Foolishly left Penang on the day of the general election. When the whole population travelled to their place of birth to vote. We couldn't get a direct bus to the cameron Highlands, as they were all fully booked. Decided to travel to Ipoh, transit central. After arriving at one bus station, we had to travel to another central depot. A derelict bus turned up with at least 60 people trying to get onto a 20 seater bus. We had no chance.

Once arriving at the depot, we were entertained by a local brawl, a man who was under the influence attempted to get on our bus without paying, he punched the elderly bus driver and conductor. Then was grabbed to by a gang of men who brough t him to the ground and preceded to kick him in the head. It was pretty gruesome, but luckily the coach driver was able to drive, and escaped the riot. Thats the first troubled we'd seen and were pretty shocked.

The bus ride to the Cameron Highlands was a steep climb. Passed over fast flowing swollen rivers. It was surprising to see huge poly tunnnels, strips of valleys were covered in polythene, for mass veg production. You can see why the environment was so problemed as this would have been rain forest. Later read how only one hundred years ago Elelphants and humans happily lived together. As man wiped out the rainforest for arable land, elephants would come and scavange on the tasty veg's. They soon became a pest and were hunted, now sadily no wild elephants can be found in the cameron highlands.

Stayed in a town called Tanah, in a very pleasant guest house, a family extended home. It was remarkable cooler and very wet, rained continuously. Visited a strawberry farm and a tea plantation. Established by a Scottish family. The tea leaves grow in bushes and have to be delicately hand picked.

Foolishly walked without maps through the rainforest, following a narrow track, that was not well used. Came out into another tea plantation. Worried that dusk was approaching, didn't think it was wise to walk back through the rainforest, as it was quite steep, and took hours to clamber through. The noise is really errie, with many different insect noises. So we procceded to run along the road back to the town. We were just considering hitch hiking, when we passed a Malaysian couple who spoke English, this was a rarity. And wondered why we were jogging, She really was amused by our story. An explained that she was waiting for a bus. It didn't go to our town but she was a conductor and would ask him to drop us off. What a gem, and how lucky we passed this lady, we could be still jogging!!.