Cameron Highlands

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The journey to the Cameron Highlands started by purchasing a ticket off a dude outside the bus terminal who directed us to a bus not actually parked inside the terminal, but parked about 200 metres down a main road, assuring us that it would wait for us to board before it left. As a rule of thumb I trust noone in South East Asia, which I feel is a good attitude to have, but luckily the bus did wait, and we had actually purchased genuine tickets. The journey took around 4 hours and for all of us, it was a relief to get away from city life, having done Auckland, Singapore, Malacca and KL all on the trot. Coming out of KL along the motorway I thought I had seen a ghost standing in the middle of the road, waving a red flag in an orange boiler suit with a completly white face! It wasn't until I saw the next orange clad man that I realised these were just dummies, indicating roadworks. Why they don't just use roadworks signs I don't know. As we ascended along the windy road towards the Cameron Highlands, we were treated to awesome views of thick jungle, with the only sign of humans, apart from the tarmac road being small wooden huts dotted along the roadside. It was a real surprise to come into Tanah Rata and find quite a built up town with banks, shops and a KFC.

As soon as we got off the bus we were mobbed, as usual, by men sticking laminated brochures in our faces and offering us a better deal than the next. We opted for Daniel's Lodge for obvious reasons, and the fact that they had over 1000 Dvds to choose from and we planned on chilling out that evening. After a film session followed by some poker at the bar, we went to bed.

The next day we hired a guide with a Land Rover, called Kumar, who turned out to be a legend and Headed first of all to the BOH tea plantations, for which the Highlands are most famous for (BOH standing for 'Best of Highlands', rather than the Avid Merrion influence we had hoped for). The tea plantations were really impressive. We were treated to some awesome views across the plantations and learned about the workers, who mostly came from other parts of South East Asia and are worked really hard as they are payed by the kilo. After having a bash at harvesting the tea (not too difficult), we headed to the BOH museum, where we sampled the local cuppa in a cafe over the plantation (not a patch on PG tips) and took a tour around the tea factory, where we were informed about the many stages of tea production. We were then informed about the vipers that live in the tea plantations, and wish we'd been told about them before we posed for comedy photos hidden in the tea plantation.

The next place on the itinerary was a jungle trek to catch a glimpse of the world's largest flower, the Rafflesia Arnoldii, stopping at a native Malaysian village en route to pick up a couple of specialist guides. After about an hours walking through the jungle with relative ease, the trek suddenly getting steeper and steeper, and whilst the guide was making very easy work of it, we were all absolutely knackered by the time we reached the flower. The fact that we had all dressed in jumpers and trousers in light of the Cameron Highland's cooler climate made it even worse. Noone told us that the flowers were an hours drive away! Still, it was well worth it, and we rewarded ourselves with a dip beneath the waterfall on the way back to the 4x4. This was accompanied by sampling the local bamboo water, which just tasted like water really. When it came to getting dressed again, there were about 100 bees all over my clothes, apparently attracted to the sweat (nice). Luckily they weren't the stinging type, but really began to piss me off when they wouldn't leave me alone.

Kumar then took us back to the village where we were shown a blowpipe demonstration by the chief's brother who was bloody awesome with a blowpipe. The tribe uses poison from the plants in the forest to take out monkeys and boars, and even tigers hundreds of metres away. We all had a go with the blowpipe, and all managed to hit somewhere on the target (from about 1/4 the distance we had had the demo from) but Larry was by far the best. They were selling souvenir blowpipes for about 2 squid a pop, hand carved from bamboo, and we all bought one. I was impressed by the intricate carvings on the pipe, and Larry said that he had some pigeons and squirrels to takek care of when he got home. My blowpipe sadly cracked in my bag the other day :'( but at least I can now avoid explaining to customs why I am attempting to bring a firearm into the country.

The penultimate place we visited was the butterfly house, which sounds lame, but was pretty cool, and certainly the funniest event of the day. As well as holding huge rhinoceros bettles and various lizards and other big insects native to the Highlands, there was the opportunity to hold a scorpion. Not something any of us really wanted to do, as Kumar had been stung twice already, but I stepped up and posed for the photo and Dan and Larry followed suit. Will avoided the chance the first time round, but just before we left we insisted that he had a go. The scorpion was placed on his palm and he wouldn't look down at it, which again, we forced him to do. As he did, the scorpion started to walk up his arm, which caused him to freak out and drop the scorpion on the floor, whilst flapping his arms like a little girl. The beauty of it is we managed to capture it all on film, and I must have seen it about 20 times now, but every time I crack up.

The last place we visited that day was a strawberry farm where we bought some real strawberry ice cream before heading home.

After another night of chilling at our hostel, we hired a minivan to take us to Kuala Besut, and then a boat to the Perhentian Islands.

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