Hi all,

Cameroon Highlands were a mission to get to and I ended up having to stay in this tiny little town called Tapah, as it would have been too late to do the whole journey to the CH and then walk around looking for somewhere to stay. There are only 3 hotels in Tapah, 2 of which were full - though I'm not sure why, because there really is norhing ro do here. In all it took a whopping 11 hours from Langkawi to Tapah, not recommended! The place i stayed gave me a really wierd breakfast in the morning also. I asked for a hard boiled egg and toast and got a soft boiled egg, broken into a ramikin and a jam sandwich!

When I finally reached the CH, I stayed in this little hostel called Daniel's Lodge, which wasn't dead pleasant, as my room stank of damp. I was going to move after the first night, but I made lots of friends there so I thought I would stay on for the extra night. The first night there was pretty heavy going - had a big drinking session round the campfire and pool comps at the bar until about 3am. The poor barman was falling asleep waiting for us to go to bed!

Next day I slept in for ages, then me and another guy went for a walk to a waterfall, where - obviously, as usual - I slipped over and got mud all up my nice clean jumper......Yes I am having to wear a jumper, and socks and trainers and at night I'm in my liner with a blanket and it's still cold. The Cameroon Highlands are quite high up here, above some of the clouds, hence the weather and the rain (shock horror) that starts almost regularly at 3.30pm.

So after our walk we went for a yummy milkshake and had to hold up there, as it poured for about 2 hours.

In the evening a group of us went out for dinner. I much prefer the food in Malaysia than in Thailand; it's a cross between Malay and Indian and very cheap. I also tried Seafood Claypot, which was delicious. It's a rice based dish and as the name suggests is cooked in a thick clay pot!

The next day I went on a little tour for half the day, starting at 8:30am, ouch! We visited the Butterfly Gardens (average), The Bee Gardens (average, but got to eat lots of yummy honey!), The Cactus Village (rubbish), a market (this was good and bought lots of strange fuit and corn in a cup, mmmm) and then last of all 'Boh' (as in selector) Tea Plantation (very good), which is what the Cameroon Highlands is famed for. The views were just amazing, and there was a little tour that showed you how tea that you and I drink is made.....much more technical than I expected.

Me and another guy from the hostel then started our journey to Kuala Lumpur, which proved to be a bit of a chore too. It should be a direct bus from CH to KL that is supposed to be abour 4 hours. Now I have learnt that public transport does not run on time in Asia, so it's wise to always add on an hour or so to the time your told, but in this case I should have added 4! To begin with our original bus had broken down, so we had to get a bus to Tapah and then change. Delay no. 1 - about 1 hour late. When at Tapah it seemed that the guy who was meant to be driving our bus had gone AWOL, so we had to wait for another to turn up from home. Delay no. 2 - 2.5 hours. Then the driver who came to our rescue was a very anxious chap it seems and drove like a snail. Delay no 3 - 1 hour. Still at least we arrived in KL safely.

Laters

Lynds x x