Self Drive to Cameron Highlands & Lata Iskandar Waterfall

At the end of last month, my family and I spent 1 night up in Cameron Highlands. This was my second trip to this Malaysia’s leading highlands resort. You can read about my first trip here last year. To me, Cameron Highlands is much more attractive than Genting Highlands. Before I became so fascinated with Cameron Highlands, I used to visit Genting Highlands each and every time I touched down Kuala Lumpur. But no more since then and I have not been to Genting Highlands for almost 3 years now!

This time around I am adventurous enough to plan a self drive from Kuala Lumpur all the way up to Cameron Highlands. It is not me who drives! My brother was driving as he has been living and working in the capital city for more than 5 years now. He certainly has got used on how to jostle and elbow one’s way in this busiest city of Malaysia. Not for me, that is why I never want to live and work in Kuala Lumpur! I remember I told Foong that Kuala Lumpur is a living hell for me, right Foong?

But I have been a very good guide. I told my brother to get to Cameron Highlands via the North-South Expressway by following the signs to Ipoh. After driving north for about 1.5 hours, we reached Tapah. I had googled up before and I know that we had to take Exit 132 to reach the Tapah toll booth. After the toll booth, we turned left at the traffic lights and were on the long winding road to Cameron Highlands. This road from Tapah to Cameron Highlands is very narrow and has a lot of sharp bends. There are also many heavy vehicles going up and down this road. My brother could only keep to a maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour. The journey up this winding road was a nervous and tiring experience for both the driver and passengers…

Why not saving all the troubles and just take the bus from Kuala Lumpur? The main reason is we wanted to visit this beautiful waterfall on the way from Tapah to Cameron Highlands.

Lata Iskandar Waterfall

Allow me to introduce to you the Lata Iskandar Waterfall. Those buses from Kuala Lumpur will not possibly stop at this waterfall. Lata Iskandar Waterfall is located within the Hutan Lipur Lata Iskandar. It took us around 35 minutes driving from Tapah. The waterfall is located near the roadside and it is almost impossible to overlook such an eye catching waterfall. You would see lots of stalls and cars parking at roadside far before you reach the Lata Iskandar Waterfall.

Stalls at roadside

A big sign at the roadside

I think we stopped at the waterfall for nearly an hour, walking around and taking pictures. Many kids take the plunge into the pool at the base of the waterfall. Looking at the creamy water flowing down the Lata Iskandar, should I too take a short dip inside the pool? I eventually gave up the idea as we needed to rush to Tanah Rata before sunset.

Quite a few of visitors on that day!

Kids taking the plunge into the pool

I too hesitated to take the plunge too!

We reached Tanah Rata, a township in Cameron Highlands at around 1800. Overall, the trip took us nearly 4 hours, i.e. 1.5 hours driving from Kuala Lumpur to Tapah, 35 minutes from Tapah to Lata Iskandar Waterfall, 1 hour stay at the waterfall and another 1 hour from the waterfall to Tanah Rata. Stay tuned to read more on my next day activities at Cameron Highlands!

Lata Iskandar Waterfall – not the largest but beautiful!

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The Self Drive to Cameron Highlands & Lata Iskandar Waterfall by Life Is Like That, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Malaysia License.