Solo Travel Part 3 - Bukit Tinggi, Pahang (Cute Rabbits!)

Bonjour!

Bienvenue à Colmar Tropicale! (Welcome to Colmar Tropicale!)

Built in 1997, this French-themed resort has been visited by thousands of tourists around the world. It has been more than 10 years since Colmar Tropicale came to existence, but the PerutBesi has never stepped foot on this place. It was quite a good decision to spend the weekend here as this place is away from the hustle & bustle of the city, & the air is definitely fresher as well :)

Entrance to the resort

Outside the resort

Night view of the "market place" from the clock tower

Fire-eating performance 

This is pretty much the ONLY performance that Colmar Tropicale has every weekend night (not too sure if the performance is on during weekday nights). The management of this resort has home-work to be done! Tourists will surely love to see more performances & entertainment at the resort...

Frankly speaking, if you're expecting a place filled with fun & entertainment, you will be greatly disappointed. This place is of no comparison to Genting Highlands. Really. What you'll get is a place to relax & unwind, & that's about it. Of course, there are some goodies to expect i.e. the Rabbit Park, Deer Sanctuary, Horse/Donkey Ranch, Japanese Village, Paintball, Arcades, & many more, which you can find out from their website.

Right outside the entrance of the resort, you'll find 2 pairs of geese/swans

There's a stretch of grapevine too!

I was there with 3 other friends & we took the family rooms (double) for RM849.25/2 nights stay inclusive of 2 days breakfast for 4 persons (breakfast is optional, so we paid RM35.00/person/day to have a hassle-free holiday). The rooms were actually quite old, but thankfully still presentable. We had a 25% discount for our accommodation as we booked from the official website. Just book your room 30 days earlier & you'll get to save 25% from Colmar Tropicale's best-available-rate. If you're going with a group of friends, it's actually cheaper to take the family room or family suite instead of those superior or deluxe rooms...

You'll also be charged RM12.00/person for entrance fee. If you're the hotel's guest, the fee will be refunded upon check-out from the hotel. If not, you just have to pay the one-time entrance fee of RM12.00/person.

One of the family rooms

Each unit has 2 rooms that look pretty much alike. You'll find a queen-size bed, a television with reasonable varieties of channels, a mini bar, & a desk. Strangely, there aren't any ceiling lights! Only 1 room has a ceiling fan, while the other does not. Bah. My friends got the room with the ceiling fan...

The bathroom

It's actually quite old. The tiles were stained (perhaps it hasn't been changed since it was built), & there weren't enough towels for drying our feet! *sigh* The "best" part when it comes to the bathroom is that housekeeping mistakenly took one of our towels thinking it's the resort's, sent it for washing & could not return it (the towel is off-white in colour...in the end, the resort compensated us with their own towel =.=") & threw away one of our toothbrushes, also thinking it's from the resort (the toothbrush is the disposable type which is found at hotels). *sigh* I call this over-efficiency...

That's all for the hotel room. There's no doubt more to be done apart from "admiring" the hotel rooms...

Attraction #1- Rabbit Park (RM3.00/person for entrance)

The Rabbit Park is one of the few attractions at this resort. You'll have to either drive or take the free-tram to the park. The bunnies here are quite cute, but I thought they looked rather stressed-out & exhausted after being chased by crazily excited children the entire day. I really wonder how these creatures survive another day. 

The rabbits remind me so much of the latest Toy Story 3, where all the toys were roughly treated that they were so afraid of the kindergarten children. The children at the Rabbit Park were trying to feed the bunnies one after another that the bunnies were uninterested with the food already! Poor bunnies...

Bunny's time alone, away from the crowd

Stress-out, exhausted, & over-played bunnies trying to get their 40-winks (some, unsuccessfully)

Every visitor will try to stroke the bunnies even though the bunnies were asleep...hahaha...really pitiful...

I'll leave the bunny to rest, but I want a photo with it! :P

Bunnies' Hospital

There's another enclosed area for injured rabbits. Some of the rabbits were limping, some have their ears bitten/torn, while some have patches of fur missing...

Maternity Ward

These are brand new bunnies, unharmed by visitors (yet)

Guinea Pigs

Apart from bunnies, there was also a pair of Guinea Pigs at the Rabbit Park...I doubt these creatures look anything like rabbits, but perhaps Colmar Tropicale is attempting to start a Guinea Pig Park?

Attraction #2 - Donkey Ranch

One of the donkeys at the ranch

There were 3 donkeys at the donkey ranch, just beside the Rabbit Park. I don't recall seeing any horses around. I think they're placed somewhere else. The poor donkeys looked over-worked as well. According to the ranch worker, that particular day was one of the busiest days for the donkeys that they couldn't get enough rest!

Attraction #3 - Deer Sanctuary

Deer Sanctuary

There are only 2 types of deer at the deer sanctuary, also beside the Rabbit Park. This was one of them...so cute, right? :D

Spotted Deer

These deer remind me of Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer somehow. Heh. They're rather shy creatures, & look quite gentle as well :)

Attraction #4 - Organic Farm (Free Entrance)

The organic farm is a rather small area for vegetable plantation. There weren't any visitors at the farm when we were there for a visit! Frankly speaking, there's nothing really exciting or educational here...hahaha...

Nicest patch of green vegetables

The rest of the patches weren't as "green" & fertile.

Young plants

Don't they look like chocolate cupcakes/muffins?

Berries!

I have no idea what type of berries these are, but the dark coloured ones were sweet! We just plucked it, not knowing whether we're allowed to or not....hahahaha...yums!

Looks like corn/maize

Bleeding....not...

AP said I look like some anime character in this photo...small head, big body...ish...

Attraction #5 - Botanical Garden

We decided to take the free-tram to this place, which was slightly higher than Colmar Tropicale. If you decide to drive up, you can only park at the bottom of the hill & take a 5 minutes steep-walk up to the Botanical Garden & the Japanese Tea House. Entrance fee was complimentary for us who stayed at the hotel. I'm not too sure if they will charge a certain fee, but you can just check it with the resort's management :)

Some of the flowers at the Botanical Garden...

Can you spot the bee on this flower? :)

One of my best macro shot of a flower *grins with pride*

Another pretty flower in bloom, but not at the Botanical Gardens....hahaha...

This was actually taken at The Chateau, another resort expected to open next year.

I did not take any photos of the Japanese Tea House as we didn't bother stopping by at that place.


Attraction #6 - De Billiard

This was our favourite hang-out place, especially after visiting every other attractions at Colmar Tropicale. It's cheaper to play a game of billiards than to spend the money at the Arcade. Each game of billiard costs RM3.00/game (regardless of the number of players), while each arcade game costs RM2.00/person/game. I really missed my days at my previous workplace, where I can play games of pool almost every lunch time & even after office hours! Ah...such was life...

One of my best shots with my Lumix :D

As you can notice, that's all that we did during our 3 days there! Loads of time were also spent watching TV in the room since there's nothing much to do. Most people will call the weekend a boring one, but if you're looking for some time away from the busyness in life, this could be a good option.

I'll be introducing some restaurants at Bukit Tinggi in my next post! Stay tuned for more on PerutBesi's travel ;)