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Day 42 and it was our first full day in the Cameron Highlands. We were up early at 8am for our half day tour of a local mountain village and other activities. Our guide for the day was a lovely chap called Francis (must have been the English translation for his real name). The first stop was at a Budhist Temple, which while ok, wasn't to spectacular. As we all agreed, once you've seen one of these small temples, you've seen them all. Our second stop was The Rose Centre, which was basically a Massive Garden Centre. It has loads of wild flowers and things which your parents would like and it is up high on a mountain. The highlight for us though were the 2 egg men statues, and the 7 dwarfs which we duly got photos with. The next place we went was a strawberry farm, which to be honest was rubbish. Just lots of strawberries and a shop selling everything you could imagine with a strawberry theme. After this though was probably the best stop of the day, The Butterfly Farm. Though the name suggests just butterflies, there were loads of reptiles and other bugs and spiders on display. I got some excellent photos of some leaf bugs (literally a leaf that moves) and a bug which had a mans face on its back. We also saw snakes, scorpions, beetles (the biggest beetle in the world) Turtles, Toads, and of course, Butterflys. We then headed high up into the mountains to visit a Tea Factory and Plantation. There was literally acre upon acre of tea, not the most interesting tour, but we all had a great cup of tea at the end. Luke had his first cup of tea ever. He didnt really like it, but he did enjoy his triple decker sandwhich and his massive chocolate cake (he really does like his chocolate). The final 2 stops were a Bee Farm, just lots of bees buzzing about, and then a fruit market. We then headed back to the lodge, had a naan bread for lunch, chilled out in the afternoon, had a curry for dinner, and then had a beer and played cards in the Jungle Bar.
Day 43 and we were up at 7am cause it was another travelling day, this time a 7 hour mini van ride to Taman Negara, which is the Worlds Oldest Rainforest, situated near the east of Malaysia. We stayed in a town called Kuala Tahan in a small room designed for 4 but we crammed 5 in with Coops on a matress on the floor (it was her turn). We checked out the local area and realised that apart from the National Park (30 metres over the river) there was nothing else to do. We had lunch on a floating restaurant which was really cool. We soon realised how cold it was in the Cameron Highlands because we were all sweating bucket loads here, just doing nothing! In the evening it rained, big time, so we had dinner in our motels restaurant. The food was excellent, but the service was terrible. They got our order wrong, and were incredibly slow. Coops found yet another local cat to play with and pick up and make silly baby sounds at. After dinner we just chilled in our room, well I say chilled, but it was like a sauna. We were bored so we played impromptue Boggle and Scattegories with paper and scrabble letters. I won both games.
Day 44 and we woke up late after being exhausted from the day before (7 hour mini van rides really take it out of you). We made a packed lunch and headed into the national park to do the Worlds Longest Canopy Walk. After getting a short taxi boat across the river we found out the Walkway was closed. So instead we decided to do the 3 hour trek to the Bat Caves (many batman jokes were made with cries of "To the Batcave!") The trek was intense to say the least. There were Leeches everywhere, all crawling arond the floor and trying to attatch themselves to your feet and legs and bite you. It was crazy. We also had to deal with the humidity (sweat was literally pouring off my face) and the constant mozzie bites. The Trek started badly, Helen slipped over, Burns got Leeched loads, and so did Helen, who instead of getting rid of the leech, flicked it onto Coops Face! Laura was not to pleased with this. We trekked over some real intense land (without a guide I might add) for about an hour, Coops fell over during this, and my sandals were chaffeing my ankles so bad they started bleeding. We eventually got to the batcave and were all pretty apprehensive about going in. It looked impossble to crawl into, it was wet, dark and very rocky. Luke (as our resident rock climber and general good athlete) went in first, with torch in hand. The initial entrance was difficult but it opened into a nice area where bats started flying past our heads. It was a bit freaky to start with. As we got deeper and deeper into the cave it got almost pitch black and the bats were everywhere, swarming around, almost hitting us. Some of the photos we got of them hanging from the ceiling were amazing. After about 45 mins of slipping and sliding in the cold and wet, we headed back out and were relieved to see daylight again. The trek back didnt seem so bad as on the way there, about 90 minutes. We were all in desperate need of the shower when we got back as we were so sweaty and muddy. We did nothing for a few hours, but then me and Burns found a hut across the road which had a PS2 and Pro Evo, we couldnt resist. The kid who set it up for us couldnt understand why we were picking random countries and not Barcalona and Inter. 'Burns won the first game 3-0, though he was Croatia I was Finland. I won the 2nd game 3-0, I was Togo, he was N Ireland. I won 3rd game 2-0, Cameroon for me, Wales for him, and he won the fourth game 4-2, Chile for him, Uruguay for me. We ate at another floating restaurant for dinner and had an early night.
Day 45 and we woke deliberatly early to make sure we could do the Canopy Walkway. We headed over about 9am and it was mega busy, full of Asian students on school tours and middle aged families walking through the mud (not as much fun as the bat trek). We put toothpaste on our feet as a deterent to the Leeches, though there weren't as many about as the day before. The Canopy itself was really cool, about 30-50 metres high, very wobbly walking between trees and suspended only by ropes. After the walk we trekked up to the top of the hill to the viewpoints, then ran back down. Luke and I raced and when dripping with sweat at the bottom. We showered, ate our Tuna Mayo sarnies, Crisps and Cake for lunch. We went out for dinner at a 3rd floating restaurant where we had really good Chicken Curry. The girls and Luke headed up to the room for an earlyish night and me and Burns watched Liverpool beat Bolton which was very satisfying. I then headed to bed as we were heading to Kuala Lumpur the following morning.
Day 46 and we were woken by Helens alarm at 630am as we were getting a 730am bus. We were the only people on this massive coach going to Kuala Lumpur (it was a Sunday morning I suppose). We got to KL about 1pm and got a monorail into the heart of the city near the Petronas towers which dominated the skyline. They look huge but you cant really appreciate how big they are until your near them. We plan on going up them on Tuesday as it is closed tmoro. A dodgy looking bloke tried selling us sunglasses but then realised we wanted somewhere to stay so he led us to our hostel, Backpacker Travellers Inn. It seemed very popular and well kept. We wandered into the heart of Chinatown for Lunch and had a look round the markets. Then came the mother of all thunderstorms (I think it rains here more than the UK). This lasted about 4 hours and finally when it was over we headed out for the evening. We had dinner at a Noodle restaurant. We are starting to get good at using Chopsticks (up to now everywhere has only given us forks or spoons). On the way back we stopped at several cake shops as we pondered what to have for dessert. We are all amazed how busy it is on a Sunday night as everywhere is full of people.
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