Cloud 9

Another must do at Cameron is a visit to the strawberry farm. Strawberry farms can be found almost everywhere in Cameron Highlands. All offer locally grown strawberries and homemade strawberry jams and a very cheap price. Some strawberry farms will let you pluck your own strawberries and charge you according to the weight.

For dinner, we headed for crowded Brinchang town centre where there are many joints serving steamboat that is a must try for anyone visiting Cameron. By dusk, the rain had fallen and the air temperature had dropped to a cooling 18 degrees Celsius – very nice indeed. Dinner was really affordable – the steamboat set us back less than ten Ringgit per person. one can also visit the busy and vibrant night market in Brinchang over the weekends but we gave it a miss, preferring to have an early night to prepare for the drive home the next morning.

The next morning, we had an interesting and cheap breakfast at a nearby coffee shop before we began our long drive home – chee cheong fun and wanton mee Cameron style.
For our route back, we headed north and went towards the highway via the ‘new’ route a.k.a. the Gua Musang highway. This route offers wider and more flowing roads that can be a joy to drive enthusiastically on. In addition, there are also passing lanes at some places for overtaking slower traffic. Despite being an SUV, the Tiguan was pretty fun to hurl in the bends – the suspension feels taut enough while the steering makes for a good tool. With the gearbox set in manual or Sport mode, The Tiguan really gives you the confidence to chuck it into the bends. The ‘new’ route adds an additional 70km of driving on the North South highway but I was invigorated by the exciting drive on the country road by the time we reach the highway at Simpang Pulai near Ipoh.

The drive on the North South was an uneventful one other than realising that VW models will automatically turn on their headlamps if you travel at above 120km/h for extended periods but we did make a detour to KL for some succulent char siew at Jalan Alor. We reached Singapore way before dinner time and I hardly felt any fatigue despite driving the whole distance with only a stop or two along the way – it was a testament to the Tiguan’s comfort as well as its ability to eat the kiliometres.

Credits: Story and photos by Raymond Lai