Advertisement
Published: February 20th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Forest Walking
Nice shot with no rubbish to be seen....this time We decided that the Cameron Highlands would be our next stop as we'd read that it is nice and COOL. Cool being never higher than 25 degrees and not humid, which sounded like paradise to us. It was just what we needed before departing three days later for Cambodia. As it turned out, the day we had to travel there was Nick's birthday, and the travel was looking to be fairly unenjoyable as it would mean a 3 hour bus ride to KL, and then a 5 hour bus ride to CH. So poor Nick was going to be stuck on a bus for most of his birthday, but I reassured him that once we arrived in CH we'd freshen up and go out for a nice dinner.
All went smoothly in the morning. We caught the 8.30 bus to KL just in time, and Phoebe and I slept most of the way. Then into the madness of the KL central bus station, where you must search amid the shouting touts and sweaty fellow customers for the bus company or ticket broker that will take you to the right place. And it IS a search - there must be around
Eating at the Strawberry Farm
BEST strawberries I've ever tasted, and wonderful scones! 100 bus operators and/or brokers, each operating from their own squitty little window in a series of heavily crowded corridors, constantly shouting on the phone to each other to see if there's any remaining seats on xyz bus. We found one of the two companies that we knew would get us to CH and bought tickets departing 1.00 giving us enough time to rest and get lunch. So far so good. However, we then proceeded to have what could best be described as a trademark 'bad Asian bus experience'. Name of company (for purposes of shaming them) was Kurnia Bistari.
Bad Asian bus experience can be summed up thus; our bus broke down but they didn't bother to tell us (or the various other tourists and locals assembled waiting). Then a bus arrived so we got on; very fortunately it wasn't ours as someone had evidently been sick on one of our seats, and the bus company hadn't bothered to clean it up. Finally got on bus at 3.30pm which, it's hard to believe, had no air conditioning. Only a couple of ceiling hatches (no windows either) that achieved a whole lot of not-much when the bus was stuck
At the Butterfly Farm
Phoebe holding a gecko in the unyielding KL traffic. Altogether the bus was thoroughly uncomfortable, sounded dreadful changing gears and crawled up and around the hill to CH. The saving grace was that the road, though windy, was very good and the driver was fairly conservative. We resolved then to go with a different company on the way back!
It's just as well the Cameron Highlands didn't let us down and we all (but especially Phoebe) reveled in this different, temperate, non-humid world. We saw some of the tea plantations which are quite beautiful, though being still in Chinese New Year holidays the tea factory itself was closed. In fact CNY definitely reduced the enjoyment of being there as the place was packed, prices were jacked up, traffic was bad and any beautiful forest we might have seen was tarnished by litter everywhere. Still, we had to spend CNY somewhere. It's a beautiful place but a lot of it seems to be getting filled up pretty fast with unrestrained development. Ended up staying only one full day because of our flight booking on the 18th, so took a lazy package tour around on that day. I'm pretty sure Phoebe's highlight was holding geckos
Butterfly at the Butterfly Farm
You know me, just the avid nature photographer and various weird insects at a butterfly farm. Phoebe was also the focus of endless fascination from this funny group of Bangladeshi boys who were on th tour, who all wanted photos with her (oh look a blond girl, what a novelty...must take photo) - a preview of what India might be like no doubt.
We arrived back in KL on the VIP bus with air-con that we were determined to take, though poor Phoebe ended up being sick a couple of times from the windy roads (despite having taken a travel sickness pill). She was still in good spirits though and later gleefully produced an excellent drawing in her journal of her sitting on Nick's lap, vomiting into a bag with some vomit coming out of her nose and onto him!
Tomorrow we're off to Cambodia and I think we're all ready for a change. It's still Asia but a fairly different culture (Buddhist rather than the mix of Malay Muslims, Indians and Chinese in Malaysia) and we enjoyed visiting last time. Although I'm sure it will still be hot, humid and full of people trying to sell us stuff!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.147s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 18; qc: 68; dbt: 0.0849s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
christine giles
non-member comment
experiencing
So many of your experiences are similar now to mine in 70's,despite global changes.Am looking forward to Cambodian time,as i am becoming increasingly interested in Buddhism . Funny today was like being elsewhere,Jo's g/d Ella had 184 live nits in her hair so we spent much of the day de=lousing ourselves.Eventually we all hugged one another+laughed +laughed.