1 Malaysia
Travel photography is all about what you see on travel, not what you make up or imagine of. What you have seen on your travel might not be the same as others and what could one see might not be seen by the other, even they are on the same trip to the same tourist spot. Not to mention a travel photo. What you capture and how you capture will not be the same as others, albeit shooting at a same object or scene. So the result is always different from one photographer to another. A good or bad travel photo happens in a fraction of a second. And this could be helped by a bit of luck, knowledge, skill, and of course timing.
Some EXIF info: Photo taken with my Nikon D7000 and Nikkor 18-105mm lens. Shutter speed 1/125sec and Aperture f5.6. Focus distance was set to 105mm. ISO 100. Auto White Balance. No flash fired and +2/3EV exposure being compensated with Matrix metering.
This snapshot of a Hornbill bird was taken at a Hornbill feeding station in the most famous beach resort in Pangkor Island, the Pangkor Island Beach Resort. Pangkor Island is a lesser known island resort located off Lumut town and near Ipoh of West Malaysia. The island is populated by many wildlife includes Hornbill.
It was early in the morning at 8AM when Hornbill’s were flocking in from nowhere to the feeding station in the resort. With a strong reflection of lights coming from the sky and sea, the Hornbill was actually backlit. I needed to dial up the Exposure Compensation a bit more to counter the backlit issue, albeit it wasn’t quite enough. I further brightened the photo up in PS Element8 before uploading it to Flickr.
Overall, I quite like this travel photo not in terms of technicality, but because the nice pose of a Hornbill was captured at a right time from a right angle, and this is what travel photography is all about.
– Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel guide
I went to Cameron Highland again last weekend for a family getaway with my children. This is my first time to visit the highland with my Nikon D7000 so I snapped some photos around the famous Malaysian travel destination to visit to share them here as a little photo guide. For other facts and my previous experience of Cameron Highland, check out Travel by photos to Cameron Highland. For other places to visit in Malaysia, check out these top 10 travel destinations of Malaysia.
Cameron Highland is located in Pahang state of Malaysia, some 200km north of Kuala Lumpur. To visit the highland township, travelers can catch a bus or van from major towns. The nearest town to get to the retreat from is Ipoh, which is just 2.5 hours away by bus. There are 2 access roads leading to the retreat from Tapah or Simpang Pulai interchange, which joins together to make a ring road.
If you drive from Tapah, the first sign of the retreat is Lata Iskandar waterfall. Before the Simpang Pulai access road was opened, this waterfall used to be visitors midpoint rest area before reaching the highland. There are also stalls selling souvenirs and foods along the tight winding premix road.
Further up from the waterfall would be the first township of Cameron highland called Ringlet. Visitors can stop here. Lakehouse is the most famous 5-star resort here. However, most visitors would drive further up the highland to the other 2 major township called Tanah Rata and Brinchang for more activities and cooler weather (in the region of 15°c – 22°c).
On your way up to Tanah Rata, which is 5km away from Ringlet, you can stop by the Cameron Valley tea plantation and its cafe to have a tea break.
If you fancy more on the ‘BOH’ tea brand, its plantation and visitor centre access is on the right hand side just before the Cameron Valley plantation. You need to drive further in from the access to reach its plantation.
Tanah Rata is the old township of Cameron Highland at where the local authorities, hospital, banking service, bus station and public garden is. There are rows of shops offering local foods (mainly Malay and Indian foods) and Mary Brown fast brown in Tanah Rata. We stayed in Heritage Hotel here which is on top of a small hill overseeing the highland. However, if you are looking for other more attractive activities of the retreat such as strawberry plucking, cactus farming, vegetable farms, mountain hiking, butterfly viewing and more, Brinchang should be your next stop at 4km away up the highland.
Strawberry farms are the most popular destination in Brinchang. A number of strawberry farms are located here where visitors can pay around RM20 per 500G per couple to pick and pluck their own strawberries. However, the size and quantity on offer depends whether it’s in raining seasons, when April and July are being the best time of the year.
This is the look of a strawberry before turning red.
During raining seasons, like the weekend I went to, you can hardly find anything in good size.
A view at the strawberry farm. This is the visitor farm which is for public viewing and plucking purposes only while those big and nice strawberries on sale in the shop are plucked from their private farms elsewhere. The photo below shows what we got from the visitor centre, which are bigger and nicer than those plucked from the farm.
As usual, we had our favourite steamboat dinner at one of the many Chinese restaurants in Brinchang after we had a day out to some other farms such as the vegetable farms, butterfly garden, cactus farms and floral garden. What made me love so much on steamboat in Cameron Highland is the vast varieties of fresh vegetable included in a portion of around RM15.00. Don’t forget to try the delicious local sweet corns selling at stalls along the roads. Off course visitors can buy some vegetable, potatoes or banana home which are one of the best in its kind.
For outdoor activities, visitors can also hike up the famous Brinchang mountain nearby. We spent 2 days in Cameron Highland before driving down to another family retreat of Pangkor Island in Lumut (the photo guide to Pangkor Island will come after this), via the other access road to Simpang Pulai interchange.
On the way down the highland, there is another Cameron Valley tea plantation and cafe at road side. We dropped by again to have another cup of the freshly brewed highland tea!
This is a smaller plantation where visitors can easily walk through the tea bushes and climbing up the hill for an aerial view by the wooden steps provided.
That’s it! These are some of the travel photos that I shot on my family getaway to Cameron Highland last weekend. Even though it was not the best time to visit the highland due to raining seasons, we still had a wonderful and refreshing trip up there. For nature lovers, Cameron Highland is indeed another great place to visit in Malaysia. The mild weather up there can also be a short relief from the hot and humid climate in Kuala Lumpur.
– Travel Feeder, your ultimate photo travel guide to Europe
The United Nation World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) had recently released the latest 2011 Tourism Highlights report. One of the most interesting part highlighted in the report is the top ten (10) most visited countries by the number of international travelers. Worth making note that the result is absolutely no surprise to me as I have been to 7 out of the 10 countries listed in the report, which means they are truly popular!
Here are the top ten (10) most visited countries with the number of international travelers in year 2010:
- France – 76.8 million
- United States – 59.7 million
- China – 55.7 million
- Spain – 52.7 million
- Italy – 43.6 million
- United Kingdom – 28.1 million
- Turkey – 27.0 million
- Germany – 26.9 million
- Malaysia – 24.6 million
- Mexico – 22.4 million
As usual, most of them (6 out of 10) are European countries. I visited some cities of France, Spain, Italy, UK and Germany except Turkey. United States and Mexico are 2 popular countries in America but I haven’t been to any of them as the absence of direct long haul budget flights put me off.
Last year in 2010, there are 2 Asian countries received top 10 number of international visitors. Not surprisingly, China managed to outscore some other popular European destinations such as Spain, Italy and United Kingdom, to clinch the 3rd spot. It is widely believed that China would become the hot cake in tourism in near future with substantial increasing number of international travelers over the past years.
What actually surprised me is the 9th most visited country, Malaysia. Hooray! I did not know that while I’m traveling to Europe, many other European travelers are coming over to Malaysia! Belying its small size geographically if compared to most other top 10 countries (it is the smallest among other 10 except UK and Italy), Malaysia is receiving a very high number of international travelers arrival each year, almost as high as its own populations of 27 Million people. The reason being why can be witnessed through its vast and broad scope of travel attractions on offer, from architectural, cultural, geographical and warm weather. Read more on Malaysian Top 10 Places to Visit and other Malaysian travel highlights.
– Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog
Check out the full version of UNWTO Tourism Highlights 2011 HERE
Also check out the latest June edition of UNWTO World Tourism Barometer HERE
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