Up the Mountains Via Simpang Pulai

Cameron Highlands Brothers Drive – Part 9

The clock keeps ticking, we need to keep living our lives to the fullest!
The Lion

After our Dim Sum breakfast and a bit of shopping, we make our way back up the mountains via the northern Simpang Pulai route. This is always the recommended route for beginners to Cameron Highlands, because it is an easier drive. The roads are wider and with not as many bends as the Tapah route. There are places designated for you to overtake slow moving vehicles, and thus the average speed through this route is much faster than the Tapah route. The irony is that, most of the fatal accidents seem to happen the presumably safer route along Simpang Pulai. Perhaps drivers are lulled into a false sense of security here.

If you were travelling from Kuala Lumpur or Singapore from the south though, this route adds about 90 minutes to your overall journey, because it is quite a detour in terms of the overall distance traveled. We normally use this route when we are coming back down from our road trips in Thailand.

The video below gives you a flavour of what the Simpang Pulai route is like.

There are some really nice places to stop (unofficially at the side of the road), and to enjoy the breathtaking mountainscapes. Thankfully, the light rain and fog in the morning had cleared up, giving us some really nice weather to admire the view and to take photos!

We run into some traffic along the Route 59. Many people drive up the mountains for a weekend escape. The jams can get very bad at times so if you run into one, it might be better to pull over at a roadside cafe or attraction, and just to wait it out.

Cameron Highlands has been rapidly developing through the years. Some say over-developing in such a way that it is losing its charm and becoming too touristy. As the land is being cleared, it increases the incidences of mudslides in the rain, causing further disruption to traffic and sometimes even tragically burying people’s homes.

Life can be so unpredictable. This just makes it more important for us to cherish what we have and to make the most of our time on this earth. The clock keeps ticking, we need to keep living our lives to the fullest!