Cameron Highlands

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Although our time in the Cameron Highlands was short, it was well worth the 4 hour winding bus trip from Kuala Lumpur (a very interesting bus ride when the roads are so narrow). We were pleasantly surprised to find the weather quite cool and similar to Canada when we arrived and actually had to wear a light jacket at night. We found a neat little hostel to stay at where we immediately booked an all day tour for the following day to get in all the sights at once.

The Cameron Highlands are very beautiful and known for their nature, tea plantations and strawberry farms. Our tour started with a 3.5 hour jungle trek where we hiked deep into the highlands to scout out the Rafflesia flower. This flower is apparently the biggest type of flower in the world and is quite the mission to find. Once it blossoms, the flower is only in bloom for 2 weeks so it is a real treat when you are able to catch one while in season. Other interesting things we saw on our trek included a waterfall, drinking bamboo water, drinking fresh spring water, various flowers and plants and a SNAKE that crossed our path which gave me the creeps. All in all it was a fantastic adventure and Meredith and I were the all-stars of the group. Our tour guide took a keen liking to us (especially Meredith) and proceeded to take numerous pictures of us at each highlight of the tour as he confessed he wanted to open his own photo studio. He was quite the character and made our tour that day a lot of fun. He is Muslim so we learnt many neat things from him about the religion as well as everyday life in that area of Malaysia. He has never seen snow before!

Following the trek and lunch we stopped by the famous Boh tea plantation where we took some pictures of breathtaking views (the tour guide had all sorts of angles and poses set up for us). It was crazy to think that all those hills of tea plants were harvested by hand. Apparently it is a lot of very hard physical labour. We also visited a butterfly farm that had insects and reptiles (somehow also including turkeys and rabbits?) that was a bit sketchy but neat enough to tour. Our final stop was at a strawberry farm where we had literally the tastiest fresh strawberry juice I have ever had. Eight hours later and we were SPENT.

Our short visit in the CL was refreshing and relaxing (I drank so much local tea as it was amazing). Then we were back on the bus the following morning to Kuala Lumpur where we flew out to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon), Vietnam!

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