Now, for the first time, I am bringing my 2 curious pre-teens to Cameron Highlands, just so I could tell them stories about my younger days' trips, the adventures of forest hiking and the mountains of tea plantations.
Breakfast stop at Kulai
Traffic was smooth at the customs, so our efforts to rise early did not go to waste:) As we did not had any food before leaving, we decided to drop by Kulai to have some nice local breakfast. I am not unfamiliar with Kulai. It is one of the bigger towns in southern part of Johor State in Malaysia. In fact, Kulai was where my paternal grandparents lived. When I was little, we would take long, tiring 7 hour trip from Kuala Lumpur to Kulai to visit them during Chinese New Year and school holidays.
Kulai has evolved into a much bigger town, I noticed some sections of it which used to be crowded in the early mornings, are now quite deserted, as if forgotten. Instead, there was a much larger area that has been developed into a modern estate, with big supermarkets and many nice looking shop houses. We stopped by the older sections to check out the shops and wet markets. However we did not find anything quite interesting.
A Local Minimart
I suppose this is the village part of the town...
"This is the OLD part of Kulai" said the Ah Peh ("uncle" in local dialect), "go to the opposite side to check out the new shops.." Sad right? (the shop name above says "Hup Chong Coffee Shop")
Local Produce on sale
Poultry Stalls
Upon the old uncle's advice, we headed to the newer part of the town, whereby blocks and blocks of shophouses line up neatly, there was also a big shopping mall in the centre of the new town.
We stopped at the first eating house we came across - Wang Kok, apparently named after the famous night market area in Hong Kong. Remember when we left home, it was pitch dark, now it was 7.30 in Kulai. The morning breakfast crowd was now trickling in to the various eating places.
We had some simple local foo besides the Traditional Toasts and Egg with Kopi (Coffee) set:
CHEE CHEONG FUN （猪肠粉）- rice flour rolls
Chee Cheong Fun, Malaysia style - with lots of add-on choices such as fried bean curd skin, lap cheong (Chinese Sausage) and fish ball.
THUNDER TEA RICE（擂茶饭）
Thunder Tea Rice - simply means "rice with pounded tea leaves" - it consist of several basic vegetables and topped with peanuts, sometimes with pickled radish and fried anchovies. Served with a bowl of soup that consists of pounded tea leaves, mint, parsely, basil and some other interesting ingredients. YUMMY................
In fact, we have never come across any part of Singapore which has so many stalls selling thunder tea rice within the same vicinity, looks like Kulai is the "hometown" of thunder tea rice after all :)
Next, we continue part of our 4 hours journey to KL.
At around noon, we stopped over at Mantin, my mommy's HOMETOWN! Well, actually I was born there and lived till 4 years old before daddy secured a house in the town of Subang Jaya. So that makes Mantin my hometown too, doesn't it? 😅
Had a great economic meal at the local restaurant SHENGKEE. We ordered four yummy dishes and it costs so much cheaper than back home (awe.....................) RM64 to be exact!
Lemon Chicken
Pork with ginger and onion........... seriously nice
Stir-fry Kailan
Another great choice - claypot egg beancurd with mixed vegetables and meat
The restaurant from across the road
After lunch we drove to mommy's old school and took some nostalgic photos.
Wow looks like there is so much to write about, I will have to separate the post into a few shorter ones!
To be continued.....
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