Blogs from Pahang, Malaysia, Asia

Arrived into tropical Kuala Lumpur, staying in the centre of the bustling Chinatown district lined with street-stalls and markets, and dining on seafood at an excellent Malaysian restaurant. Early the next morning took a coach up to the Cameron Highlands, driving along steep roads lined with a huge panoply of election posters (the majority depicting the blue scales of the incumbent Barisan Nasional government). Took a hot walk through the jungle to find the world's largest flower, the bright red splash of colour (about 1m across !) incongruously standing out from the dense green undergrowth. Later had a tour and a great cup of tea overlooking the Boh plantation up in the hills, followed by cake with freshly-picked strawberries at a local farm. Headed south to Taman Negara in the dense jungle heart of the Malay ... read more

We set out on an afternoon tour of the Cameron Highlands, costing 50RM each. We started at the Mossy Forest on Gunung Brinchang. We walked through the moss-covered trees and moss-formed walkways, looking at cup-like pitcher plants and caking our shoes in mud. None of us slipped over, thank goodness, although there were a few near-misses! the guide gave us leaves which are used in Tiger Balm, told us to screw them up and then to sniff them. They smelled just like Tiger Balm. After the forest, we went to a high point where we looked out over the highlands. The scenery is truly stunning, and the cool temperature was much more to my liking. We stopped by Sungei Palas tea plantation, although the factory itself was closed to the public. There were a few people ... read more

We laid in late, then bummed around until our bus picked us up at 2:30pm. We had the luxury of being the only four passengers on the minibus, all the way to the Cameron Highlands. We arrived at Bringchang's Hotel Rainbow around 9pm, and after resting for a bit, Sophie and I headed out for food. We went to KFC and were disgusted at how rudely we were treated by the staff. They originally told us we'd have to wait ten minutes for our food, and when we agreed, they upped it to thirty minutes. Knowing they were just trying to get out of cooking our food, we agreed to wait the half-hour. While we were waiting, they were blatantly slating us and complaining about having to actually do their jobs. After fifteen minutes, they gave ... read more

After a good start to Malaysia, we left bustling Georgetown for the calmness of the Cameron Highlands, around 5 hours away inland. When we got to the bus station at 7am we were pleased to see Thea and Jeremi (the Canadian brother & sister) there, who we had dinner with the night before, and it turned out we would all be on the same bus – this is how we gained travel buddies (and friends) for the next few weeks! The first bus was nice and comfortable, but after a stop in Ipoh about 3 hours in, we had to change to a small mini-van which wasn’t so great; it was another couple of hours until we were dropped in the town of Tanah Rata, the gateway to the trails through the Cameron Highlands, passing some ... read more

ooh oooh, Ahh ahhhh! . . .Er . . . I mean, we've landed in the jungle of Taman Negra National Park :) Taman Negra National Park covers 3 areas of Malaysia, Pahang, Kelantan and Terengganu. The rainforest has been recorded to be 130 million years old and is the oldest tropical rainforest on the planet as it was not affected by an ice age and has no volcano activity nearby. We are staying in a wooden hut about a mile out of the main spot for entering the park which is really peaceful, the only noise we get is of the surrounding jungle. . . The first day we went rapid shooting, which basically means you go thrashing into a rapid head first in a thin river boat and get absolutley drenched! good fun! after ... read more

The journey into the Cameron Highlands was far from relaxing and included numerous risky overtaking manoeuvres and an example of what can happen if it goes wrong (we passed the aftermath of a head-on collision between a van and a lorry), but we made it unscathed to the region's main centre, Tanah Rata. Despite being 5 degrees north of the equator and a third of the way round the globe, I felt very much at home in the Cameron Highlands. The weather is permanently like the British summer (20°C with lots of rain), the main crops are strawberries and tea, and there are lots of Indian restaurants. I spent the first day exploring the town and had dinner at one of the Indians - a delicious mutton curry with two rotis (like a savoury Danish pastry), ... read more