Review: Eight Mentigi Guesthouse in Cameron Highlands

We stayed at Eight Mentigi in Tanah Rata during our recent Ent hunt trip to Cameron Highlands.

Eight Mentigi started business in early 2010 which makes its facilities brand new at the point of writing. The guesthouse is named after the road it's situated on.

Tip: If you don't have ideas to name your guesthouse, use the street name. But what if the street has names like "Jalan Haiwan" or some other weird name I can't think off at the moment because it's 4.14am?

Entrance to Eight Mentigi.

Essentially the guesthouse is made up of 2 houses: Eight Mentigi 1 and Eight Mentigi 2, as you can see here:

Eight Mentigi 1 (house on the left) and Eight Mentigi 2 (house on the right).

Eight Mentigi 2 was formerly Papillon Guesthouse which was extremely rundown until it was acquired by Smith, the owner of Eight Mentigi and renovated to become Eight Mentigi 2. I think he spent approx. RM250k for the renovations.

The reception area is in Eight Mentigi 1 which is clean and spacious:

At the back of the house is where the kitchen, common bathroom and more rooms are. That's not my red backpack in the corner.

I like it that both the houses have its own living room instead of travellers from both houses having to cramp into one living room. How sad would that be.

Living Room in Eight Mentigi 1.

Living Room in Eight Mentigi 2. Now, that is my blackpack and stuff on the sofa.

Eight Mentigi 2 does not have a super duper audio visual system like in Eight Mentigi 1. Instead it has a nice dining room where you have a comfortable place to write your journal, research for your next travel destination or surf the internet all day long. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Wifi is FREE !!!

 Dining area in Eight Mentigi 2.

There are various types of rooms to suit different travellers - twin rooms, family rooms and even dorms. All rooms are basic and clean.

Some rooms have WC ensuite whist some don't. So make sure you specify whether you need this facility in your room when booking your room.

Like most guesthouses, Eight Mentigi offers transfers to Taman Negara and Perhentian Island. This is especially useful if you're travelling around Malaysia and need transport assistance.

All in all, I enjoyed my stay in Eight Mentigi because facilities were good, Smith the owner is extremely friendly and rates were reasonable by Cameron Highlands standards. So yeah, I would stay at Eight Mentigi again when I return to Cameron Highlands.

If you're interested to stay in Eight Mentigi, here's the brochure:

Eight Mentigi Cameron Highlands,

No. 8A, Jalan Mentigi,

39000 Tanah Rata,

Cameron Highlands, Pahang

Tel/Fax: +6 05 491 5988

Mobile: +6 016 566 1988

Email: eightmentigi@hotmail.com

Website: http://www.eightmentigi.com/

Searching for Ents in Cameron Highlands (Part 2)

(Click here for Part 1)

And so we returned from Cameron Highlands satisfied that we found the Ent again. Here are some latest photos of the fella:

Still the same after 3 years. Thank God for forest conservation efforts!

I managed to snap a photo of the Ent's legs:

Twisted legs of the Ent. Could this Ent be a human being who was cursed by the spirit of the forest to become a tree? My imagination working on hyperdrive here.

Ents are a race of beings that resemble trees. They were created by J.R.R. Tolkien in his hugely popular Lord of the Rings (LOTR) novels that were made into movies and went on to become the greatest movie epic of all time.

Now here comes the part where I tell you that we not only found the Ent again, we also found another tree that looks exactly like Treebeard:

Treebeard is the oldest living Ent and is described as being 14 feet tall. I think this tree suits the description.

If you can't imagine this mother of a tree being Treebeard, I did the honours of showing you:

Pardon my lack of CGI skills, but Picasa certainly helped a lot!

Apart from characters from the LOTR movie trilogy, we also found some other interesting tree formation like this one shaped of a kidney:

And I saved the best for last. We also found a character from Jurassic Park:

 Looks like a dinosour's head foraging for food.

Mossy Forest and Gunung Brinchang is one hell of a movie set. If you're going there soon, remember to watch out for these movie characters all shaped by trees. Who knows, you may even find other movie characters that we missed.

Fascinating Cactus Close-Ups

Cactuses are fascinating works of nature when seen up close. I discovered that at Cameron Highlands over the weekend.

Many people think of cactuses as prickly little flora like these:

However, cactuses can look prickly but are not, like these cactuses that have thorns that are soft and bendable:

Cactuses can can also exist like cluster of flowers: 

If you look carefully, cactuses can look like everyday items: 

Helium balloons twisted into cluster of flowers.

Silkworm cocoons.

Chicken nuggets :-)

Mother-in-law's tongue

A cactus can even be cool enough to look like the rocker sign :-)

Searching for Ents in Cameron Highlands (Part 1)

Deep in the Mossy Forest of Cameron Highlands lives a creature that looks like an Ent from the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) movie trilogy.

We stumbled upon this magnificent creature in 2008 as we were hiking up Mount Brinchang.

It was tall, green in colour and in a hurry to go somewhere. Just look at its long legs and powerful strides.

Here's a photo of an Ent from LOTR in case you don't know:

Image source

This weekend we will be hiking our way to Mossy Forest again where we spotted the Ent. And hopefully our paths will cross again.

Will we succeed or not? Stay tune for more news next week.

(Click here for Part 2)

Gunung Brinchang - Mystical & Beautiful

I hiked up Gunung Brinchang (in English: Mount Brinchang) with my travel buddy, Angie Tan (http://crakerr.blogspot.com/) in February this year. Before I continue, I must give her credit for the lovely photos in this entry.

Gunung Brinchang is situated in Cameron Highlands, in the state of Pahang in Malaysia. The mountain is famous for its Mossy Forest - a forest that looks like a movie set from Lord of the Rings. You will see what I mean later.

Before we set off that morning, I devoured a bowl of noodle soup, two half-boiled eggs, a pair of 'roti bakar' (toasted bread) and washed it all down with Chinese tea. I always believe in doing anything, especially hiking, on a full stomach :-)

We then drove to the water reservoir in Brinchang town where the trail began. However we could not find the trail, so we went to the nearest police station to enquire.

The police officer on duty gave us a funny look. Apparently Gunung Brinchang is notorious for missing hikers. When I heard that, I started chickening out. Then I remembered Jim Thompson, the famous Thai silk king who went missing in the jungles of Cameron Highlands in 1967. His body was never found and remains a mystery till this day. You can read more about Jim Thompson in:

http://www.cameron-highland-destination.com/cameron-highlands-jim-thompson.html

We left relevant details with the officer, who strongly reminded us to inform the station when we got back. He also gave us a few 'laws of the jungle' when entering mystical Brinchang forest:

1) Do not use foul language, swear or speak negatively about the jungle. The spirits who dwell there do not like if we belittle or speak negatively about their domain.

2) If we see a three-prong fork in the road, turn back. There's a high possibility the spirits of the jungle are attempting to confuse and mislead us. This mostly happens if you break Rule 1. There have been many stories of people being kidnapped by 'orang halus' or spirits into the netherworld.

By the time I heard those 'tips', I freaked out and almost did not make the climb. But in the end we did make the climb and here are pictures of our little adventure on Gunung Brinchang:

The journey begins ...

Mossy Forest - Like from a movie set of Lord of the Rings.

I saw an Ent!

I made it!

View from the top.

It was raining the night before, so it was a muddy climb.

Climbing Gunung Brinchang is not difficult compared to Mount Kinabalu. But the experience and beauty of it is breathtaking, and we are definitely game for another climb in the future, with or without the 'orang halus'.