Overnight at Frasers Hill

Over a long weekend I took my family in my campervan to Frasers Hill for an overnight stay. It has been our family's favourite highland retreat, it is only about 2 hours drive from our home, yet it's cool air and greenery is a world away from the sweltering pressure cooker of Klang valley. Frasers Hill has somewhat suffered from over development lately, what used to be a quite highland town has turned into a busy tourist destination.

Fortunately for us, our campervan gave us the freedom from accommodation booking and also the freedom to choose where we want to stay there. Our address for the night is a parking lot that no one uses, except for an unexpected fellow campers in their overlander! 

There's an observation tower at the car park and the kids loved it!

The view from the tower. I can sit there and look at this all day.

My first real life encounter with an overlander camper. It looks like an escapee from the Paris-Dakar race!

The license plate tells me that it is from Europe, possibly France.

The yellow overlander looks like it has lost its way in a Paris-Darak rally. Frasers Hill is long way from the Sahara, how did it find its way here? The occupants of the overlander seems to prefer to keep to themselves, so I have to respect their rights for privacy, however I would have loved to poke my head into their camper to see the interior. I would have lots of question to ask them, how did they made their way here? How did they built their camper? How much do they spent on it? Why do they do it?

A Unimog overlander perhaps?

Mudah.my has proved to be my favourite site for unusual vehicle. After dreaming about a Pinzgauer camper, I stumbled upon a Unimog 404! Unimogs looks like the bastard offspring of tractors and trucks, but their off road capabilities is such that it will easily beat any tricked up Landcruisers, Landrovers or Jeeps alive. I have previously came across other Unimogs in Malaysia, but they were either incomplete rusted out hulks or in such a state of disrepair that little more than a pile of junk. Probably an ex-army surplus, this unit I saw was the best sample I ever seen in Malaysia. Other than the rather ironic model number, this Mog will make a perfect overlander.

Exterior looks good, it even have an original PTO winch

Interior look complete and clean. Even the door inlay and handle is intact ( something usually missing from ex-military vehicles )

Engine looks clean

The possibility. What it can be.......

Exploring the tundra, crossing the Andes...... I shall dream on.

Campervan spotting

I spotted this campervan parked at a car work shop at Bangi. Out of curiosity I stopped by and took some pictures. The workshop owner told me that it is on sale, but the asking price is more of wishful thinking on the part of the seller. The camper is based on VW T4 chassis and it is very nice model with cab over bunk body, the workshop owner was in a hurry to go out so I can only contented with a walk around inspection. The interior looks clean and complete and the body is in fair condition, but it is clearly not in a road worthy condition.

From the current condition of this campervan, it looks like it has not had a happy life with the previous owner. I really hope this campervan will find a new home and an owner who will restore to road worthy condition and take it to the road. I am quite sure that there are scattered campervan owners out there in Malaysia besides me, it will be nice if all campervan owners can form a community here. Hello! Is there anyone out there?

Rear view looks good.

Missing grill at the front

Missing cylinder head!

Any takers?

Road Trip 3 ( Gua Musang - Kuala Lipis - Home )

Two of my crew having their icecream break at Gua Musang after our long drive from Cameron Highland.

Gua Musang town is surrounded by limestone hills such as this.

The road took us to Gua Musang, the sleepy town is in the middle of limestone hills and we learnt that Gua Musang refer to an actual cave in one of the hill. We did not stop long at Gua Musang as we has decided to spend the night at Kuala Lipis instead.

The drive from Gua Musang to Kuala Lipis is probably the most challenging section of our road trip. The road is narrow with quick elevation changes and bends at some part, coupled with maniacal lorry drivers who seems to be he high on amphetamine made the drive at time a hair raising affair. Thankfully we made it to Kuala Lipis without incident. We arrived at the town after dark and I was totally unfamiliar with the place and have no idea where I can park my campervan safely for the night. Finally, we decided that we will check into a hotel instead of sleeping in our campervan, the endless hot water at the hotel bathroom is a welcome change from the discipline of water rationing in our camper!

The next morning we checked out and set about to explore the town. Kuala Lipis used to the administrative center of the state of Pahang so it has everything a major town should have, hospital, train station even the EPF and taxation office. The center of the town consist of the lower street and upper street along the river bank, the two streets are in parallel to each other and stairway arcade linked them together. We were told that the best noodle in town is found here, so we decided to trust our stomach to it and it did not dissapoint!

The lower street of Kuala Lipis.

The stairway linking the lower street and the upper street is also a food arcade

This is where we have our breakfast at the stairway food arcade. The noodle is good!

After our breakfast, we move on and drove towards Raub, which happens to be the place of my wife's childhood home town. Her aunt still lives there and we decided to drop by for a visit.

Visiting our relatives at Tras, near Raub. The people there has never seen a campervan before. One of them thought that it was a van from the council's dog pound looking for stray dogs!

Fallen tree blocking traffic between Tras and Kuala Kubu Baru. Fortunately the lorries were able to tow the fallen trunks aside to allow vehicles to pass through.

The captain and navigator at the bridge.