The Trio in the Trees

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After a fairly painless bus ride into town, we got to our guesthouse without a problem. It is much cooler here temp wise so a hoodie and pants can finally be warn comfortably. A break from sweating is a nice change. Its our guesthouse is an ok place...dorm rooms...shared toilets and showers but really cheap. About 3 bucks per person per night. Not bad. Plus this place comes equipped with about 1,000 bootleg movies including all the newest movies like James Bond and Tropic Thunder. It also had a small bar with a few hits like Phil Collins...Sting...and a live Iron Maiden album. I got kicked off the stereo when i put that one on. HA! We grabbed some Indian food for dinner...some delicious black pepper chicken with clay pot noodles. really good! We went to bed fairly early because we booked a tour of the area for the morning. I woke up a few times in the night to the sound of a guy farting in his sleep. very pleasant. A few other times to the same guy snoring and talking to himself. Normally i am the guy that snores...but this guy took the cake. It happens in dorms, we have been lucky to get triples as often as we have.
i didn't get too good of a nights sleep but we still had to get up to do our days adventures. Tea farm, bee farm, flowers, butterflies, strawberries...and a Buddhist temple. At first i thought this plan sounded like a great day for my grandmother to enjoy, but it actually was surprisingly cool. I got to see how tea is made then sample some of the delights...we all split a few drinks. All were good but the most odd was also the most delicious, it was teacino. A tea based cappuccino. tasty stuff! See, up until this trip i hated coffee and all that came with it...frappuccino, mocha, cappuccino, grande, venti, non fat, no whip...blah blah blah...but traveling with Jeff, a former 7 year vet of Starbucks, i see things in a whole new light. I freaking love the stuff. I pretty much make Jeff order for me because i still haven't caught on to the lingo. Anyway, back to the story...the tea was good...all of it...warm, iced, teacino. Everything. If you get a chance try BOH Tea. It is the best in Malaysia. Well, actually BOH stands for "best of highlands" but i think there reign extends much further. The guide spit out some ridiculous number of how much tea they produce...something like a 880,000 cups a day. that's kind of a lot.
Everything else was pretty cool too. Butterflies the size of your fist, snakes, frogs, lizards, and spiders. Not a huge fan of creepy crawlers but some of them looked pretty cool. Stick bugs that blend in to the plants. Leaf Frogs...self explanatory. I even got to play with a huge black scorpion. It was actually the same kind i ate in China. They look so much better deep fried.
After the tour we had lunch at another Indian restaurant. I am really diggin' this stuff. A little spicy...loads of flavor...and they dip just about anything in this amazing sauces. One of them almost tastes like a thin bean dip. Yum. All in all a pretty cool day.

The next night was not too bad of a nights sleep, we were just woken up a few times by some Chinese guy groaning in his sleep. odd. In the morning we got rolling and headed out for some breakfast to carbo load before a day of hiking. We decided that it would be more cost effective if we buy a 4 ringgit map and go on our own as opposed to a 70 ringgit tour. We found some trails that were pretty cool. Lush jungle off the beaten track. We hiked for half the day and didn't run into a single person. A welcomed change. It was a pretty neat hike...didn't see any monkeys or anything but i guess we will have a better chance in the next place.

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Photos

Hef and Rhino Beetle
the man can grow a healthy beard!

cool plants
Fun Fact: the loose term is monkey cup but the liquid that is in these plants is too acidic for monkeys to drink. Also, the liquid is used to attract insects. The insects become stuck and the plant eats them...yummy.

Comments

[Pam]

My Favorite things
Boy this sounded like a day in paradise to me - 2 of my all time favorite things - tea and butterflies all in 1 day!! Sounds like a great time the last few days - calmer and less moving around - glad you are having times like that - love you honey Pam

[Cameron]

Farts
I was the guy farting.