Colmar Tropicale - French Village and Japanese Village

Colmar Tropicale is a hill resort located in Bukit Tinggi, an hour's drive away from downtown KL, and is most famous for its French-themed resort, supposedly a replica of a collection of buildings from a north-eastern village in France dating back to the 16th Century. Another attraction of Colmar Tropicale is its Japanese themed village.

Unlike its more famous cousins - Genting Highlands, Cameron Highlands, Frasers hill - Colmar Tropicale is little known outside Malaysia; we only came to know of this place from a friend who was impressed with the French village.

Colmar Tropicale provides a shuttle bus service from Berjaya Times Square in KL. However, there are only 3 runs per day (1000, 1300, 1700) and is not cheap (RM55 for adults). Thus, we decided to rent a car and self-drive instead.

Aside: Despite being a weekday, the traffic in KL was pretty heavy and was not an easy drive, especially with scooters suddenly zipping past us and cutting across diagonally. To make things worse, the GPS we rented was an older model that need at least 5 min to recalculate the route when we take a wrong turn (the good thing about being stuck in heavy traffic is that it buys you time for the GPS to recalculate the route ;) ).
Once on the highway, it becomes a pleasant drive.

Entry is RM12 per pax, which I assumed includes the parking fee as well, since I didn't pay for the parking :D

(Car we rented)

The French-themed village does look pretty, albeit a little worn out.
This is a very small place, and other than the (overpriced) restaurants and hotels, there is little else in this French village.
Even if you try very hard to walk slowly, you would probably finish walking in 20 min.
But then, you could take part in the guided activities such as playing with rabbits and horse-riding.

Oh, one very important note: even though Colmar Tropicale is located at ~1000m above sea-level, the climate here is still TROPICAL, so don't expect the temperature here to be lower than KL.

Nice scenery from the top of the clock tower at the end of the village.
And yes, this is the entire village.

The Japanese Village is approx 10 min drive away from the French Village.
It is, in my own opinion, a classic tourist trap!
Firstly, we are unimpressed by the landscaping - we think Singapore's Japanese Garden is (much) nicer =)
Next, the "replicas" such as the Japanese restaurant and Japanese huts were small and uninspiring. Furthermore the Japanese hut's main intention was for visitors to rent Kimonos for photo-taking.

Personally, we felt that the best part of Colmar Tropicale is the drive there, haha, but would be a pleasant half-day getaway for those able to manage their own expectations. =)