Malaysia Trip 2015 (Part 5) : Snake Temple, Arandanova (Cameron Highland)

Hey guysss...

Yes, it's the next installment of the Malaysia trip series! Let's start with day 4 when we moved to Cameron Highlands!

Us in front of our hotel in Cameron Highlands, after hijacking a security guard who scarcely spoke English or Malay (they employ a lot of Tibetan people over there!)

More about Cameron Highlands later, let's backtrack to Penang for a little bit! We went to the bus station super early because both the taxi driver and my mum are paranoids *LOL*, turned out it'd be HOURS before we can even board the bus. My mum really wanted to take Little O to the Snake temple so since we had a lot of free time before we must go back to the bus station, we took a little detour!

Yep, Little O was holding a rubber snake, they are selling them in many shapes and sizes at the shops outside the temple. I can't blame him, i lived for those cheap toys at street side shops when i was little too >.<

My handsome little man <3<3<3

I didn't even notice that there were some snakes around me >.<

#shudder . The numbers of snakes had dwindled down though

So they are worried about the SNAKES getting injured. Really. #shudderagain

Next to the main prayer hall (at least i think it's the main prayer hall la)

You can interact freely with snakes. I mean, you have to pay to take pictures with them but touching is free. Although they wouldn't take them out if you don't intend of taking pictures with them hahaha

No animal scares Little O but bugs. He's rather weird too *LOL*

That's a huge one >.<

OMG *shudder again*

Little O holding a snake more than half his body weight (back then, he gains a LOT of weight since)

They took a pretty long time to "prep" the snakes (put some powder on them or something LOLOLOL) for the photoshoot so i had time to wander to the back for a bit

Guan Yin Pavillion, where i bought some bracelets to bring me various good lucks haha

Don't think you can see them here, but there were quite a number of snakes on the branches, mostly smaller ones

Now them, you can see easily *LOL*

Little O has no problem posing when he likes the background

Even throwing some fancy poses *LOLOLOL*

Then it was time to go back to the bus station and get on!

Tried so hard to flash our teeth so the smile recognition feature would work *LOLOLOL*

After hours and hours of bus ride, we finally arrived in Genting Highland. Our hotel (that i picked blindly *LOL*, it looks decent and the price-although still high-is acceptable) was actually a bit far from town (without me knowing, of course) and we passed it before we even reached the bus station. This resulted in a minor commotion when we panicked and sent hunny to inform the bus driver *LOL*. He managed to stop not too far from the hotel (but still far enough for us who had to haul some luggage through the muddy street!).

Nova Highlands Resort and Residences
 The Square, Jalan Aranda Nova, Greencow, Darul Makmur, 59, Cameron Higlands, 39100 Brinchang, Pahang, Malaysia
 +60 5-496 8806

It's located in connection with Cameron Square (which you have to enter to get to the hotel) which looks like a shopping centre but i dunno if it's too new or it's the normal condition there-it's almost abandoned. We didn't see many other visitors other than us during our stay and mostly the staffs were busy entertaining themselves *LOL*

I have no idea if Cameron Highland has always been a tourist destination (at least not the international one) or only gaining popularity lately (i kinda suspect the latter? Lots of construction going on around the hotel, a familiar sight around new "it" location), i've been to Malaysia countless of times but i never heard of it (it's always Genting, Genting, Genting when it comes to highlands hahaha). I first learned about it when my mum saw a local TV show shot there and she always wanted to go there-so we went.

You need to go to the... floor (i forgot, but you can ask easily at staffs in Cameron Highland) to get to the lobby. This is not the lobby, you still need to walk a bit more

That's the lobby!

Checking in

View from the balcony

Similar hall in every floor hahaha

The resort is GIGANTIC! And it's pretty much deserted because it was not during weekend/holiday season. I guess we came here at the wrong time, but we had some relaxing time which is nice too! I booked the apartment style room with two bedrooms (of course).

You can cook here if you want ^^

When i do hotel reviews, i prefer to snap a pic of the empty, still neat room. Unfortunately traveling with my family means that's not gonna happen. They invaded the place immediately >.<

The bathroom. I dunno if the residences part of the resort's name means this apartment actually belongs to an individual or the hotel itself, but it's not as clean as i expected it to be. I can feel a thin layer of dust in the room and the bathroom is just passable

That might also because they seemed to be very understaffed

That's the bedroom for my parents

And this one's for us. It has a raised platform instead of a bed. It's quite comfortable, too bad about the dust and all. Gave me a bit of a rash :( *i'm very sensitive to dusts*. Wonder if people very seldom book this apartment???

Mirror selfie is hard to resist

My favorite part of the apartment, the clean, spacious living room!

There's a big play area in Cameron Square (maybe they tried to copy Genting Highlands), also totally deserted safe from the staffs!

Can you see how quiet the place was??

Made Little O rode this

We went out to explore, but turned out all of the attractions closed pretty early (at 5 or something) >.<. Told ya it was a poorly timed visit hahaha. No matter, we always find a way to entertain ourselves anyway.

Found a bomba (fire truck) truck and yeah...

Strike a pose!

I hope when Little O's all grown up and sees this pic, he is reminded by how much his Ah-kong loves him and that he should love him back as much as he does

Returned back in because we were told that most places in town would be closed pretty soon anyway coz it was getting a bit late (so if we insist to go to the center, we won't be able to do anything anyway haha). From this pic, you can tell that there were very little tenants that actually operating in the square!

Found this spot and thought it'd be pretty awesome for a celebgram-wannabe-pose *LOL*

Hunny enjoying his corn ice cream. I can never enjoy that, i find that way too weird!

Cameron Highlands is supposedly famous for steamboats, so of course we had to have it!

The restaurant's also very bigggg. And here's the only place where we saw people other than the square's staffs

Found the teapot to be quite antique so i quickly snapped a pic

Wonder if CL will kill me for posting this pic?

Nom nom nom

KC very earnestly cracking an egg *LOL*

Again hijacking a restaurant staff (that also scarcely spoke English or Malay, it's getting tiring -___-) to snap this pic

I guess someone's hungry...

Then we spent sometime in the arcade, playing happily like little kids...

Little O loves these fishing games so much

When we were dating, hunny loved to play these kind of games in the arcade and i enjoyed watching him play-so this is quite nostalgic!

We soon retire to our room and spent the night quietly in. Nova Highlands  Resort and Residences is not bad, especially if you want to spend some quiet time with your family/spouse/friends away from the busy city. Access to food is pretty easy, there are a few (although not much) operating restaurant available at Cameron Square. You can also entertain yourselves with some old fashioned arcade fun.

The rooms are spacious and quite nice, if only they can improve on the cleanliness (for their price, dusts and less than sparkling bathroom are not too much to ask, IMO!) then it'd be quite awesome really!

Would i stay there again? I would, actually! Especially if they improve the cleanliness/have a good deal on the rooms!

We went to explore some places around the hotel on the next day, i hope you're excited for that! 

Toodles for now!

#Pink