An Impromptu Trip To Fraser's Hill

I must remind myself never to go sightseeing in Malaysia on Mondays. Petrosains and the skybridge in KLCC are closed on Mondays, so is FRIM and now SPLASH (Sg Selangor Dam) and (I just found out) that the Sg Selangor Fish Sanctuary are also closed on Mondays!!!

One the way to Sg Chiling, we saw signboards stating that Fraser's Hills was about... I can't remember, probably 25km or so further than Sg Chiling. After the disappointment in Chiling, we decided to head on to Fraser's Hill. After all it was only another 1/2 drive uphill. Steve has never been there before and it was ages (more than 5 years I think) since I went there.

Fraser's Hill is a very nice cooling place, but there's nothing much to do there unless you are interested in bird watching and hiking. It's more than 1500 feet above sea-level and it gets very cold at night. The weather in the afternoon is probably about 26 degrees Celsius.

It was a good day for hiking... sigh... still thinking of the Sg Chiling waterfalls.

The winding road up to the Gap. While traveling on road leading to Fraser's Hill, this was on my mind - "Everywhere was closed on Monday, I don't think they would close a whole town on Mondays too." I wasn't sure whether I verbalized my thoughts to others.

The Gap rest house - closed for renovation.

This is the start of the Gap where a section of the road would only be accessible in one direction at a time. It was 1.40pm, and Steve said we just missed it. I looked ahead and said I think we could go because there was no barrier in front at the guard house. Sure enough, the guard allowed us to pass through.

More winding road ahead.

At last, we reached Fraser's Hill. We could see a couple of cars waiting for the clock to strike 2pm so that they could go down.

Our first stop was here. Right in front of a huge map showing the whole of Fraser's Hill and popular tourist spots were indicated in the map.

Our second stop was here - the public toilet.

We looked around... nobody seemed to be around. The town was VERY quiet. Like we were the only ones there.

Even the post office was closed (top picture). The police station was next to the post office.

And the clinic opposite the police station. Looked empty too. I did see someone was painting the window wooden frame.

The clock tower is right in the middle of the picture. The clinic's on the left and the police station on the right.

And hey, I spotted this signboard.. I am now in the State of Pahang. I was in Pahang (Kuantan is in Pahang) last week, and here I am visiting Pahang again.

The famous landmark in Fraser's Hill - The clock tower (which is not working) and behind it, the post office.

It seemed as though the whole town was undergoing a massive makeover.

It was already after 2pm and we were getting hungry. We could only leave Fraser's Hill at 4pm, the earliest because that was when the Gap would be open for us to go downhill. Steve said he spotted a food stall opposite the toilets. Alternatively, we could eat in a hotel nearby.

I said let's take a drive and check out other restaurants. We drove around... and all we saw were private-and-company-owned bungalows.

We decided to eat in Shahzan Inn.

The food was alright, a bit pricey for lunch, but there was no other choice. My spaghetti cost RM17, which I thought was a bit dry and my fruit juice, RM12. Mctc had sandwiches and coffee and Steve had stuffed chicken breast and ginger beer. The bill came up to RM 88. We were the only diners there.

The flowers were lovely. Full of vibrant colours...


We took a walk after lunch (to kill time) and saw lots of funny looking trees.

A signboard stating a list of activities we could do here in Fraser's Hill. Nothing much, except golf, hiking and bird watching. The rest were all closed for renovation. Sigh... the town was indeed CLOSED for renovations until June. We found that out while we were in Shahzan Inn.

A signboard showing all the rare birds you could find in Fraser's Hill and a golf course which was open. Sigh.. we don't play golf.

Beautiful pine trees. Pine trees are famous in Fraser's Hill.


A playground near Shahzan Inn.


4.17pm, yep, it was time to leave Fraser's Hills.

Towards the end of the Gap, there was a signboard stating that KKB was just 30km away. Yup, we were heading for KKB. And the top bottom picture shows the guard house located at the bottom of the Gap.

We pass by the Sg Selangor dam again.

We stopped at a look-out point but the dam was too far to get a good view. Then Steve spotted a river and told us that this was the same river we went for white water rafting 2 years ago. He remembered looking up and saw the road bridge above him.

The sky was getting darker due to the angry clouds. Since we had time, we went to visit a patient in the Rumah Ehsan (Ehsan House) somewhere in KKB. The last time Mctc visited him was probably 2 or 3 years back. This is government funded place, something like an old folks home. It's a place to go when you are too ill to look after yourself and there are no family members willing to look after you.

This patient looked more healthy now. The last time I saw him here, he looked pale. Now he had some colour on his face and although he was still thin we could see that he put on some weight. We were there probably for half and hour.

While we were there Steve and I made plans to pick Steven (another friend from Seremban) up from the Selayang Hospital. He was visiting his father who had an eye operation.

And from the Selayang Hospital we went to Jalan 222, PJ, where we met with other friends (6 of them) from KL for a pre-planned dinner at 8pm. We arrived 2 minutes after 8pm. Our friends were so certain that we would be late, so they ordered a plate of la-la first. They were surprised to see us when we came.

We had ikan bakar (barbequed or grilled fish), sotong bakar (barbequed or grilled squid), noodles, lala and lobak. The bill came up to about RM180 (9 of us).

FC suggested having a drink in an indian restaurant after dinner, but we declined because we were tired and it would take another hour to reach Seremban.

We reached home at about 10.20pm. I was so tired, I slept early that day....after I showered, of course. :)