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Published: April 8th 2006
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Cloudy Camerons
Just to give you an idea of how high we were We arrived in the Cameron Highlands in the late afternoon of the 6th April and stayed in a guesthouse that overlooked the town of Tanah Rata. As the name suggests the Cameron Highlands are pretty high, this coupled with the fact that we're pretty much in rainy season meant that it was lashing it down much of the time.
Our guesthouse, Fathers guesthouse, came recommended from the place we stayed at in Penang- it looked ok on paper but it did feel as if we were back at school. There were signs everywhere in the guesthouse saying "don't bring in any food from outside the guesthouse" and loads of other rules- Felt like I was on a covert mission to finish a packet of crisps i'd bought from the supermarket that I was half way through. Every table in the lounge area had about two signs on it saying "don't put your feet on the sofa"-Totalitarian. The worst thing about it was that everything shut at about 930pm and everyone that didn't want to goto bed had to sit in this side room!
Met some cool people at the guesthouse though, on both nights we hung out with this
Geordie bloke and his girlfrined who'd been in Vietnam for about three years. Will seen this bloke from Norwich who happened to be good mates with a lad Will worked with- gave us another opportunity to roll out the cliche, "small world". Also met this bloke and girl from Windermere, just after me and Will had been talking about the lack of Cumbrians on the trip so far.
The first night was spent in watching "The Chronicles of Narnia" (Absolutely awful film- the animated version from the 70s pi55ed all over it!) The next day we decided to do one of the walks around the Highlands. There was a map of all of the different trails you could do, we didn't fancy anything too hard core so we done the one that only takes about 40 minutes. It was quite a nice walk, passing a waterfall and then going upto a watch tower in the middle of the forest to get a good view of the surrounding area.
After our walk we decided to head to this Butterfly Farm which some people we were talking to at the guesthouse had recommended (Its not as gay as it sounds,
it didn't just have butterflies- there were snakes and scorpions and other "scary" stuff!) On the map we had the Farm didn't look too far away, however it soon became apparent that it was going to be miles away, and then the heavens opened... Got absolutely soaked, we were about 2km from the nearest town and were walking along the side of the road in an Alan Partridge stylee (the episode where he's walking by a Dual Carrigeway to go to th Petrol station-Goldfinger..) When we got to the nearest town everyone was staring at us cos of how wet we looked?!? We got a taxi to the Butterfly place and had a look around, it was alright, something to do i suppose!
We managed to get a bus back to Tanah Rata and went into a tea shop to have tea and scones just before it started lashing it down again (This day is beginning to sound a little gay eh, a butterfly farm followed by tea and scones?!?!?) In our defence though this region is famed for it's Highland Tea, there are Tea Plantations all around the Highlands, it would be rude not to try it out.
Esio Trot
Brown Asian giant Tortoise at the Butterfly Farm Managed to escape to the refuge of our guesthouse just before thunderstorm number two of the day. We went out for an Indian, was absolutely gorgeous- Got such a big spread for about 3 quid. the Indian food around here is supposed to be really good because loads of Indians have moved out here over the years. After food Will put Kill Bill 2 on the DVD player (a bit of a difference to Narnia the day before) and that was us until about 9pm.
At about 9.30pm the Guesthouse turned into a bit of a ghost-town, everything shut down at 930, so much for that Friday Feeling. We decided to see if it was a bit more llively in the town itself, so set out with Geordie Andy and his girlfriend Charity- Managed to find a decent pub that even had a lock in?! Like being back at the Cobden (Geordie Dave: Fancy going to the Cobden for a few pints? we don't need to get pi55ed or owt! Mike: Aye could do Dave)-sweet memories!
We got talking to a couple of Irish lads that were dead sound in the pub aswell- The best part of travelling
Butterflies in the Bin
In the bin outside the Farm there were loads of dead butterflies-ugh! is as much about the people you meet and what you talk about than about the places you visit. After we were kicked out of the pub we found a place that was still open for food, we ended up back in the Indian where we'd eaten about 8 hours beforehand, I was still full up though so hardly had anything. So all in all the Cameron Highlands was a success i'd say- Managed to do a bit of walking despite the shocking weather and had a good night out. Tommorow we move onto the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.
Mike
Ps Now been travelling for two months- a quarter of the way through the trip! time is ticking.....
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