The last trip of the Gang of Four (Khong, Stephen, George and Jan) was in January: The Gang of Four in Kampar. High time for a new outing. Khong suggested Janda Baik with a visit to the garden of Al Attas and of course nice food,

We started with a late breakfast of wantan mee and coffee in Bukit Tinggi, a charming village beside the highway.

Khong knows the region well and drove us deep inside the Janda Baik region, until the end of the road

IIt was a long time ago that I had visited Janda Baik and I was a bit shocked about the “development” that had taken place. Everywhere resorts and campsites. A funny kind of campsites, meant for town people who are afraid of nature 😉 I love camping, see my blog Waterfall Camping, but this kind of “glamping” is not my cup of tea.

And of course there are places where you can rent ATV’s.

Our next stop was at a ‘forest’ of wild ginger. George was interested to harvest some bunga kantan, buds of the torch ginger, used for the preparation of assam laksa and tom yam.

Here George is in action cutting the flowers, while Khong is practicing his new hobby, close-up photography.

George’s harvest of bunga kantan

I was taking pictures too.. The right pictures looks like a bird 😉

Nearby is a parking for people who are going to climb Gunung Nuang, the second-highest mountain of Selangor at 1493 m. Nowadays the ascent from Janda Baik is getting more popular than the traditional one from Pangsun. In the past I have hiked part of this trail until the Cemperoh waterfall. It was free and easy then, now you need permits. Here is an interesting and detailed comparison of the two ascents: Janda Baik versus Pangsun.

Final destination was the house and gardens of Al Attas. I had visited this place with Khong a long time ago> At that time we admired the garden and the numerous flowers and plants in it. For this blog I searched for more information about the owner, Prof(?) Syed Hussein Alattas, better known as Pak Habib. Quite a character, founder of the University of Life  He was not at home, but Eddie, his caretaker said we were welcome to walk around the gardens.

Here are some pictures of the house and the gardens. According to Khong, the house looks like it is from a Disney movie.

Many flowers and plants.

Then it was time for lunch. We drove back to Bukit Tinggi, to the Wonderland Valley restaurant..

Here is the food we had. From top left, clockwise: .kangkung in prawn sauce, BBQ pork ribs, deep-fried squid with salted egg, yam basket with stir-fried cuttlefish and steamed lala in giner/garlic sauce..

Te location of the restaurant is idyllic, next to the river. Food was good, price reasonable. I liked the wall decoration with empty bottles. And I had to take pictures of the men’s toilet 😉

It was a nice trip. Here is a Google Earth map of the region. Top left the highway, with the village of Bukit Tinggi.