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Published: March 8th 2011
KL Carnival
Not sure what it's for but it certainly was colourfulWell, Diane and Richard had gone so we now found ourselves on our own again and flying out of Thailand before we were thrown out, due to expiring visas. We decided to head off to Malaysia for a couple of days with a brief stop in Kuala Lumpur and then a trip up to the Cameron Highlands for some trekking in the cool mountain air. As we had had a thorough look around Kuala Lumpur on our last visit, and we had to be back in Thailand in a few days to make the most of our second entry visa, we only planned to stay in Kuala Lumpur long enough to get our VIP bus tickets and hostel in the Cameron Highlands booked. We again stayed at the Matahari Guesthouse which, although had changed management, was still very welcoming.
The one thing we did do was find a beautiful park that we missed on our previous trips. Looking for somewhere to walk one morning we noticed a lake on the map with plenty of green around it so off we headed. We walked for ½ an hour or so past a deer park and supposedly the worlds biggest aviary and
Facebook at Five Thousand Feet
Well you've got to keep your status current haven't you then came across the Lake Gardens and what a gem it was. Being mid morning on a weekday it was quite quiet and so was perfect for our purpose, exercise, but even if strolling slowly was the aim, the beautiful flowers, shrubs and trees around the lake offered a peaceful, picturesque venue.
Our trip to the Cameron Highlands was by the VIP bus which ensured a rather relaxing 4 hour trip to Tanah Rata in the mountains. The transport turned out to be a better deal than the hostel we had booked. Unfortunately Fathers Hostel, where we stayed before, was full so we booked into Kang Travellers Lodge, which turned out to be a dirty, very noisy and not enough blankets for the cold mountain evenings; and at an altitude of 1,829 metres it can get quite chilly! The only good thing being the travellers we met in the social area. What we expected for £5 a night I am not sure, but we felt they could at least have provided loo roll free of charge!!!
On our first full day in the Highlands, discovered by William Cameron in 1885, we decided to go off and do some
Defo Fungus
But just a little one trekking on our own. So we picked a route that we had attempted last year and got horribly lost, and headed off into the mountains with the aim of conquering the great Gunung Jasar; a further 1,670 metres above sea level. What a brilliant trek, sometimes a little tough mainly due to the previous wet weather which had washed away some of the soil leaving us to clamber over twisting and tangling tree roots. After reaching the summit, and briefly pausing for a bite to eat, and for Chris to update his Facebook page, we carried on down the other side of the mountain and back to the hostel, but not before startling three chaps with huge nets and successfully scaring off all the beautiful multi-coloured butterflies they were hoping to snare – our job was done!!! Sometimes it is a bit of a challenge to find the beginning of the treks as they are not easily marked and often the tracks seem to disappear into thin air, but trekking in the Cameron Highlands is great to do without a guide. It was a great day out and just what we needed after weeks of being relatively sedentary.
The
following day we had booked a tour because we wanted to go and visit what is marketed as the world’s biggest flower, and the only way to do that seems to be by tour. We booked one through the guesthouse which incorporated a tea plantation, and strawberry farm as well - yummy. At 98 ringit (almost £20) it wasn’t cheap but we could see no other way of seeing the famous flower. Our driver picked us up just a little later than expected in the morning, but we are used to Asian time now and don’t worry too much about that, and squeezed 9 of us into his 4 by 4, which meant 5 of us were cosily seated in the boot! After about 40 minutes we arrived at our first destination and practiced the art of the blowpipe. The village where we would hone our killing skills was in the process of being re-built courtesy of a newly elected politician and the locals were getting some rather nice brick homes free of charge to replace their wooden shacks. Apparently the villagers here were particularly well known for their ability to track in the jungle silently and had been used
in the good old days to silently spy on the communists. After a brief demonstration by our guide we had a go at the silent art of the blow pipe and incredibly those who fancied themselves as jungle warriors were rather good – although it was only a target and obviously not a moving animal. They were in fact much better than the local chap, who gave us a demonstration at the end and was, frankly, a bit of a rank amateur after our expert tries. Now off into the jungle where we could live for years if necessary because we were now expert in the art of hunting!!!!!
Well, it was after this that things started to get a bit dicey and ultimately go rather wrong. We knew we had to do a bit of off-roading to get into the jungle before we would have to trek for about an hour, what we didn’t realise was that the off-roading would be up an extremely muddy, slippery road which often disintegrated into a very narrow track just wider than the car courtesy of the numerous landslides. To add to the excitement we often found ourselves sliding towards to edge
Flower or Fungus
Whatever, it's certainly smelly of the road which then plummeted into the jungle below. We all hung on for dear life and amid the jokes from the driver everyone’s face told the same story – what the hell would it be like coming back down. Obviously we made it safely, because here I am writing the blog, but it put a bit of a dampner on the trekking because we were constantly thinking of whether we would make it back down alive.
The trekking, however, was really nice and soon we found ourselves gazing upon the treasured largest flower in the world. Well, to be technically correct we weren’t actually as the Rafflesia is not a flower it is a fungus and the bloom we saw was not the largest one they had, in fact it was quite disappointing in size. So what we were actually looking at was a very large stinky fungus! Not so romantic sounding though, would you go all that way to look at a very large fungus? Anyway, it was definitely the largest fungus we had ever seen and we thought that if we made it back alive we would say it was probably worth the visit.
Jungle Tricks
Our camouflage skills need working on After lots of photos we headed back to the dreaded car with a brief stop off at a waterfall. When our guide asked us if we wanted to have a refreshing swim, most of us looked at him like he was from a different planet – the water was brown, uninviting and moving rather swiftly. But a couple did take him up on the offer if only to delay the inevitable journey back down the mountain. Unfortunately all too soon we arrived back at our transport where the guide asked us to start walking down hill as he needed less weight in the car for the first part of the journey down. Reprieve, so off we trekked with light steps. Well, we actually made it all the way down the hill before our driver managed to catch up to us, minus the car – strange we thought as we saw him plodding down the hill. His story, and he was sticking to it, was that while we were trekking someone had stolen his car keys and his radio – lesson to be learnt here we thought. This meant we had a wait while another car came to rescue us. After
Natures Handcuffs?
Nope a giant millipede a while of waiting in the burning heat on the main road we saw a saviour in the form of a man on a motorbike selling ice cream, boy was he the most popular chap in the world at that particular moment. He must have thought his luck was well and truly in as we all descended on him for something to cool us down. He left us lighter in ice cream and heavier in cash - a very happy chap. After a while we realised that our rescue wasn’t going to be swift so found some reprieve from the unforgiving sun in the shade of a partially built house, whilst being watched by inquisitive villagers. One of these we thought probably nicked the keys – we tried to stare them out and figure out which one it was but no-one was giving anything away! Unfortunately for us the wait when on and on and a total of 1 ½ hours elapsed before the guide rescued his car and then rescued us – not good service we moaned apparently on deaf ears. Even though the guide assured us it wouldn’t it was obvious that this little mishap would have a
Miles and miles
of lovely tea bushes (and not a chimp in sight) knock-on effect for the rest of the day.
As well as the flower the other thing we were really interested in was the trip to a tea plantation to see how it is harvested and turned into the most favourite drink. The drive down to the Boh Tea Plantation, the largest black tea manufacturer in Malaysia, was through idyllic rolling hills, where the closely cut stubby tea trees created a beautiful checkered pattern on the undulating hills. They have made the most of the public’s interest in tea, providing a nice café overlooking the lush landscape – not a bad place for a delicious cup of tea and a scrumptious strawberry muffin. Unfortunately, as we had been delayed for so long, the first of the knock-on effects occurred when we found out that the processing facility was closed so we were unable to find out how those green leaves were turned into all manner of delicious tea. We were a bit cross with our driver here, because not only did he appear unapologetic but he had failed to learn the lesson of earlier – he actually left his keys in the ignition with the windows wide open when we
Making up for lost time
Because he lost the keys, he's now got to do the tour. went to have a cup of tea - hello!!! What we did manage to find out is that the tea here is harvested by a combination of hand held machines and manual picking and some of the really gnarly looking tea trees were actually about 80 years old. We just wished we could have found out some more.
Our next stop was a Butterfly Farm, which Chris didn’t bother to go into not being a big fan of butterflies. To be brutally honest the butterfly part was really rubbish consisting of a small greenhouse type area with a few, albeit very lovely, butterflies sat around in the heat. The better part was actually the bug area attached to the butterfly farm. Not a lover of big scary looking creepy crawlies these exotic shaped creeping, flying and hopping creatures were, nevertheless, strangely lovely – obviously from the other side of the glass or far enough away to run screaming if they tried to attack me!! The chap who worked there obviously loved his charges and was more than willing to chat about them once we showed how interested, and scared, we were of them. He delighted in putting black scary
Perfect Example
of natures artistic abilities looking scorpions on our arms, reassuring us that “no they didn’t bite, but the hospital was close by if there was an incident” – funny guy. And when I say “our” obviously that didn’t include me – I was more than happy to gaze wondrously from a distance.
Our last stop of the day was the strawberry farm and was, yet again, a casualty of our earlier calamity with the stop being literally long enough for us to gobble down some strawberries and ice cream – yummy it was though. It was a shame that the guide’s mistake cost us the time we wanted on the tour and so for us it turned out to be an expensive day out which we couldn’t probably recommend to others.
We left the Cameron Highlands with mixed feelings to take another VIP bus back to Kuala Lumpur for another overnight stay and the removal of the dreaded stitches before we headed back to Thailand and the beaches and actually being able to swim.
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charlotte & Liam
non-member comment
Camaroon!
we made it into the tea plantation, but it was just like a big building with a few leaves going through the various staages. It was rubbish to be fair! The best bit was sitting in the cafe drinking the tea and watching the workers in the fields below. amazing. The Strawberry fam was similar with the this is where we grow the Strawberries, come and have some ice cream. Glad your having fun. Keep on Keeping on. xx