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October 21st - October 23rd
So we left our humble accommodation and found our way to the bus station. Due to Declan's dithering we missed the early bus and had to wait 3 hours in a sweaty bus station, full of nutters. Mel spent the time productively swotting up on Australia while Declan decided to start writing the 'next Harry Potter'. Eight chapters in, it's a real page turner. J
We got on the bus and headed to the Cameron Highlands. The trip was short but it was a very windy road and we spent the last half hour, bumping each other from side to side. We got into the town and noticed something really strange. The Cameron Highlands has exactly the same weather as a summer in Blighty!!! It wasn't very sunny, it was cold at night times, and it rained pretty much every day. At first we enjoyed the cool breeze, however as soon as the sun went down, on came the joggers, leggings and coats! We headed out for dinner and a look around, standard first day thing to do. We had skipped breakfast to try and get the early bus so by this time we were starving. We stopped off at a small restaurant and ordered. Mel had chicken noodles, which she hated. Declan had a cheeseburger. Now it takes a very special kind of person to ruin a burger, it is a very simple meal. A bun, some cheese, the burger and maybe salad, the chef might add mayo if he thinks it needs it. Mayo, tomato sauce or Big Mac sauce are the only sauces that should ever be added to a burger by a chef, the customer can then add whatever else he thinks necessary. So why in the name of all things holy did the chef at that restaurant decide to add a sweet chilli jam and ruin Declan's dinner. Fuming wasn't the word, and it took a chocolate éclair before he stopped ranting about it. On our short trip around the town we also found a massive playground that 'we' stopped to play at. There was also some gigantic fruit and vegetables, made of metal, sitting in the town centre, that kept us amused for a while. The Cameron Highlands is a very important place in Malaysia as the cool climate makes it perfect for growing fruit and veg which get shipped all around the country, hence the statues. We settled in for the night in the first room we have had that didn't have air con or even a fan, it did have a duvet and by Christ we needed it.
The second day we decided to keep it with the recent DIY attitude to our trip. We bought a map with all the different treks that could be done without a guide. We studied the map hard and chose the shortest one we could. We headed off up through the town and into the great unknown. Well kind of. The trail we were walking on lead us to the second highest hill in the region. We trudged up and over fallen trees, scaled the steep inclines and bullied our way through the thick forest. We eventually arrived at the top and could see all the different fields growing food. Strangely there was also a man with a giant net catching butterflies, we didn't ask what for. We started off on the long plod back down and were 95% of the way there before the heavens opened. As you may well remember, a certain someone lost our raincoats during the first week of being away. We hadn't seen a point in getting anymore as it was sunny everywhere we went. We needed them this time. We managed to find shelter and waited an eternity for the shower to pass. We made our way back to the town and called off our second trek. We were tired anyway. We saw out the night with a hot chocolate in Starbucks while Mel surfed the net and Dec wrote his 'novel'.
The following morning we rose at the ungodly hour of 8:00am to go on a tour of the regions farms, temples and markets. We jumped in an old 1960s Land Rover and were given a short history lesson from the driver. The region was discovered by a British surveyor called William Cameron, hence the name. Many Moons ago British troops would come here for its cool climate to relax. The Brits loved the region so much they built the town and farms. During the Second World War they used the place to grow food and littered the land with Rovers to get it place to place. Even after the Brits left the Malaysians loved the Land Rovers so much they kept importing them in. Our driver had been driving his since he was twelve and didn't stop talking about it for the whole morning. He was very impressed we came from where they were built. Our first stop was a rose garden; the Highlands also supply the country with flowers as it's too warm elsewhere to grow them. The rose garden was full of different flowers and bushes. To make the place more touristy they have also painted the walls with pictures and have random statues of Disney characters dotted about. However after climbing up nearly a million stairs we came to the top of the garden where they had also built a Giant shoe. Like the children's story that refers to the women who lived in a shoe. The next stop was the Honey farm. This was basically hundreds of bee hives in a garden that you could walk around. Highly dangerous, we know, but we walked around it anyway. Again in keeping with the policy of making things touristy, dotted amongst the devilish creatures were larger versions with buckets, spades and smiles. After getting close enough to a hive to take a picture, Declan screamed like a girl and we decided to leave. The entrance building had samples of the honey the bees made and it was actually very nice.
The next stop was a butterfly sanctuary. There were thousands of butterflies in a covered garden. Now these weren't normal butterflies, they were huge. As we wandered around hoping we wouldn't be eaten we saw plenty of other giant insects and pondered why they don't just take over the world. We saw Stick insects that took an age to find. Leaf beetles that were so camouflaged they needed pointing out and randomly a tortoise. Not your average tortoise, this one was a 'Black Asian Giant Impressed Tortoise' (see pictures) quite what he was so impressed about we didn't know. Luckily for us there were a group of school children running around, one of them kindly placed a humungous butterfly on Declan's arm and then they ran off leaving it there. After failed attempts trying to shake it off Melanie manned up and took it off the flailing arm of the giant sissy. Next up was a strawberry farm. We decided to eat some breakfast and washed it down with a strawberry tea. After, we were taken to a Chinese temple. We've seen plenty of these and made our round quite quickly.
Our final stop was a tea plantation. Obviously if the Brits started this place they would bring their favourite drink. The tea plant is the major crop grown in the Highlands and people can't get enough of it. The tea we drank was lovely a fresh. Unfortunately for the Malaysians they haven't quite discovered how to pasteurise or skim their milk, therefore making the whole drink taste rotten. Drinking it black however was just as nice. In keeping with tradition we stopped off in the afternoon for some more tea, this time with warm scones and jam. We got an early night as we had an even earlier start the next day.
Next stop, Pangkor, the last island of our tour in Asia.
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