Social media went abuzz with the existence of Grapes and Figs garden in hot climate of Sabah. I thought it would be good to learn how such miracles of growing "western fruit" in Malaysia?
During last school holiday, I brought my family and kid to have a visit of the farm. The entrance is RM10 per adult. FOC for kids.
We were unlucky as receptionist at that time was quite cranky and unfriendly. That slightly spoiled our mood.
Her unwelcoming gesture did not help to make us felt better with the extremely hot weather at 1030am.
The guide (a young man, or the nephew of the owner), however, tried his best to answer all questions asked by us.
As the garden is a tourist attraction, any guide responsible for touring the place should have learned basic PR on giving explanation and not just wait to be asked. Can you imagine if no questions are being asked throughout the tour?
Anyhow, you could finish the trip within 5 minutes or even shorter as there are only three small sections of the farm.
You may say that it is a great achievement to grow grapes in hot climate. But it is expensive to be charged at RM10 per person for a super short trip, unfriendly staff and not even able to sample one grape (we don't mind to taste grapes bought from grocer store) or even Ribena or iced water is good enough.
We ended up go to nearest supermarket to buy and feast grapes...
As you can see at the comment section, really appreciate that the owner had made an effort to explain more about the circumstances during my trip.
It would be a different or a positive writeup if the owner was the one I met that day with detailed explanation. I hope his explanation and future improvement will benefit future visitors to the farm and in overall tourisn industry.
Thank you for the comments. I take it as 'suggestions' for future improvement. We are newbies in this biz, just started and doing lots of trial & error. Sorry for the not so friendly guide - they too, are all newbies, as young as form 3 & form 4 students. But we hv since improved alot since the middle of Dec. And ohya, we purposely did not let visitors to taste the grape in Nov and early Dec for one simple reason - to avoid ppl sending virals tht our grapes are sour. You hv to understand the nature of grapes - they are all sour when unripen. We hv scheduled the vines pruning 120 days earlier so grapes wl ripe around Christmas. Only then we started the free sampling. And not only that, the guide are now able to tell longer 'story' to the visitors. And subsequently, another improvement is the free samplingbof figs.
ReplyDeleteWhy did we charged rm10 (adult) before the free sampling? The concept is similar to visiting cinema - you see, you pay. And seeing grape clusters hanging from the arbor is something very rare in Sabah. And during the veraison stage, where grapes starting to change color from green to red/yellow is the best time to take the pictures of grape. It is the rareness tht you paid for. If you are the type of "jalan-jalan cari makan", then you went to the wrong place. You could hv asked the ticketing clerk before purchasing the ticket.
Grapevine is the most difficult plant to fruit in the hot tropical region. A lot of R&D, trial & error and modifications to the techniques used in the 4-seasons countries. Follow the youtube instructions 100% and you will fail. It took us more than 5 years to master the skill, painstakingly improving each mistake after each failure. No need to mention the high cost of greenhouses and other maintenance expenditure, but the organic insecticide (RM200/500ml) is already indicating an enermous amount of money involved prior to the success. And finally, we did it. What you have paid is the cost to see the MASTERPIECE.
Now you know it Ms Olivia, hope I can visit your grape farm very soon....
DeleteMiss Olivia, without the existence of Tamparuli Heavenly Fig and grapes, you may need to spend thousands rm to enable your kids to see the grapes cluster hanging from arbor in western conutries. Actually, as parents you shud used every seconds of the visits as learning experience for your kids, and not just waiting for the young boy to explain coz you know better what is the best for them.
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