On a fine clear day, I went to a small town in Negeri Sembilan with Vomitz. We had a 2D1N hidden forest retreat at Awanmulan to immerse ourselves into Mother Nature.
I originally opt for an under the stars camping gateway that could test our basic survival knowledge, but Vomitz stated "more-logical" terms, that we could only do these sort of activities provided if the campsite is safe, is accessible by normal everyday vehicles and well protected from wild animals and humans...๐ Welp.
After listening to his comments and also realizing that camping could be a handful of problems, I thought of a 2nd plan. I have few options up in my sleeves, but since it was pretty last minutes, most of the resort were fully booked. I was about to let my hopes down until I remember a place where a friend of mine went 2 years ago – Awanmulan.
I settled down with this, and made my booking approximately three weeks in advance, the resort? was pretty peak on the weekends thus, we took a day off and had our stay from Sunday to Monday.
// Off to awanmulan
We departed from Selangor at 12:30 pm, following the routes waze showed, and arrived at this little town in Negeri Sembilan after an hour of a car journey. Upon our arrival, we received an SMS from the owner, asking us to contact them once we saw a Chinese school. The owner instructed us the way over the phone but we didn’t manage to catch what he said. The last word we heard was to follow the “Yellow Sign”.
We continue our remaining journey with Waze, it stops and lead us to a “locked/old” gate entrance of the place. There we called the owner, and he told us to continue our way on the right, after a few twist and turn, we finally greeted the owner, Patrick at the main gate and he lead us the way to Awanmulan.
Friends, Hangout, and Sleepover – that’s the first 3 words that pop out from my mind after Patrick gave us a tour. And through my surprise, everything looks really neat! There’s total 2 swimming pool (SkyPool and Forest Pool), and houses in awanmulan.
Every house was (majority) made out of wood, given that sort of snuggly and cozy vibe, defo a great place to chill while wanting to stay away from KL. Patrick also shared that the durian and rambutan season just past 2 months ago, and we missed the chance to have a fruit hunting experiences!
Here are some photos from awanmulan's facebook page
photo credits: awanmulan's facebook page
// Evensong
Our stay for this weekend was this quaint, beautifully wooden chalet called – Evensong. Located just a few walks to the Skypool and Sasterawan. I pick Evensong because it has this open deck balcony that comes with a breathtaking view of the western valley and the sunset. A great replacement to fulfill my to-just-sit-under-the-stars-and-chill didn’t happen camping dream getaway.
Our room was furnished with all the necessary amenities such as hairdryer, shampoo, towel, slippers, drinking water, electric kettle, refrigerator, cooking and barbecue utensils and mosquito coil just to name a few. There’s NO Wifi, TV, toothbrush, toothpaste, tomato and chili sauce, so do make sure do bring those if you’re planning to use any of that during you stay. Lastly, I do recommend to bring an extra blanket if you’re afraid of the cold.
// Sky Pool
It’s approximately 3pm, and the weather was really clear, it wasn't raining (surprisingly), nor sunny, kind of in the middle which makes a great time to have a dip. Without any time to lose, we start to inflate our Doughnut float.
I rented a Simpson Doughnut float from Let's Splash (IG) for RM40 just to spice up a typical day at the pool. The doughnuts itself is super pink and rainbow-ish which is a good contrast to the blue salty water.
// Dinner
It’s 5pm and we have not eaten any proper food since we woke up, chips and milo in the car don’t count. We decide to use the electric griller instead of the barbeque pit since it’s located inside the chalet. The barbeque pit is outside of the chalet if you’re wondering where it is.
I think we pick a pretty good time to prepare our dinner, the sun was about to set, and we could see the whole thing. We had our dinner at dusk, the orange light and skies reminded me of the soundtrack, “At Dusk I think of you” from Kingdom Hearts where Roxas watches the sunset on top of the clock tower eating sea-salt ice cream. OK so not necessary, but that’s how I feel. Anyway for today's menu we had roasted chicken, truffle, and sausages! A very simple dish by #chefvomitz.
After finishing our meal, we just sat underneath the stars eating leftover hotdogs and drinking a bottle a fruit wine. We never tried a fruit wine before, so we bought to test it out. The level is only 5% and It tastes exactly like orange juice.
// Night-time
At night, the orange gleaming lights from the valley and the city lights up and it looks different from the day. While we thought the night was beautiful we couldn’t enjoy any bits of it because there are more and more bugs attracted to the lights in our room! LOL! Instead, we shift our focus and sat on the dining table and look at the big flat wall examine how this huge fat lizard ate all those nasty bugs. I’m very much afraid of bugs and I got scare plenty of times when moths or grasshopper landed on my skin!
I evacuate the balcony once the bugs is getting out of hand (to me), and fall asleep pretty darn early, around 9pm probably. I slept at 3am the day before and Vomitz slept at 6am so we were super tired. Side note, the blanket was a lil small and thin for us and we were pretty cold, thus as mentioned above, bring an extra blanket if you're a weakling like us.๐
Not to forget, I celebrated my belated b-day there with the valley as my background.
Anyway, there’s no starry sky like I imagine, we only saw 1 moon, 5 stars and numerous of bright thunder flash. It was not raining at our side but the stars disappear time to time by those heavy clouds.
// Breakfast & Bye
We woke up at 10am the next day, with a hearty breakfast. Our stay comes with a free breakfasts set and the set is already available at our doorstep once we were awake. We were served typical Malaysian cuisine, Nasi Lemak with Rendang Chicken and 2 Nescafe sachets, very satisfying!
Our Homie Breakfast
We deflate the Doughnuts, pack our bag, start washing the dishes and prepare to check out. FYI, Guest are required to wash the dishes before checking out. I broke a plate while I was washing and Patrick was super kind enough to let me go without me paying any compensation. Thank You! ( *’ฯ’* )
We bid our goodbyes to everyone, the uncle, the aunties, their dogs and left the compound while their servants, leads us back to the gate we arrive, I do not know why but while she’s driving a motorcycle in the woods she resemble Daryl so much and Vomitz and I joke we were Rick and Michonne hunting for petrol. Ok again, so not necessary.
We exit the gate, again bid our last goodbye to
If you’re interested in having a nature retreat yourself the details are below.
AwanmulanPersonal Rating : Cleanliness : 4/5 || Comfort : 3.5/5 || Facilities : 3.5/5 || Hospitality: 5/5
Facebook : facebook.com/awanmulan
Website : awanmulan.com
Booking page : awanmulan.com/booking
Thank You for reading!
Till then,
Von ( ´ ▽ ` )๏พ
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