That familiar surge of happiness

The picture was taken during my exam month. It was almost as agonizing as any torturing execution but now that i got the new schedule for the short semester..i felt that same happy emotion and sense of belonging..

Your Comprehensive Guide to Bukit Tinggi's Colmar Tropicale and Japanese Village

The bunny is scruntinizing over.....................

...............................Bukit Tinggi (Colmar Tropicale and Japanese Village)

I was excited about the whole event despite the fact that I know Bukit Tinggi will not thrill me. I googled to find that this is just another small lil' town built for the purpose of boosting the tourism industry. This hill was located at just 3,500 ft above the sea level and I thought that the air will be quite cooling (if not as cooling as Genting since Bukit Tinggi obviously has more trees around as compared to Genting) but alas! You can wear a singlet and walk around Colmar Tropicale without feeling a slight hint of breeze.

I suggested Fraser's Hill initially and really love what the website of Ode Smokehouse has to offer. However, due to its winding road and inaccessibility, I've got to drop that and agree with the rest on Bukit Tinggi.

It doesn't have any coaster attractions nor good food to eat. Instead, I'd say that the food offered is extremely unreasonably priced.

Are you kidding me? A small plate of pasta which is hardly the delicious type cost about RM 22 (at the minimum).

Don't be fooled by this Alfredo. The peas were frosted and the chicken are....sighs....(not to mention not fresh) tasteless.

Food aside, it's something which we can bear with of course, IF, it was compensated with quality customer service. However, it is just the opposite for Colmar Tropicale of the Berjaya Hills.

To start with, we managed to arrive a little early for the check in which was supposedly to be at 3pm. After a round of small shopping of snacks and breakfast at Tesco Ampang, we sent Minnz back (sorry girl for your untimely flight...LOL...we'll make do with Krabi Island cruise eh?)

Garmin system which helps her a lot in her ways in PJ/KL area

We used Livia's GPS device to (try to) locate the route to Bukit Tinggi. Somehow, it's either the system is in need of an update or we can't exactly trust that much in Garmin when it comes to traveling interstates. HS needed to call his dad to ask for the exact direction and by golly, thanks to his good sense of direction, we managed to get to Bukit Tinggi which is only 45mins away from city center (of course, on a non-jammed day).

We were a lil' early and we do not mind a little waiting since the receptionist was saying that they are in the midst of preparing our suite. We were still feeling pretty excited and why shouldn't we? It is Ume Tatami Suite (http://www.berjayahills.com/japanese_ume.php) in the Japanese Garden! It's a perfect escapade from the hustle and bustle of KL city with greens around you! We willingly agreed on the price of RM 1,500.00 per night of stay.

We waited patiently for about 1.5 hours at the cafe opposite. Yes, that was where we had that terrible lunch. Anyways, the room was finally ready and gosh, we were right to feel excited because we have our very own butler! Tee-hee...you pay a little more for some luxurious treatments. The butler will be at our disposal and bear the responsibilities to our well-being; from food to the places which we wanted to go -- all over in Bukit Tinggi.

There you go..our friendly butler. He's showing us around...explaining a bit about the house and the items which was so-called imported from Japan. ('coz my friend who just went to Japan commented that the futon wasn't the real futon)

Ain't it look pretty?

You will first be greeted by warm light coming out from the corridor. Boy, we were awestruck. The design is so oriental and beautiful:

The main entrance

The main room (Living/Dining room)


This is the kitchen: one of the best suite's kitchen that I've ever came across because it has basically all the utensils that you will need (depending on whether you wanted/dare to use them or not...but I supposed with a thorough cleaning, they should be fine.)See? Microwave, cutlery..wow!!

They also have pots and bowls for cooking if you don't mind the musky-smelling cabinet
GLASSES! Perfect for our lil' toast during the night!

The Western styled room on the upper floor (initally reserved by SA)

Lovely ratan table they have

And a great place to laze around watching Astro (yes...astro in every room)
Or just plain relaxing yourself with the view of the 'forest'. The butler said that sightings of wildboar were reported. Interesting!!

The room adjacent to the main room
I wish that this pot is real..so that we can have some sukiyaki!

The bathroom which soon become our play pen later

Nicely self-captured pic

We raid the bottom floor after that

The secondary entrance
Yet another dining/living space

Adjacent to the above room
The second bathroom

The third bathroom

It is a stand alone suite in lush Japanese Village and how can you not love it? It was designed by Mr. Ariizumi, a renowned Japanese architect. The name may not ring any bell (it doesn't to me but it was a hoo-hah all over the Internet (in the Colmar Tropicale's website..and other blogspot sites)...but when I googled...nothing important came up) but the design does. It's quite impressive for a Japanese styled building in Malaysia as it captures the beauty and exquisiteness of the ancient Japanese wooden houses.

The garden came with a nice Koi pond (all the Kois are looking deliciously fat), well designed path, man made stream and a Tea House.

The pond

The fat koi
(There was a sign asking the public not to throw stones at them. I wonder if there truly exists such people who actually have the heart to harm these lovely fishies...if I see these people in action, I swear I'm going to teach them a good lesson on what Environmental Love is)

I can already imagine the sereneness offered by this place during the night when I first step foot on it!

The 5 of us was happily camwhoring away through timer capture and amazingly the result was wonderful! We got so pro in using the timer that we took so many photo in every imaginable way! Well...there's like so many things lying around which you could make full use to capture the correct angle....glass cups, tissue box....rubbish bin.....

Very obvious difference between the above pic and the below pic. I was setting the timer...

There I was sliding right into the spot
From the bathroom

Happily hiding in the cabinet

Our second dining table..yes..they have that many rooms (about 5 fully air-conditioned..3 rooms come with an Astro)

This decor is too cute to escape from us


He's the 21st century Doraemon..aka...DoSernLi

All 5 of us can fit into that bath tub ever so comfortably!
Messing around with the massage bed (The massage spa there can easily kill you with its nothing-much-RM550-spa-package)

disappointed...sad...dejected...aghast....after the bad news was sent by our butler

See? We were enjoying ourselves very much and MF and OL were already went for a good shower in preparation for the night. Suddenly, upon the arrival of our friends along with the packed food (Oh food!!! We were famish and were waiting for their arrival), the sad news came too.

There he was, our butler together with his Duty Manager standing outside our door repeatedly pressing the door bell. He was there to inform us that the water pump had just gone faulty and it will take approximately 1 month to fix the problem. Therefore, we have got no choice but to move our arses from Japanese Village to the French Villages which was located 15minutes away.

They were being nice and told us that it was a free upgrade -- meaning...FOC stay for the night. True it is great to have one FOC night...but the thing is, we weren't very happy about it especially after being treated like a bunch of oddballs.

Initially the Duty Manager (Ms. Wati if I'm not mistaken), was explaining the matter to us in an acceptable manner and after a round of discussion, we were thinking, since it's a free-of-charge room transfer, then why not? We then planned to ask for some form of compensation as to compensate our disappointment. We are not a greedy lot...just a little something would be good.

Therefore, after packing up, we went down to the French Village with a heavy heart. Back to civilisation as we tell each other, after seeing all the people around the place. The street was awfully short and you can see the whole of it at the Viewing Tower. If Minnz was there with us, she would have screamed her heart out seeing all those big fat fugly lizards stuck on the wall of the tower.
From the top of the Tower


Despite the lizards, I was so happy to find this beautiful little insect

Alright, so bad to this Missy-Manager-On-Duty (MMOD), she gave us 2 rooms which are the suite and a normal room. We don't like the idea because the whole plan of having this trip was (again I repeat) to have everyone in the same room, enjoying and chit-chatting over a glass of wine. Perhaps, do something silly and laugh ourselves mad along the way.

However, we still take in MMOD's kind exhange for our Ume Tatami Suite with some conditions laid down for her...alright, it's not really some conditions since we only asked her if there are any other form of compensations besides the free room exchange.

Then, she started to lose her temper and raised her voice with us. I mean, we are being so nice to her, speaking in polite human language and yet she started saying in a very rude manner implicating that what she did was the very best she could give. It's either we take it or leave it because she had a very bad day with 40 over guests that day itself and she's basically very tired of these complaints.

Oh, I felt like we were being treated like a bunch of naughty kids who take things for granted and now got disciplined because of that.
But hey! We are the holiday makers and we didn't plan for such a thing to happen with the hotel suite nor did we ask 40 guests to trash her day! So, the very least she could do would be being polite and be sincere with her apology. That's it...nothing too difficult eh?

Seriously if it's not because of SL, I would have made sure I give her a hard time. What SL said was reasonable that we have to give and take in such situation but to me, that is totally a different case when MMOD gave us such a bad treatment. She was acting like we should have know how bad her day was and could help by just shutting up and take whatever was being offered.

Then again, what was offered was totally out of what was expected!

The best that they could do was to give us 3 extra folding bed in the room because we insisted in taking one suite and keep the 8 of us together.

King size bed

The room was quite sweetly decorated and suited the theme with its furniture. I personally like the lamp...and would have thought the room as OK; given if the room doesn't have this old dusty smell (especially the cupboard).

Besides, I would definitely appreciate it if the bedsheet is clean. (I found a light yellow patch on my pillow....was that some kind of saliva stain?)

Rest assured that the comfy looking chair is also stained....don't ask me, I have no idea what type of stain that is
The single beds
The shower which worked fine (as compared to the one in my room. The tap went faulty and can't be turned off..but luckily HS saved the day)

The rooms were alright...I mean...we can't say it's too bad because the MMOD had left us with no choices...anyways, wait till I show you the living room. That's the best part of the whole suite because generally, this is a Conference Suite.

Look at the table!
That blardy table took the whole space out and I guessed that was why, we have got no kitchen. Although we have a fridge but it was good for nothing since it doesn't come with a ice tray. Sighs...
All the more, the room service was so bad that they can't even provide us with utensils..let alone ice. The guys even got to go scout for ice cubes for our nightcap but to no avail, our liquor brought went untouched.
I caught a glimpse of this when I was at the Viewing Tower...awww...I'm so jealous! They have got a kitchen! Guess what...we lot have to depend on paper cups and polystrene plates as well as a make do newspaper bowl for our dinner that night...Goodness, thanks Rachel for getting us those...if not, we would have to beg our way for some utensils.

Therefore, we went down the limited street to walk about and hang near the stage to see what entertainment they've got. I expected to see something more cultural and interesting. This is afterall, a french themed village. Anyways, I should have know better.

The performance that night was some sort of Arabic dance...aka belly dancing which I think the one I saw at Fooz' birthday party was 100% better than this.

I'll leave the body shape of the dancers alone because I think size and shape of a person will not affect the gracefulness of a dancer...so I'll just have to comment on the dance on the whole. One word: Suck for costume, performance and showmanship.

The rest of the street was lined up with a reflexology parlour, arcade center, souvenir shops, restaurants/cafes/pub, and children playpen. Oh, I forgot...a Koi pond, bats' nest (actually it's the carpark in which the bats choose to spend their night), and 2 spaces allocated for the swans....

We finally gave it a rest and retire early back to our cozy little living room.

living room ;(

and yours truly for the first time did not join the gang...but went up to the room for...no...they do not have Astro here but only Vision (as what offered by most hotel). I went up to watch National Geography while reading my journal papers.

I heard SA's voice most of the time and when Livia came up, she told me that they were discussing on politics and work. Haha...I should have been there to capture these moments of SL and SA ;)p

The night went past and we had nothing of the Genting fun. The next morning, we went to the coffee house for our breakfast and I had to wait for the longest time ever for my only warm dish of the day: omelette.
The omelette chef

Really, there is nothing much to do at Colmar Tropicale since we didn't bother to visit Bug Bunnies at the Rabbit Farm. We went to the Horse Trail though, in hope to have a fun ride in the forest. But then again, we should have knew it. To ride a horse for 10 minutes would have cost you RM 25. 1 hour will be RM100.

I mean, forget about it!

Anyways, the horses are tame. I followed MF and went in to get closer to the horses; however, we came out after taking some photos -- almost instantly because the caretaker told us that the entrance fee to the stable is RM2.

Har...what? That is blood sucking...that area is about the size of my house (which, mind you, is pretty small) and they want to charge us RM2 just for looking at the horses.

I'd rather go on a horseless ride and stay there until the sun sets than to give a good 25 bucks just for a little short ride...it's not like I have not ride a horse before!

Or I'd rather spend the money to buy food for the swans. Poor them, were so hungry that they went crazy after being fed by some bread crumbs.


Lastly we went back to Japanese Village and reminisce on our camwhoring moments in that lovely japanese suite. Suprisingly the gifts at the souvenir shop is not overly priced but who knows where they got their cheap bargain.

Ehem...so, we then went to the Botanical Garden....which is also another disappointing destination. All that made me took my camera out to take a photo of the plant....was only the morning glory 'cuz...the Garden is just like any normal garden....yes...nothing too interesting...
I was expecting to see some herbs which I learnt during my Phytochemistry lesson but ahhh...there's no such things.


We saw...lots of trees duh....and that's us....trying to clear the path...very noble and heroic I know..hahahaa..




In short,

1. Bukit Tinggi's Japanese and French Village are suitable only for the family trips (ehem...limited to those with young kids and old family members)
2. Berjaya Hills' Hotel -- Manager on Duty has the lousiest customer service of all and basically if you are not staying in Ume Tatami Suite (paying a hefty sum), then you could expect and less than average service from the staff. I would say, they work very leisurely and so, your requests would come in slow (in anything! request for extra slippers....beds....cutlery.....cups.....etc etc)
3. The temperature is like the normal KL temperature...heck...I think even KL has a much cooler temperature...
4. Expect to pay for the trip because nothing comes cheap in this hill. Not even to observe the tea ceremony. Instead, the staffs were pretty anxious when we came near....afraid that we are going to bother them...they instantly directed us to a price list board for the events which they are going to perform...meaning...if you want to them to do a tea ceremony..pay. If you want to pose in a kimono and learn how to wear one...pay.

5. It is recommended if you wanted to have some exercise away from the hustle and bustle of the city. A walk up and down in between the villages without getting on the shuttle bus would really do your muscles good. (Oh..at this I have to say that I feel proud because I didn't even feel any muscle ache...hahaa...meaning that I'm still fit for my age..eheeemmmm)

Verdict: Will I go for a second visit? Well...if we are having a room party and a morning walk at the Japanese Village....yes. Else....hell no!