Thursday, December 18, 2014

Johor - Kahang Organic Rice Eco Farm (Koref) 2014

Zaria and her gymnastic club went to Singapore early December for a competition and because she's still so young, we kind of 'accompanied' her on this trip although we only saw her on competition day (oh well, we did sneak into her Hostel to check on her the 2nd day she was gone to make sure she was ok).

After the competition, we went to Kluang, as we were not willing to spend more in Singapore since the exchange rate is so high. Prior to making this trip, a couple of friends has already recommended some places to visit in Johor, the girls shortlisted Kahang Organic Rice Eco Farm 加亨有机稻米生态农场 (Koref).

Koref is about an hours drive from Kluang. Upon arriving, we had to decide what we plan to do to pay for the relevant fee.

RM10 for a day spent there, with light refreshment provided.
RM35 for a day spent there + lunch.
RM50 for a day spent there + lunch and tea snack.
RM60 for full day spent there with lunch, tea snack and dinner provided.
(Prices of farm entry can be found here)

We decided we'll go for the 2nd option.



The day we were there, there was only another family on a day visit and another group who's about to check out, it wasn't very busy, which was good for us.

Soon after we'd paid, the girls started trying their hands on rafting under the hot scorching sun!




The water is actually very shallow, the deepest end is probably just waist deep, and since the girls know how to swim, I left them rafting on their own while I stayed in the shade and walked about the farm.

Koref has farm stay too, the most luxurious ones are water chalets are built around the shallow pond with colourful wooden walking linking them.


Rooms are pretty basic, but I love the colourful deco and mural drawn on the walls of the chalets.


There are some dorms or bigger rooms for sharing as well, they are all colourfully painted.


Besides rafting, there is an obstacle course built on the pond. The girls had a go at it. Did they get wet? They did get a little wet, but didn't fall into the pond.






However, Zaria dropped her slippers into the water crossing a path, and had to go into the water to retrieve the slipper even though she could have asked for help from the guides there. Oh well, she's the sort who doesn't mind getting dirty, so it was fun for her.


Lunch was served at the time we specified during registration. It was a meal of organic rice (grown in Koref itself), organic vegetable, organic eggs etc.
Besides the dishes shown here, we also have a steam Tilapia fish from their pond. Not bad actually for the price we paid.

After lunch, we had the girls walk with us to explore the farm together. Besides water activities, there are little animals around the farm roaming about freely.

The girls chased rabbits around, carried them, fed them kangkung they harvested themselves.




They found eggs in dirt pens and saw protective hens hatching eggs.
I think this hen has been conned into hatching normal eggs as the eggs we found on the dirt pens around were all white in colour, but this particular hen was hatching brown (supermarket?) eggs.

Further away, we found 2 goats in their pens. We could pat them, feed them and got really close to them.


We got so closed to the goats, we noticed the goats' pupils were rectangle in shape instead of circle (does this apply to all goats or only the goats found here?)


Walking further away, we saw the padi fields, the tilapia pond, where the fish for our lunch came from.


The farm is not just a visitor farm, it's actually a working farms, farmers or workers were toiling in the fields.


Egrets were found around the padi fields, some even taking a plunge at the tilapia pool grabbing a fish for lunch.


Of all that's to be done and see at the farm, the girls still like the rafting the most.


By evening time, they were already experts. Even the young guides (students working during the long holidays) said they were getting really good.


I think we got our money's worth spending such a long day there.

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