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Published: April 11th 2009
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In true travelling style we decided on the bus the next day to go to the Cameron Highlands rather than hanging around in Georgetown for the bus to the Prehentian Islands. We had a couple of hours of rushing around from local bus stops to long distance ones (with a trip to Macdonalds in the middle - Chloe they keep appearing in front of us - help!)… then we got put on a VIP bus to the Highlands - big lovely armchair seats that reclined all the way with rests for your legs and…. well it was yummy after all the traveling we have done recently and it only cost an extra 2quid each!
The Cameron Highlands was a nice break from the heat and a chance to enjoy a cup of tea in the morning!! Watching the world go by from the bus on the way in we realized what we had read about the Highland was true and continuing to happen - the hills are being leveled and industry taking over. It reminded us at times of Sussex with lots of nurseries and pick your own farms (or “pluck your own”) - it was a home from home
for a while (especially as we found a hotel specifically aimed at us - “22 astro channels” being its major selling point on the sign outside - we were attracted to it like moths to a light (or a moon if you are a lunar moth!)
We went for a trek to find a waterfall but this only took us about an hour when we were expecting a proper trek - however the other paths had warnings where guides in the local town had removed signs so that people get lost and need to hire a guide to get around (cheeky!) - we were content with our mini trek and walk through the park in the cool climate. We were going to get tea and scones but are trying desperately to keep control of our unruly waistlines!
We spent two days in the Highlands and then paid extra to be taken direct to the Prehentian Islands… this involved 2.45hours on one mini bus, break for lunch, 3hours on minibus number two (with no head rest, no space and no air conditioning) and then 45minutes on a speed boat to Long Beach (one of the beaches on the smaller
of the islands - Prehentian Kecil).
We wondered the beach looking for accommodation knowing already that we weren’t on an island full of the little luxuries in life but was still surprised at some of the accommodation! It was all full too which meant we walked most of the beach and found our room at the furthest end of the beach - the room was nice… what Tanya struggled with was the humongous spiders hanging from every tree outside!! This island was living… basically rainforest in the middle and beach on either edge! We saw leopard geckos, 6ft monitor lizards (one running straight towards us at full power… we wondered what to do for a second but when it saw us it ran the other way!), fruit bats (Tanya saw something massive in the sky and wasn’t sure what it was - when it swooped second time it became clear as it looked just like batman - same size too!) and flying squirrels (unfortunately no monkeys although they were supposed to be there somewhere).
We trekked through the rainforest on the first day to see the beach on the other side called Coral Bay. We had a juice
before it started raining and we (stupidly) decided to trek back in the rain (thinking it would stop or something) - by the time we got back to our room we were drenched, our passports were soaked and everything else we had on us and we finally answered Tanya’s question from the day before “why does everyone carry wetbags around with them?” Oh … and it stopped raining as soon as we got back to the room!! Doh!
Long Beach was an interesting place to stay - the islands tourism is moving faster than their knowledge of how to deal with it … there was rubbish everywhere (India is renowned for this but this was loads worse) and we realized on the way to our room on the last night that we were right next the site of a recently exploded building - looked liked carnage with all the trees around black and petrified. Long Beach was also full of young people and we felt a bit old …. so we left for the other island (Prehentian Besar) after two days!
The larger island is made up of loads of expensive resorts but this is due to how
beautiful it is there. This island has obviously been looked after a little better and Tuna Bay where we stayed was a lot more peaceful than Long Beach (in terms of waves and also people!). However all the resorts were full all the time due to package holidays - we intended to splash out and have a nice hut on the beach (with a TV!) but we ended up behind the nice ones in a small hut over a mosquito breeding pit with huge gaps in the floor!! We haven’t worried about malaria since India when we were taking tablets but this made us slightly concerned… our response was to fill in all the gaps with toilet roll, buy a mosquito plug and coils and lots of repellent! We didn’t get much sleep during our stay there…
However the daytimes were really nice… the sea was perfect and the sand white. Tanya went snorkeling and saw lots of pretty fishes…we wanted to stay another two days but everywhere was fully booked (especially as it was the weekend) so we left yesterday for the mainland.
Another long bus journey (about 5hours) to Kuantan - then a taxi ride (45km)
to Cherating (we couldn’t bring ourselves to get on the cheaper option of the local bus - we have both been feeling run down and poorly recently so treated ourselves!) Cherating is quiet and laid back and we plan to be here for three days… we don’t really know what our next steps are or how we are going to leave here!! Sure we will figure it out… let you know next time!!
19days to go….(and Tanya is already job hunting on the net!!)
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