Valley Agro Park (山寨谷休閒度假村), Bentong

About 2 hours drive away from the hectic lifestyle in Klang Valley ( I Do!), lies a beautiful town named Bentong. There are many hidden gems that you should explore in this town. Following my experience at Bilut Extreme Park (my previous post here, if you haven't read it yet), we continued our journey to another beautiful and must-visit destination in Bentong.

This must-visit place is called Valley Agro Park (山寨谷休閒度假村)which is located about 15-20 minutes away from Bilut Extreme Park. It's not just an ordinary park for recreation but it's much more than that. I would call it a resort with tons of facilities. 

Located on a 18-acre piece of originally an oil palm plantation land which the founder, Mr. Sing inherited from his late father; it is built based on the Wu Xia setting from one of the Four Greatest Classical Novels of Chinese Literature called 水滸傳 aka Outlaws of the Marsh. The founder was inspired by this novel that he wanted to bring the stories to life. Therefore, you can call it a水滸傳 themed resort because its unique built-up here at Valley Agro Park are inspired from the water town in the novel. I did a bit of a Google-ing on the 水滸傳 to get a rough idea on how the town in the story would look like. According to the Discover Hangzhou site, the Meicheng (梅城古镇) water town has a deep connection with many famous Chinese classical novels including水滸傳. I would say that the founder, Mr. Sing did quite a great job in bringing the ancient town to live - you gotta stay tune till the end of this post to be mesmerized by the beautiful setting at Valley Agro Park.

From a glance of the resort's surrounding, you might thought that this entire resort aka park is built on a lake or river or something - as the building are located on a mini lake or river look-a-like setting.  However, it is originally an oil palm plantation. According to the team at Valley Agro Park, irrigation was created and the land was cleared during the construction period to improve the ecological cycle and air quality of the area. As this piece of land is situated quite near (within walking distance) to the nearby waterfalls, irrigation was created to allow the water from the waterfalls to also flow throughout - or underneath the resort. It creates a serene scenery which is a perfect destination for a weekend getaway from the city.

Valley Agro Park offers a unique accommodation experience whereby your rooms are built on a continuous water-flowing mini lake. Plus, the look and feel of the rooms (wooden attap huts) makes you feel as if you had travel back in time to the ancient Chinese dynasty setting. Rates are affordable and you can take lots of nostalgic feeling kind of photographs or selfies here. As this resort is surrounded by natural forest, you can listen to the sound of nature (it can be birds chirping, insects cricking, etc) at different times of the day while enjoying yourself (or a 'me' time) under a green landscape.

We did a tour around the rooms available and rooms are clean :) - one of the items I will put on my check-list when looking for an accommodation. There's also a unique room in this resort which you can see water-flowing (water from nearby waterfalls) underneath the room called水上間. The room's floor are made of wooden planks that you can see the water-flowing underneath it. This room does not requires air conditioned because the continuous water flowing underneath it cools the room naturally. You might want to be careful not to drop small items on the floor - hehe.

There's also an in-house restaurant which serves authentic and delicious home-styled Chinese cuisine; organic food and vegetables in particularly.

 Thanks to the team at Valley Agro Park, we were treated to a scrumptious lunch which I love it a lot - yes, all my favorite dishes are served - and more on their menu.
  

We had the Fresh Sugarcane Juice (with no sugar or water added) which is great to quench our thirst - it was a hot day. Satisfying with natural sweetener from the plant itself.

Valley Agro Park offers fresh river fish to its customers - thus you gotta order their seafood dishes here. Prices are affordable and you'll be putting your double thumbs up at the end of the meal. We had 2 types of fish based dishes; the Grilled Nyonya Style Tilapia in Foil Packets (金鳳娘惹燒) and Green Pepper Steamed Catfish (青椒白鬚公). The Nyonya fish is good - sourish spicy gravy with natural sweetness from the fish. I love the Green Pepper Steamed Catfish even more! Gravy is good, a bit of a spiciness (not the curry kind of spicy but from the pepper) to give a bit of kick and steamed to perfection - best part, my favorite parsley and ginger are presence on the dish.

If you're looking for a perfectly steamed kampung chicken, you gotta try it here at Valley Agro Park. The Yoke Lan Chicken (玉蘭雞) is basically Steamed Chicken with Kai Lan vegetable - minus the Chinese Ham from the original recipe because it's a pork free restaurant. Love the chicken - real and mature (not those 100 days and under) Kampung Chicken where the meat is moist and a bit more bites on the meat part as Kampung chicken runs around the farm - which means lots of exercise to its muscle. Their homemade dipping paste (fried onions, garlic and ginger paste in sesame oil - I guessed, just like how I cooked it at home) for the chicken is superb (would love to learn it from the chef - hehe). And I love the Chinese parsley - delicious chicken meat with perfectly homemade dipping and a drizzle of soy sauce from the chicken dish + Chinese parsley all in one bite - it's heavenly. I guess I took all the Chinese parsley from the dish, hehe. 

We also had the Pumpkin Beancurd (金瓜豆腐)where the sauce is great - lots of pumpkin puree being used without MSG. Scope lots of gravy and eat it with your rice. I had more than a bowl of rice during the lunch due to their delicious food. 

The next dish on the table is the Claypot Braised Eggplant with Fish Cakes (煲仔茄子燴魚腐).Delicious braised eggplant (aka brinjal) in a claypot - best to be served when it's sizzling hot. The fish cakes here (known as 魚腐) is the gluten type of fish cakes where fish paste is being mixed with accompanying ingredients such as garlic and etc and shaped into balls shape before being deep fried. It's one type of traditional Chinese styled fish cakes that you gotta try.    

Last but not least, it's my favorite Claypot Sweet Potato Leaves (瓦煲蕃薯苗) being served on the table. More of this please :)

You should include a meal at this lovely restaurant when you're staying here or even around the Bentong town. 

Other facilities around the resort includes Barbeque facility at only RM25/pax (area suits minimum 6 pax) and requires 3 days advanced booking, Karaoke, Conference facilities, Camping, Miniature Animal Park, Tree House activity, touring their own Vegetable garden, Fishing (catch and release at no charge and if you would like to bring your catch home, charges apply) and many more.

For more info on Valley Agro park, visit their official website here or message them through their Facebook page at Valley Agro Park.

Bentong: Bilut Extreme Park

Have you been feeling bored lately and looking forward to add some spice to your daily routine? Fret not, holidays is coming very soon - next week as well as in the upcoming month of September. Instead of a shopping and eating holidays, I would suggest you to go out of town and be close to mother nature - and increases your family or friends bonding; spending quality time together. It means you and your close ones - be it family or friends enjoying the moment together without other distraction.

About 1 and 1/2 or 2 hours away from Klang Valley sits the yet to be explored town named Bentong. You might have heard of the infamous Bentong old ginger that make your meal more tastier. But I'm sure many people have not been to this place before. When I first heard of the name 'Bentong', it didn't ring a bell in my head on where it's located (and of course the first time to do is Google it). Bentong is a town located in Pahang and it's only about 1 and 1/2 hours drive from Klang Valley.

And thanks to Isabel and the team, I was invited for a day trip in Bentong together with fellow bloggers. Now, I can put a a check tick on my Cuti-Cuti Malaysia destination list! You'll be greeted by a lush of greens and some wood/planks processing factory upon turning into the mysterious district. Go a little further and you will be greeted by a lively small town centre; the main hub that also houses the wet market, banks, shoplots and so on. Well, you can read more about this hidden gem town here.

As for me, I continued my journey into deeper parts of Bentong where there were greens of preserved forest and plantations everywhere along the road. Less than 20 minutes traveling along the road - it's a straight road; I reached my destination of the day!

Introducing the Bilut Extreme Park; which is located at the Felda Lurah Bilut which is also the 1st Felda in Malaysia! As the park is located in a Felda's plantation area; the park is surrounded by our very own local palm oil trees. Oh well, it's not that you can walk into a palm oil plantation everyday - thus, don't forget a selfie between the trees.

So, what's there at this extreme park? The main purpose of our visit to the Bilut Extreme Park was to experience this thrill ATV ride. You might wonder why go all the way to Bentong to ride an ATV - when you can enjoy one in Klang Valley? The reason behind this is that, here at Bilut Extreme Park; you can enjoy a unique ATV (All-Terrain Vehicle) ride through a real untamed rainforest and at the same time, explore and enjoy the beauty of the the nature wonderlands of Bentong. Yes, you'll be riding an ATV through the untamed rainforest which is way more exciting than a man-made or controlled pathway. Be ready to conquer extremely narrow road, uneven muddy road, passing the cliff, going uphill and downhill to see the scenery. It might sound difficult but no worries because if I can; you can do it too!

Before you starting to ride on one through the untamed rainforest; you'll be taught on how to ride the ATV by going through their training tracks. This training tracks is being made to test and verify that the rider can control the vehicle before going through the real forest. This is extremely important because you need to get used to the twist & turn of the pathway, how to go through a slope and so on. In the event you could not control the vehicle and failed at the training tracks; no worries because the staff at the park will provide you with a refund for your own safety. But you'll be surprised on how fast you can get the gist of riding it. After being for about 10 minutes on the training track, I get the hold of it already :)

Check out the training tracks below.

You see, I can't drive on the road because I'm bad at driving - okies I failed 4 times at the test before I got my driving license and never drove on the road since then. Basically, you can say that I have no driving skills at all. But then, I can drive an ATV through the untamed forest! Thus, it's not that hard to conquer the ATV; which is also suitable for someone who cant drive on the road like me.

Basically, it's the same as driving a vehicle on the road - just that there's no cars trying to cut you from the sides and you can enjoy the mother nature of our rainforest. You just need to turn on the ATV using the key while pressing the 'oil button'. There's only 2 controllers once the vehicle is being started; the 'oil button' and the 'gear'. If you want to move forward or go uphill; just press the 'oil button' and if you need to slow down, doing downhill or feeling about to fall; just press the 'gear'. It's easy right! One thing to note is that, always keep yourself in the vehicle; do not use your leg to push the vehicle if you are stuck in a muddy slope or uneven pathway - just play along with the 'oil button' and 'gear'.

Now, you're ready to roll into the rainforest. The pathway that you will go through depends on the ATV package that you signed up for. There's a total of 6 types of packages available from the beginner (the easy level) level to advance level for the extreme & experienced riders.

We went with the Package A at RM70 for an approximately 30 minutes ride which is suitable for beginners. This package includes the learning & test drive, going through the palm trees track, even & uneven off road ride as well as stream crossing. I bet we took more than 30 minutes, haha.

It's a very unique experience to ride in an untamed rainforest as well as the palm oil plantation. You can see the beauty of our rainforest from roads which are inaccessible (or quite difficult) by foot. Imagine crossing a real stream or viewing the forest scenery from a a top angle with the ATV. The scenery is quite a beauty to my eyes but I did not take out my camera or phone during the ride for some pictures (for safety purposes and do not want to risk of losing my camera due to my carelessness) - thus you gotta go to Bilut Extreme Park to feast your eyes with these beauty of mother nature scenery. I bet you that this is one of the best ATV ride you will ever have!

And if you're an experienced rider (or train on easy ones a few more times), you can choose the package that takes you to the hilltop viewing point to view the beautiful scenery or even a sunset. I gotta practice a few more times because I wanna go to the hilltop viewing point - from the pictures which the park's staff took on their past trips; the sunset scenery was really beautiful from that point.

And if you're concern on the safety and condition of the vehicle; no worries because your safety is their top priority. And as they are nature lovers, all activities held at Bilut Extreme Park are designed to fit with its natural environment. I would suggest you to start your ride at 9 something in the morning or in the evening if the hot sun is your concern - or else; put on a higher SPF of sunscreen oil and wear long sleeves.


After about 45 minutes of enjoying the ride, we're back at the Bilut Extreme Park area. They have a counter selling icy cold drinks from its refrigerator. If you love to munch something, do remember to bring your own snacks.

Besides the fun and unique ATV ride, they also have this Outdoor Sport Archery where you can test your arrow-and-bow shooting skill. Unlike the Archery game that you can get indoor especially in shopping malls around Klang Valley, this archery at Bilut Extreme Park is held under an outdoor setting surrounded by nature. It means you gotta take into the account of the unpredictable wind factor when playing here. You'll be able to test your skill at its 3000'sf outdoor field equip with 10 target boards under the oldest palm oil trees there. The archery area is quite big where the distance to target starts from 10 feet to 100 feet.

The Outdoor Sport Archery is charged based on the number of arrows with a starting price of RM10 per 12 arrows which fit for 1 person. The higher number of arrows which you purchased, the higher the savings!

I'm not that good with archery but I was a unique experience to me. But do remember to pose for a photograph with your bow under a nature setting - you'll look as if you're the expert hunter in the movies :)

They also have a mini area which housed some cute and fluffy rabbits. Do check out these fluffy little pet when you're here.

Parking is free of charge and you can park your car at the area in front of its entrance. Do make a call to
+60146088803 or +60146088803 for booking; to secure your slot - you don't want to be disappointed if you're coming during the peak holidays period. Or do drop an email to bilutextremepark6776@gmail.com

Do follow their Facebook page at Bilut Extreme Park for more updates on their latest news and promotions!

Bilut Extreme Park is opens from 9.30am to 6pm on Monday to Sunday (except Wednesday). The park is closed on Wednesday.



Bilut Extreme Park

Lot 6776 JalanBilut – Raub, 

LurahBilut, 28800 Bentong, 

Pahang