the rear of the lorry to check it out. The driver alighted to see what had happened. Then I know it was not a gunshot, just that the tyre burst. The police ask the lorry park one side and wave us all to move on. Reached Gua Musang around lunch time. Had lunch at one of the modern coffeeshops among the row of shophouses there. Refueled the car at the Shell petrol station and proceeded on to Cameron Highlands. The view of the mountains along the way was very nice. Stopped a few times along the way for my wife to take photo of the view. Somewhere along the way, my Garmin GPS instructed us to turn off the main road and into a kampong road. It was paved road but with unmarked road bumps. For the first few times, unable to notice it in time and went over it at speed. Apparently it was a shortcut up hill. On the way to our hotel, we came across the new Lavender Garden attraction. RM5 per entry. Quite a number of visitors. Me not interested but wifey wana see so just go lor. Walked one round see the different flowers and then came out. For me, not interesting. But if you are into flowers, maybe a nice place. From there, within another 15mins drive, we reached our destination, Hotel Equatorial. Selected the promotional upgrade to deluxe room @ additional RM40 per night. The deluxe rooms were at the top level of the hotel. The view was ok, facing the peak and front of the hotel. Could see Kea Farm on my left and a new hotel being constructed on my right. The newly renovated room was great. The furnishing, facilities and tv were very new and modern. The weather that evening was cold and temperature dip to 18 degrees C!!! There was no space heater in the room and was shivering under the blanket. Day time temperature was around 26 to 27 degrees C. Went to Brinchang town to look see and have dinner. The town looks the same as I had last visited two years ago. Walked around the town and find a place for dinner. Wife wanted to have charcoal steamboat so we went to the row of shophouses that had it. Out of the many, we went to one which was operated by a Chinese couple with a Tripadvisor sticker. After ordering our set steamboat meal, we saw they had an official cert from Tripadvisor.co.uk. The food for the steamboat was really nice, fresh and generous. The prawns were very fresh and nice. You can swap out any ingredients that you don’t like. We swap the beehoon for yee mee. The homemade barely drink was also nice and sweet. We ordered cold barley drink and the shop owner had to ask a second time to confirm we wanted our barley drink cold. The restaurant name was Kwan Kee. The boss was really frenly but price slightly more than others. See post from Tripadvisor : http://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Restaurant_Review-g298293-d1978128-Reviews-Kwan_Kee_Seafood_Restaurant-Brinchang_Cameron_Highlands_Pahang.html After dinner, we went to the pasar malam stalls nearby to get supper. Saw a roadside stall selling deep fried chempedak. Bought some and tried. It was nice and sweet. Bought two steamed corns too. They termed their corns as pearl corns. They are really sweet and fresh. The butter on the corn was very salty thou. Wifey bought a soft toy there and it was cheap according to her. Make it back to hotel, watched NGC, Battleground Brothers. Had the supper we bought and then rest for the night. 8th Oct Buffet breakfast at Hotel Equatorial was good. Good variety of food choices other than Nasi Lemak. After breakfast we drove to a recommended Bee farm by my brother. It is along Jalan Boh, a small road leading to Boh tea plantation between Tanah Rata and Ringlet town. The farm was a small one operated by an elderly couple. Bought 8 big bottles and 2 small bottles of “aged” honey, supposed to be of higher grade and only they have it in the whole of Cameron Highlands. Which I think, they are just bragging lah. After that we made our way down to Ringlet town to have a look. Ringlet town is small and not much tourist stuff. Mostly shops and markets are catered for locals. They had an indoor basketball court there. After walking around town, we drove on to Tanah Rata for lunch. Tanah Rata is much bigger than Ringlet with more shops and tourist stuff like starbucks and other modern shops. The clock tower cum taxi/bus interchange is still there as usual. We walked around and settled for Indian food as lunch. Had maggi goreng while wifey had thosai and butter naan. Food was ok, but the butter naan was too thick and too big for us. After lunch, drove to Mountain Strawberry farm near the peak. The road up is very narrow and have to horn once in a while cause of blind corners. The blangah working at the farm was happy to see us. He said he recognized us, but I don’t think he do. Its our third visit to him in 6years, so maybe he does. But nevermind lah. Wifey wanted some self-plucking strawberries and she had a great time there. He wanted to show us the other vegetable farms, but we politely decline as we had seen it before on our previous visit. Went to the animal farm and see what animals were left. The chicken, duck and rabbits are still there. Got time to kill so decided to drive to the peak. The road up gets very very steep, came past this place called Mossy Forest. It is a path created by stairs and various pavilions along the way with a view of the mountains below. The view up there was stunning, you can see and feel the clouds passing you. From there you can also see the two different states between the mountains, Perak and Pahang. Met two frenly ang mo couple up there. When returning to the car, a pair of ang mo guys just arrived from the peak and I checked with them the condition up there. They said the view up there was bad and they cant see sh!t, thatz why they came down to the Mossy Forest. Upon hearing the feedback, we decided to head back down to Kea Farm for a walk in the market. Kea Farm is a market place where the farmers sell their various produce from the farms in Cameron Highlands. We walked around checked the prices and decided to buy our stuff the next day just before we leave. The prices of the soft toy there was more expensive than the one wifey bought at the pasar malam in Brinchang. So wifey did not buy anything there. We headed back to the hotel, wifey went for foot massage at the shops below the hotel while I went back to the room to catch some rest. Dinner, we headed back to Brinchang and went back to Kwan Kee restaurant as we found their food very nice and fresh previously. This time we decided to have tze char instead. We ordered claypot deer meat, sambal pork meat and claypot beancurd. The deer and pork meat were very tender and nice. Truly enjoyed the meal. The boss recognized us from the previous day and made small talk with us. He told us not to come during the school holidays or public holidays cos everywhere jam and eating at his place would have to queue also. The other table was a Singaporean family too, they also loved the claypot deer meat, they ordered a second serving!!! This restaurant will be my place for meals on subsequent visits to Cameron Highlands. After dinner, we decided to get the same supper, deep fried chempedak and steamed pearl corn. Wifey also bought three more soft toys there at the pasar malam cos they were much cheaper for her frens. 9th Oct Same buffet breakfast at the hotel café. Variety was almost the same. Finished our breakfast, went to pack our luggage and checked out of the hotel. Missed the beautiful décor of the hotel room. We headed to Kea Farm to get our vegetables and fruits. We decided to get it from the stall deep inside, towards the end on the right side small road. The pearl corn was not cheap but farking cheap. 15 pearl corn for RM10. No bargaining required. In fact, it was too many for us and we gave some to my fren and my brother. We also got four Cameron Highland green guava. It was very sweet and crunchy. Wifey got one bag of green oranges, I picked a box of super spicy Mexican chillies. The stall owner kept asking us to buy more vegetables but we had enough liao. We left Cameron highlands by Tapah route. It was a shorter route. Was following behind a pick up truck all the way down. During the drive down, the bigger lorries were frenly. They will move one side when road was clear and let us overtake. Using the manual shift on my gearbox down hill was fun. But my car’s gearbox is a bit retarded. The shifting was slow, I can feel the lag between gears. Was shifting between second and third gear most of the time. The pick up truck turned off at the bottom of Tapah route where there is a row of shophouses. I continued on to the NSH, heading to Melaka. Refueled the car at the nearest rest stop and FC was bad, I think cos of the uphill and downhill driving. The drive to Melaka was nothing interesting, turned on cruise control and stayed on 110km/h. Somewhere after KL, my Garmin gps instructed us to exit the NSH and go onto route 19 to Melaka town. Route 19 was ok, normal two lane road but got lots of traffic lights. As we neared Melaka town, the traffic was heavy. Soon, managed to find our way to our rest stop hotel, Hatten Hotel. Booked a junior suite room. The room was big with a nice view of the city and the swimming pool. Best thing was it was connected to the Pahlawan shopping mall. Upon checked in, we went to have lunch at Hatten Square food court. The décor of the food court was like an old street with various food stalls lined the old street. Food was expensive, minimum RM5 per dish. We had Nyonya laksa and chendol. The taste was there but not good enough if compared to SG laksa. Chendol, I prefer the one I had at Lao San near Jonker Street previously. Brought our bags from our car up to the hotel room and took a rest in the room. Then we went shopping at Pahlawan shopping mall. Slowly walking around the mall and came to the end of the mall, McD end, it was under renovation. We decided to walk over to Fatty Lee restaurant for dinner. A 20mins walk and we reached. Ordered three crabs for both of us. One and a half crab in spicy milk sauce and one and a half crab in salted egg sauce. It was finger licking good. But price went up, now is RM85/kg. Paid total of RM200 for three crabs and one plate of vegetable. Then we walked over to Capitol Seafood for some cockles. It’s a seafood stall selling cockles, la la and other shell fishes at a back alley. Sitting on stools and eating the cockles. The cockles were fresh and there is rojak sauce for you to dip. Decided to tabao one packet of rojak back for supper. We tried to hail a cab to take us back to Pahlawan shopping mall. But there were none in sight. So we just walked back from where we came. Walking back seems much faster and the exercise after meal was great. Continued shopping at Pahlawan, then headed to Mr DIY at Hatten Square. Prices quite cheap, bought a few DIY items. Went back to the hotel room, watch the night view of the city, bathed and had supper, rojak. 10th Oct The breakfast variety and spread at Hatten Hotel was impressive. It was pretty crowded too. Ate full full. Then went back to pack our luggage and checked out of the hotel. Drove on to the NSH and turned on the cruise control at 110km/h. The drive back was boring but saw one car stopped by polis. We exited at Pasir Gudang highway and made our way to Plentong Giant. My favorite grocery shopping place. Had lunch there at Old Town White Coffee and then proceeded to Giant for grocery shopping. Filled the boot and back seat. Drove over to the car wash and was glad to see a squeaky clean car again. The car washer was glad they don’t need to remove my rear seat car mat and boot mat for vacuum too. Too many stuff inside. Proceeded to Shell petrol station to refuel the car. Impressive FC, travelled from Tapah to Melaka to Johor without refueling and fuel indicator is just one bar below half tank. Travelled 500+km and topped up 41 litres only. The gearbox is crappy for fun driving but great for cruising. Drove over to MY custom and traffic was clear. No jams at all. SG custom traffic was clear too. But kena stopped by the ICA officer cos of the many bottles of honey. He demanded to see the receipt for the honey but I explained to him that I got them from the farm and there was no receipt. He took my passport and checked my exit and entry dates. Seeing that I had been in Malaysia for six days, he let me off and told me next time to get receipt for stuff I bought. Siao one, go farm buy stuff where got receipt one. Drove off and headed for home sweet home. Overall this was a nice round trip from east coast of MY to west coast of MY. Get to visit and travel to a new place, Lake Kenyir. Generally, I found Malaysians on the east coast more frenly than the west coast. Maybe cos of the more relaxed lifestyle compared to the cities on the west coast.

Planning to self-drive to Malaysia in comming school holiday, anyone has experience for above 2 destination kindly sharing here

After reading about Tasik Kenyir I yearned to pay it a visit. Finally have this opportunity to spend 2 days there. Followed by a night each at Cameron and KL before heading South. I am using a i-Blue 747+ GPS recorder as my Holux do not have any tracking capability. This is how my whole trip looks like. Left Singapore at 5.45 am on Saturday trying to beat the jam at the causeway but unfortunately still got caught. Spend 1 hour crawling and i mean really crawling before getting to the immigration counter. I think the government is trying to keep Singaporean on island . Those Aetos rent a cop didn't help with their hap hazard traffic directing as well. In contrast the immigration at the Johor side is a breeze even though they were changing shifts. From there took route 3 towards Kota Tinggi and Mersing. Stopped at a popular spot to fuel up before heading North again. It was delicious! Just wished they cooked the meat longer From there onwards juts followed route 3 towards Kuantan, did't take the GPS "advise" of using Route 63 as i feel using the costal highway is more scenic. Just after Pekan hit a series of road works till Jalan Tanah Putih or route 2 in Kuantan. From there and uneventful trip to Lake Kenyir Resort & Spa. Only things is that as we near Tasik Kenyir it started to rain and did not stop till we left on Monday. So total distance covered to the trip up was 568 km and actual driving time is about 7 hours. End Part 1

I will be driving up to Terengganu with family during the third week of June, we will be visiting the Perhentian islands and Lake Kenyir. Likely to stop over for a night or 2 in Kuala Terengganu. Seeking advices from those familiar on the must-do, must-see, must-buy, must-makan thingy. Our plan is to bring some good books and laze around for a week, so it is going to be a nice and slow trip, don't intend to seek out fringe attractions. On our previous trips to Redang, we will usually charter a small boat for 4 to 6 hours on a island hopping cum snorkelling trip, I can't seem to find any information on boats that are available for charter in the Perhentian, anyone has a clue? What is the market rate? Also, how far is the carpark from the Kuala Besut jetty? I was checking my Garmin and it is quite a distance away from the jetty, this does not gel with what I have read on the internet. Thanks in advance for all tips....

Folks, planning a March trip to Tasik Kenyir and Camerons. Plan to hit Kenyir first then to Camerons via Gua Musang. Problem is that my GPS is routing me up North and then down to Gua Musang, to me that is a huge detour. From the map i saw that there is a west ward route using T156 then 1744, anyone knows how is that route and the condition of the roads? Cheers

I will be going on a road trip to Cameron Highland and then to Lake Kenyir in Terengganu. I found out that the 2nd East-West Highway is not opened to public yet but there are some who has driven on it to cut across the M'sia peninsular. Can anyone advise me on how to use the 2nd East-West Highway to go from Cameron Highland to Lake Kenyir? So far, I knew that one has to drive to Gua Musang and then head towards Kuala Krai. But somewhere along the route, you have to go into the Taman Negara National Park in order to re-join the 2nd East-West Highway.