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Published: October 29th 2012
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Here we are 1500 metres up in the mountain and it is really cool, very pleasant (apart from some screaming French children). We are sitting on the cutest balcony in a Swiss style hotel (Strawberry Farm Hotel) just up the hill from, you guessed it, a strawberry farm.
We have been joined by four Germans - two muslim girls, both qualified abdominal surgeons who look like school girls in their scarves and stuff and a couple of about our age, from northern Germany, on the Baltic coast. We have yet another driver, the gayest most gorgeous immaculate Indian guy who is excellent and ensures that we see everything we should. He is very sweet too, with his tissues in an elaborate lace cover sitting exactly in the middle of the floor between the two front seats. We are in a new Merc van, much larger, better views and very comfortable seats - wish we had seen this before!! Before we hit the hills it was a hot sunny day. Our first visit was a basket weaving enterprise - Chinese owned and Malay staff. These are large baskets made of split bamboo and used in the Highlands as containers for veges
and flowers that go down to the cities for sale. The bamboo is collected by the native people Orang Asli. These are the original inhabitants of Malaysia with the Malays (coming from Indonesia), Indians, Brits and Chinese all coming in much later, around the same time as NZ was settled in the 19th century, and doing their collective things. We then stopped at a waterfall which had a festoon of small stalls with basketware, cane ware, dreadful soft toys, sundry foods and junk. Many of the products here were made by the Organ Asli. And, as we climbed higher and higher, primitive stalls became common selling some sort of bean which apparently lowers blood sugar (with an unpleasant asparagus type effect in the bathroom), three shades of forest honey, huge bamboo shoots (good for ladies about to give birth when boiled up with chicken, Mam), a furry sort of knobbly "flower" called chicken flower which the Organ Asli apply to wounds to stop bleeding (??). We had the standard tourist stop to see a 'native' firing a blow gun - all very impressive and an hilarious stuffed monkey target. Some of the others gave it a go, but there was no way I was putting my lips anywhere near that thing!! Nor did Davie. It was hugely interesting driving up through the rainforest on a road that we would recognise - two lanes, winding up the hill. The tea farm was interesting, but the tea house was crowded and not very nice at all. We had a boring cup of mediocre tea, an excellent coconut tart and hung around waiting for the guide to have his very necessary break. Lunch was at a golf club!! Some sort of flash resort with a rumpty sort of course, lumpy fairways and nine holes closed for rennovations. But we had the best chicken curry overlooking the (closed) 18th - very like the Indonesian chicken and potato curry in the Long Bar in Brandon St in Wgtn. Yum. Last stop for the day was the blimmin strawberry farm. A half-pie hydroponic tourist attraction - strawberries growing in bags of medium, with metered water. Compulsory walk past the shop full of strawberries and strawberry products - a bit ho hum, so that was a quick visit. It was enlivened by the discovery of a perfectly preserved and totally flat frog, clearly the victim of a fat car tyre. So here we are at the Strawberry farm, fighting off the mozzies - first we've seen for a while - and even thought the temp is down to about 18 degrees. Not sure if we'll manage to force a dinner down given the late lunch. There is not much else to do here - there is a town about a mile down the road, but it is just series of local shops, nothing exciting at all. Oh, an no wifi in Cameron Highlands? I am going in search of a connection - it is a real pain without it. It is off to Penang tomorrow, another place I have long wanted to visit. The list of destinations is getting shorter and shorter - we'll be home soon, with memories and a pile of photos. It has been fun though.
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