The Brinchan Night Market

Its been years since my last visit to Brinchang. At that time, both of us just got married and my Satria was really in its peak performance. (The feel of chasing a speeding lorry downhill and attacking the corners were very exciting, at that time, but now, thinking back, its really stupid as we both could have died). At that time, the Brinchan market was still being set up and the visitors there focused mainly on the Kea Farm, the towns and other attractions.

But visiting the place now, it has grown. Brinchan is now busier than ever, thanks to the market. I asked around and many traders replied that the market starts from two in the afternoon until about ten at the night. And after spending some time at the market, I started to recognise some of the traders and I realised that they are always very busy even before the market starts. This is because some of the traders are actually in other markets such as the Kean farm in the morning, plying their trades. But come afternoon, you can find most of them at the Brinchan Night Market.

What's more, with the current school holidays, it is the ideal time to make as much money as possible. And lately, there were a lot of tourist buses too.

The night market is located on both sides of the road, from the Police
Station (or Star Regency Hotel) towards the hills to Kea Farm.

The Police Station side of the market deals mostly with fresh produce such
as sweetcorn, cactus, vegetables, and fruits but no live animals.

But across the road, it deals mostly with cooked food, souvenirs, clothes
and a lot of Made in China stuff, especially Ben10toys. Nothing I could
not get back in KL. So, I was a bit disappointed for not able to get any
"unusual" or vintage toy stuff.

They even sell honey too and there are a lot of different varieties

I think cup noodles are very popular here, seeing as the weather is very cold.
So, with some hot water, you'd have a hot meal in minutes. But for the chocky
sticks in the foreground, I am not sure what it was, but I could only guess it is
the chocolate strawberries on a stick which some stalls are promoting but with
not much luck. Most of the food sold are usually the "hot" varieties such as the
deep fried chicken/nuggets/sausages, etc., sweet potatoes, steamed sweetcorns
and even corn in a cup and so on.

Maybe with the Cactus Valley and other cactus places, promoting the
plants, these stalls are also quite a hit (as soon as the Cactus Valley
closes for the night, methinks) with the tourist crowd

Again, as everyone "thinks" Cameron Highlands is famous for the strawberries,
and not Boh Tea, you can see a lot of stalls promoting strawberry souvenirs,
from keychains to umbrellas to balloons to tea to, well, you get the picture.

And here, taken from the back of the stall, is the "used to be" gimmick.
You stick you hand into the wax mixture and then pull it out, you would
have your very own hand sculpture. I wanted to try but wife was lost in
market with the girls.........

As the rain starts and stops, the traders have to set up their stalls fast as
they would never know when the big one would drive all the customers
away. So, many used the fan to quickly build the fire up.

And its a very effective tool compared to using a manual fan.

The only stuff that were not deep-fried here were the bananas, cempedak
and the lekor which is very common in KL. Here, they are being replaced
with chicken nuggets, sausages, chicken parts and so on.

The big prawns (Udang galah) costs me RM10, while the crabs are RM5 and
the smaller prawns are RM5. Come to think of it, the crabs are my favourite
as throughout the dinner, I kept eating it, with shell and all.

Since its the school holidays, you really can see the kids helping out too

Oh-oh, one look at the darkening sky, you know its about to rain.
And so does everyone. And they're going away, hopefully for shelter

But what's this? A carnival! OK, lets have a small look-see inside

Entrance is only RM3 but with the weather, no one was interested in going
inside. Even at the ticketing booth, the man looked bored.

And here is something different. A man using a hacksaw to cut shapes from
acrylic sheets to make them into keychains. Suffice to say, he's very good at
it. I saw him cutting a complex shape in less than five minutes.

But at these prices, even when its ready in 5 minutes, there were no
customers about. By then, the rain has gotten heavier.

And yep, everyone's dissapeared, even the traffic jam in the middle
of the night market.

And I was drenched because since I was the driver, I had to drive the car around to the nearest pick-up point and get everyone back into the car with only one umbrella. At this time, I really reminds me of Scotland when I was caught in the rain, where my pants were wet and my shoes had holes. We did not stay around for the night scene and I can only assume that it would be very busy.