Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Dusun Paradise a.k.a D’Paradise in Melaka

D’Paradise is an eco-argo tourism, mainly consist of a large orchard with some animals in it. Like a typical Malaysian attraction, it had many BIGGEST, FIRST or ONLY attractions under its belt, such as World Largest Cactus, Pumpkin and Monkey Cup ‘Pitcher’ Collection.

I followed my ex-company’s trip to the D’Paradise in Melaka, with RM 10 for the bus ride and RM 50 for the entrance fees (pretty pricy). The main attraction is supposed to be an all you can eat fruit buffet, and of course to see some animals and trees as well. Our bus had some ignition problem in the morning, thus everyone start cam hoaring for an hour or so.

D’Paradise is about 30 minutes from Melaka Town, and there seems to be a lot of fruit trees within the compound of every house well before reaching the orchard (indeed an orchard area). The entrance isn’t very attractive, except with a few native like statues and some sculptures, and some fake fruit trees as well (why uses fake ones when you have a whole lot of real ones). Most pathway are covered by Passion Fruit canopy, where they grows on the wire netting to provide a natural shades (a pretty good idea, as long as it doesn’t rain).

Human Sculture

They introduce us to a garden, with some plants which doesn’t look very interesting and I totally forgot about what I saw. Then we went on a buggy (a small electric car, they have 2-seater, 4-seater and 6-seater), where they have driver to drive us around (our package include thus buggy transport, and a buggy driver). The buggy ride is pretty fun, and it would be better if we could drive it.

Ghostly Garden

The next stop is the fruit buffet, where we have Durian as the main course, with mangoes teen, rambutan, honeydew, dragon fruit and etc (less than 10 types). The Durian is pretty good, and everyone is rushing for it. The fruit buffet is not in the default package, but our package includes that and there was others people there looking at us enjoying our food. This place is an native performance area as well, where the have the Sabahan and Sarawakian Tribes performing, not really my kind of performance though.

Our visit continues to the rabbit enclosure, land ‘robber’ crab from Christmas Island (the largest land crab), cactus farm, orchid farm, ostrich enclosure, Deer enclosure and grape farm. Worth mentioning is the cactus collection is indeed huge, followed by a small pretty lotus pond. There is lots of orchid as well, but didn’t quite get a good look at them. Most interesting is still the deer, where we get to feed the deer with rambutan.

Bunny MeiRu

Cactus King & Queen

Then we are backed to the Waikiki Restaurant for lunch, where the food is expensive and lousy. Somehow we missed a lot of attractions here, either it no longer exists or too small to take notice, and the guide had done a lousy job. I didn’t get to see the following
  • Must-See Rare Bird Park (I think we pass by it, and someone told us there is nothing much in it)
  • Quail (a kind of bird) sanctuary
  • Mesmerizing bamboo
  • Man-made Bird nest sanctuary
  • Pineapple farm (probably we passed by it)
  • Crocodile
  • Pumpkin
  • Butterfly sanctuary
  • Rare ant-eater (pangolin) sanctuary
  • Tropical melon
  • Tortoise sanctuary and bee farm
We didn’t visit
  • The campsite
  • Camp David Island (some super expensive and exclusive resort)
  • Native jungle walk
I think it shall be much more fun if we could drive the buggy (RM 50-70 for rental) or rent a bicycle (I think is around RM 7), but we were following our group thus didn’t wonder off by ourselves. This place is huge, and it should be fun to go around and explore a bit by our own. Perhaps the entrance fees is too pricy as well, RM 20 is more like it. I suspect they are loosing some of their animal collection. Frankly I would only rate D’Paradise 2 stars out of 5, and would add another 1 star if I did cycle around the place.

The Buggy Team

Our trip ends right after lunch, and others in our groups doesn’t seems interested to explore further (the common problem with such a big ground from with diverse preferences). After a period of hard bargain and negotiation, we finally head for Jonker Street for a meal before heading back to KL.

Quite a day, though it could be better :)

Picture Links: Meiru's Multiply, Fun Chiar's Camera, Mich's Multiply

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