Refarm, A Good Place for Short Rejuvenation in Kampar

Refarm is a recreation farm. Fish ponds, rooms for overnight stay (not cheap), halls for birthday party, gazebo for outdoor activities, and several types of old MacDonald's farm critters. Not to forget the best part of the farm- a big swimming pool with the water pouring down straight from the waterfall. For us, the all-natural water from the mountain range far behind the farm was selling point that worth the entrance fee paid.

Approximately 4 kms from Kampar (to Tapah and Cameron direction, address is lot 6059, Jalan Temoh-Kampar), Refarm can be easily spotted as it's located just beside the main road. The entrance was not catching our attention at all, so we didn't realize its presence until we were invited by Bryant. The entrance fee was RM10 for adult and RM5 for child. It opened daily from 9 am to 6 pm.

First of all, our advices- be early and be ready to get wet. The farm was still under minor construction and there were less shades. Gazebos and some big trees could help to chill a bit, but the whole area was very hot and humid under the sun. The swimming pool could be the only place that remained cold after 11 am. There was a fish catching area fun for children. The area however was a bit too big and the fish could easily elude the clumsy net. The animals feeding area was not attractive, hence a quick walkthrough would be just fine. So again, the main attractive would be the pool. By the way, if you are really a big fan of old MacDonald's pets, you may visit Farm in the City in Selangor. It is a good educational farm for children.

Decent entrance of Refarm. Luckily, ample car parks were prepared.

The entrance of the park is located next to the restaurant (upper left). The ticketing area was narrow. The restaurant had limited operation time, and it offered non-halal food (upper right). There was a shady walkway right after the entrance (lower left), with some fish in not-so-attractive tank.

There were a few fish ponds, decorated with newly planted shrubs.

The best part of the farm- the swimming pool! You can see the water pours into the pool from waterfall far behind.

There are shading huts beside the pool, with tables and chairs prepared for snacks and rest.

We could see ongoing constructions around, reflecting the ambition of the farm owner (upper left). A view from the top of the hill (upper right), where the rest houses located (lower right). The pool for fish catching was a bit too big for novice "fisherman". 

We could touch only two types of animals- goat and horse.

We took our lunch at Refarm Restaurant with Livien's family. The food was average, with overall small portion. The restaurant surprised us with no credit card payment allowed. Luckily we brought enough cash.

We stayed in the farm for around 1 hour and 30 minutes. To our surprise, we were not bitten even once by mosquito. The farm was clean without unpleasant smell from animals. So, if you wish to have a dip in natural waterfall, Refarm provides a good alternative that saves us from a long walk through the jungle, such as waterfall at Nopungguk. By the way, there was a food stall inside the farm, providing snacks and drinks with reasonable price.

So, visit Refarm again? Yes, and will bring along the towels and swimming suits with us.

For our experience in places nearby Kampar, please read our posts:

[Tin Dredge in Batu Gajah] [Kellie's Castle] [Ipoh Old Town]
[Limestone caves in Ipoh] [Ipoh's Food] [Short Stay in Kampar]

[Cameron Highlands] [All Our Destinations]

Places to Visit for One Day Trip in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

Kota Kinabalu has become an international hub, where people around the world make it a transit in their way in and out of Malaysia. Approximately 8 km from the city airport, Kota Kinabalu is just steps away from the terminal building. Well, if you have made Kota Kinabalu your transit in your upcoming tour, you might wish to take a one-day stop there. We visit Kota Kinabalu at least once a year, and this is our must visit list in Kota Kinabalu to fill your one-day itinerary. 

Lok Kawi Wildlife Park

25 km away from city center, it is one of the most well-managed wildlife park in Malaysia, with a list of Borneo pygmy elephants, orang utans, sun bears, gibbons, Proboscis, hornbills, and many more. It is the best place to see these indigenous animals without travel days into the jungle or cruising down the river. The park opens daily 9:30 am – 5:30 pm. For Mykad owner, the entrance fee is just RM10 for adult and RM5 for kid. The entrance fee doubles for the visitors without Mykad. A round trip should take not more than 2 hours. The animal shows are at 11 am and 3:15 pm.

Although bus services are available from Menggatal and Likas, taking a taxi is the best way to reach the park. Getting there by a rented car is a good idea as well. The taxi fare should be around RM60 – RM100 (two ways), while a rental car is available in airport with around RM130 per day. The journey will take 20 – 30 minutes with car.  More information about the park is available at our Lok Kawi Wildlife Park post.

Entrance of the wildlife park.

Animals are well-kept. We have been to the park for several times. The animals were active most of the time.

Sabah Museum

Although it is not as spectacular as Sarawak Museum, but it is still a well-organized museum. With it recent facelift, the full air-conditioned exhibition halls promise comfortable environment to the visitors. The main attraction of the museum is the skeleton of 22m-long Bryde’s whale. We found the Nature Gallery, the Sabah Cultural Gallery, and the Archaeology Gallery were indeed very interesting. The photo gallery is quite informative as well. Anyway, it is just a small museum, so we could see everything in less than 2 hours. The entrance fee for Mykad owner is RM2 while RM15 is required for those without Mykad.

Well, the museum can be easily accessed by taxi (fare around RM10 per trip) or by bus. We would recommend to visit the museum before or after visiting Lok Kawi Wildlife Park, as both are located on the same direction from the city. More information about the museum is available at its official website.

Next on our list, Simply Chocolate factory.

The outlook of the museum. Photography is prohibited inside of the museum.

Simply Chocolate Factory, Jalan Muntahan

It is small, simple, and it is a place that you may wish to visit to grab some local souvenir for your friends and family. The small factory is located at Lorong Muntahan (by Jalan Penampang), in between Sabah Museum and Lok Kawi Wildlife Park. 

By the way, we can get Simply Chocolate in other bigger and more appealing outlets, so why this one? Well, in this particular factory, we can get the same quality chocolate with much cheaper price. So, why not. Not convincing? Just walk around the souvenir shops around the airport, museum, and down the city and compare the prices.

The chocolate factory is facing inside and it is not easy to be seen from the Muntahan main road (upper left). Some of the chocolates packaged for sell (upper and lower right), and samples for us to taste before we decide what to buy.

Tanjung Aru

It is indeed one of the most famous beach in the world. The beach is quiet in the daytime, and turns happening at night. The best part of it- watching the sun sinking below the horizon accompanies with the disappearance of the islands in the soft blowing breeze. The sea is always calm and the water is always clear, but the beach is not always as clean as it shown in luring photos, and beware, your luck plays important role to witness the stunning sunset, so do pray hard for it.

For us, watching the sunset is always the main agenda. The food and drinks (hawker center and the pub) are not in favour of our taste, except for the coconut water in the hawker center. Although the sunset is free, but not for some parking lots. If you are driving and reluctant to pay, then you may need to park your car further down the road, some 400 – 500 m away from the hawker center (nearer to the Shangri-La Hotel) to avoid blocking the traffic.

Tanjung Aru Beach is quiet during the day time.

The observation post of Shangri-La Hotel at the beach.

Sunset at Tanjung Aru.

Seafood Dinner

We would recommend two new places for seafood dinner. The Catch Seafood Restaurant and Grill. With a price of RM45 for adult and RM22 for kid, the restaurant provides seafood buffet with various choices including fish, clams and shells, prawn, and crab. The cooks are ready to prepare the seafood for us according to our choice. In addition to that, free flow of grilled mutton, beef, noodle, spaghetti and many other dishes are available as well. It is located nearby Merdeka Supermarket by Jalan Penampang. The signage of the restaurant can be clearly seen from Jalan Penampang. With very good service and clean environment, it is a great place for a sumptuous seafood dinner. More information about the restaurant can be found in its official website.

Wish to get some seafood inside the city? Then Welcome Seafood Restaurant can be a good choice. Located at the ground floor of Asia City commercial building, the Chinese restaurant can be reached by foot within city area. The restaurant offers nice seafood with fair price. Full air conditioned section is prepared for us to escape the hot and humid weather. Nothing is perfect. The service of the staff is not up to the standard. However, for us, we don’t really mind to be annoyed a little bit to get good and cheap seafood.

The Catch Restaurant and Grill at night.

The restaurant is clean (upper left). The cooking service is provided free of charge. So what we need to do is choosing our favourite seafood and the way to cook it (upper and lower right). RM45 is a bit expensive, but can you imagine that we can eat seafood with different ways of cooking to your heart content?

Last Minute Shopping

It is huge, it is new, it is Imago Shopping Mall. Indisputable, Imago provides the best shopping environment, but it is a bit far away at the corner of the city. If you are hunting for original Tenom Coffee, souvenirs like shirt, hat, and key chain, local delicacies or indulge yourself with a sip of Starbuck coffee, then Centre Point is still the best in our list. What, that old shopping mall? Yes, if you wish to get something fast, convenient, and with fair price, it is still a good place to go. By the way, the shopping mall is just a few minutes away from Welcome Seafood Restaurant. Seashore with stunning view is just few steps away as well. A few other shopping malls like Asia City, Oceanus, and Warisan Square are close to Centre Point as well. 

Centre Point at night.

The Gaya Market is held on every Sunday, starting as early as 5:30 am till noon. It is a great place for us to get exposed to various local products. However, we need to make sure that our stopover includes Sunday morning. Kota Kinabalu shopping guide is available here.

Market at Gaya Street with various local products.

Places to Stay and More

Where to stay in Kota Kinabalu? Our advice is, stay as close as possible to the city area, and stay as cheap as possible. There are many good budget hotels scattering around the city, and we have highlighted several of them for you here. Please check the most recent comments about the hotels in Tripadvisor.

There are many other attractions around Kota Kinabalu. If you have one more day to stay, we would recommend Tungku Abdul Rahman Marine Park to you, and if you plan to stay a bit longer, you might wish to visit Kinabalu National Park, or go rafting at Tamparuli. 

More about our experiences in Sabah:

[Food in Kota Kinabalu] [Kota Kinabalu] [Labuan]

[Homestay at Kota Belut] [All Our Destinations]

First Malaysia Homestay Experience at Kota Belud

We travelled 70 kms northeast from Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah to Kota Belud, then another 16 kms from Kota Belud to Taginambur, a settlement at the foot of Mount Kinabalu. We left our car at Taginambur and hopped onto a 4WD prepared by Mr. Sarun. It was another 20 minutes bumping on mud infested gravel road before we stopped at the rest point of Wasai Waterfall. Sarun, our driver, tourguide, and also the owner of Nopungguk Homestay led us through another 200 meters of muddy path downhill to reach the swimming area of the waterfall. The surrounding was green, the air was cold and dense. We were back to nature in our first homestay trip.

Located in between Kampung Gansurai, Kampung Tinata, and Kampung Podos, Nopungguk Homestay takes the name of nearby Nopungguk Hill. Sarun, a local teacher, started the homestay as a community project. The homestay currently consists of 10 local houses scatter around the peaceful villages far away from city. Surround by nature beauty patched by local orchards, it is a great place to experience the village life in the heart of Borneo Island.

To enjoy the village life in a relaxing way, Sarun had personalized our itinerary- Wasai Waterfall, fruit buffet, and dinner for the first day (we arrived in the afternoon). For the second day, we had fish spa at 'tagal' area after our breakfast, durian hunting, and shopping for local souvenir. We went back to Kota Kinabalu at around 2:30 pm after our lunch.

The gravel road connects the villages to the outside world (upper left). "Selamat Datang" or "Welcome" to the waterfall of Podos Village marks the point where we need to stop our car and continue our journey by foot (upper left). Bamboo handrail is really helpful when we walk through a 45 degree slope (lower right). After 15 minutes of adventurous jungle walk, we finally reached the beautiful waterfall in the middle of jungle. 

The deepest part of the pool was about 5 feet. The water is clean and clear. We were surprised that the place was actually free of mosquito.

 The waterfall is around 60 m high, pouring down natural cold water from the hill.

One of the villagers gave us two tarap (a kind of local fruit) on our way down to waterfall. So we decided to make them our afternoon snack.

The flowing stream cutting through the natural jungle, while forming bathing areas with cold crystal clear water. Bathrooms are prepared at the waterfall area. However, we decided to take bath at our homestay, which was 20 minutes away from the waterfall.

Nice green view along the hilly road.

The homestay is 20 minutes away from Wasai Waterfall (upper left), ready with a living area (upper right), three rooms (lower right), and a kitchen.

 The balcony of the homestay is a great place to have our afternoon tea.

Electronic keyboard was never in our expectation list for a homestay (upper left). So, we decided to make good use of it. The photo of the activities, certificates (upper right) and decorations (lower right) in the homestay. Free flow drinks and beverages are prepared for us.

Meals were nicely prepared by Sarun's family. Besides some common Malaysian dishes, we were served with traditional food like tuhau (Coccinea)- a kind of ginger herb found only in Borneo (lower right). We were provided with one dinner, one breakfast, one lunch, free flow of local fruits, and different types of beverages in our trip.

What did we have in our "local fruit buffet" at Sarun's house? Durian (upper right), rambutan (lower left), and manggis were some of them. We were lucky, it was the season for the fruits.

Our first day programs started at Wasai Waterfall, followed by a "local fruit buffet", and ended with our dinner. Second day, we woke up early for another day packed with fish spa at Kampung Melangkap Tiong, durian hunting, and shopping for local handicrafts. 

Kampung Melangkap Tiong was our third 'tagal' area visited in Sabah, where the environment around the 'tagal' river was protected by local laws. Compared to the tagal area at Luanti Baru, the fish at Kampung Melangkap Tiong  provided a better spa service to the visitor. They were more gentle, plus, the stones were arranged along the river allowed the visitors to sit comfortably while dipping their feet into the stream. The fee was very cheap- RM3 for adult and RM1 for child for every 30 minutes! Fish food was sold with RM1 per package. The entrance fee and the fish food were included in our homestay package.

Mount Kinabalu can be seen on our way to 'tagal' area at Kampung Melangkap Tiong.

The entrance to the 'tagal' area is marked by a wooden hut (upper left). The area was quiet in the morning (upper right). Stones are well arranged along the river so the visitors can have a nice place to sit and enjoy the spa (lower right). We spent one hour to enjoy the fish spa before we moved on for our durian hunting.

Searching for durian in the orchard was a new experience for us (upper left). Guided by Sarun, we were lucky to get some durian freshly dropped from the tree (upper right). Then, we decided to eat the fruits fresh on the spot (lower right). Beside durian tree, we found other fruit trees around the area as well.

Shopping from house to house along the kampung road was another new experience for us. The rattan-ware is produced as cottage industry, thus different family produces different types of rattan-ware with their unique designs. The price, much cheaper than we could get from the market. After lunch, we continued to visit several more houses for rattan baskets before we departed back to Taginambur.

Our photo with Sarun's family.

Nopungguk Homestay is a relatively new community homestay in Sabah. It offers various local activities, such as traditional dance, music, handicraft making, rice production, rubber tapping, fish spa, river bathing, fish trapping, Rafflesia hunting, fruit picking, jungle tracking, and mountain climbing for the visitors to experience with. Good experience for us? Definitely. The homestay has successfully provided an excellent blend into the village's life. More information about the homestay is available at Nopungguk Homestay Blogspot. 

Other experiences in Sabah are available at:

[The Kinabalu National Park]

[Kota Kinabalu] [Hotels in Kota Kinabalu] [Food in Kota Kinabalu]

[Shopping in Kota Kinabalu] [Lok Kawi Wildlife Park] 
[Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park]

[All Our Destinations]