The welcome wagon at A Little Farm On The Hill is all wags and whiskers. Three hounds, one black, one white and one brown, sprint in my direction as soon as I disembark my RAV4. Their pendulum-like tails betrayed friendly intentions so I know there is no need for panic. Planting my feet firmly on the ground, I prepare to get the wind knocked out of me, but the trio simply circle me like curious sharks before deciding that nap time is a greater necessity. No longer deemed a curiosity, I am free to nose around the farm.
Surveying A Little Farm On The Hill as a whole leaves me speechless, but what fills me with unspeakable joy is noticing the minute details: an impassive gecko camouflaged among passionfruit vines, baby beets buried in their soft beds, a towering durian tree that failed to flower this year, and plenty of produce that most millennials recognise on their plates but have never seen on the stem, off the vine or in the earth. My mouth puckers as I meander past a flowering rosella shrub and skin prickles when some unseen amphibian sends sudden ripples across the pond’s surface. While climbing the rose petal-strewn cobblestone path leading to the farmhouse, a thought crosses my mind: “We are in Pahang but might as well have a foot in Paris.”