Tanja Blixen in Tea Land

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It was a really long journey from Ton Sai to the Cameron Highlands - left my bungalow at 7 AM and arrived at the Cameron Highlands the next day at 2 PM making it a 36 hr trip .... must admit with a few stops in South Thailand's Hat Yai and Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur.

The Cameron Highlands (www.cameronhighlands.com) are a plateau in the vast jungle of Malaysia. Malaysia's landmass must be coverd to 95% by jungle according to what I've seen from the plane when leaving it and on the bus. Most amazing, most humid, most dangerous (home of snakes, tarantulas, butterflies :o) )

There's not much to do except going for a trek into the jungle and doing the day tour around the diverse businesses they are trying to establish or have established - tea plantations, strawberry farms, bee farms, butterfly farms, rose farms...

The BOH tea plantation was amazing, visited the factory and had tea on the fancy balcony overlooking the plantation. The factory was founded by a Scotsman in the 1920's and he bought 2nd hand machinery - amazingly it is still the same machinery used which is now nearly an antique but obviously built for eternity.
The balcony offers grand views and I felt like Tanja Blixen from the movie 'Out of Africa' overlooking my plantations (just having swapped coffee for tea here).

At this tour I met Tomek, a most remarkable Polish young man who studied Thai language and culture for 4 months in Bangkok - I guess he just wanted to have a nice warm winter and escape the snow in Poland :o)

Tomek and I set off after the tour to a jungle trek. For what I thought a short walk in the jungle. Little did I know that we would emerge a hefty 4 hours afterwards in the strawberry fields of the local agricultural institute, covered in mud and quite exhausted as these jungle treks were more like high alpine hiking!! And later at the guest house, after 2 beers at the bonfire, I felt quite heroic to have survived all the (non existant) snakes, spiders etc!

Kuala Lumpur is just a quick side note - not very different to London and hence did nothing different - shopping, going to the hairdresser, clubbing, more shopping, off to the next city - Saigon!

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Photos

Tasting a bug
at the butterfly farm

Tanja Blixen in Tea Land
with Tomek and Eli from Holland

Terrace in the tea factory
where we had our tea - very fancy architecture for Malaysia!

Machinery in the tea factory
...original 2nd hand from the 1920's!

Jungle trekking
No idea where I am!

More jungle
The green is a feast for the eyes of a city girl!

Tomek
my compagnion in the jungel, fending off all the snakes and spiders!

Petronas Towers in smog
.. viewed from the KL tower where the view is much better than from the Petronas towers

Clubbing people!
Kimo, myself and Hassan after the clubbing night - looking really fresh there! The Green Hut is highly recommended when staying in KL.

Fancy dress
fancy having your photo taken in traditional dress on the top of the KL tower... not me but many others!

Karaoke - KL's youth favorite past time
... and everybody is wearing Xmas hats :o)