Chilling up a hill.

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We arrived in Tanah Rata just as the rain came on and it chucked it down! A proper tropical storm. Our journey had begun the night before when we left Kota Bahru for the train to Kuala Lumpur (KL), 15 hours later we arrived and hunted down breakfast before catching a 4 hour bus up to the Cameron Highlands. It was a lovely, if twisty, drive up the rain forest covered hills. We couldn't believe the size of the ferns and banana leaves growing at the side of the road, they were massive. The ferns were at least 3m tall! Nothing like that on Stoneymollan.

Unfazed, we headed out in the rain (an urgent trip to the laundrette) and got wet. It's not so bad being wet here as it's still warm enough to dry you off quickly, not like in Glasgow where it just seeps into your bones and freezes you from the inside out. There were lots of Indian restaurants on the front serving up several veggie dishes on a banana leaf for not so many Ringit- result, tasty food at last!

The Cameron Highlands, as well as being a place popular for escaping the heat of the coast, was found to be the perfect place for growing vegetables and tea. The soil is slightly acidic and the temperature is fairly even all year making it particularly suitable for growing strawberries. We headed up the hill on a local bus to the Boh tea plantation. It was apparantly a 4 km walk from the bus stop but we're not convinced it was measured accurately, the signs kept contradicting each other. The rolling hills were covered in tea bushes as far as the eye could see. It's not like we expected, wee wiry bushes supporting a vast number of shiny dark green leaves. It didn't smell of tea at all. After a refreshing cup of coffee in the tea shop (can't stand tea) we had a tour of the factory and saw the leaf to bag process in action. It reeked of tea in there!

The staff appeared to be made up of Indian expats (perhaps tea experts?) and the staff village hosted a Hindu Temple. The school (quietest school I've ever passed - should have gone in for some tips) had a motto on the door - 'Better late than never'. Think I went there in a previous life. A good tea leaf picker could pick up to 120 kg of tea per day, although there are machines used nowadays in some of the tea plantations. Fascinating stuff, I'm sure. Got caught in another rain storm on the way back so took refuge in the strawberry farm shop. They sold everything strawberry related in there but we were only interested in the edible things. We tried strawberry cookies, white chocolate with strawberries through it, honey-dried strawberries and strawberry ice-cream. Fortunately the rain stopped and we didn't have an excuse to stay longer.

Apart from walking on the various trails aroung the hills, there wasn't much else to do in Tanah Rata. It was really pretty and great to breathe fresh air but we only stayed a couple of nights before heading back to KL.

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