Cameron Highlands

Asia » Malaysia » Pahang » Tanah Rata
February 27th 2008

Published: February 27th 2008

Edit Blog Post

beebzz

markets

Ok, the Cameron Highlands were quite an experience. The journey there was probably the most exciting part as the bus driver was quite sleepy.... that's to say the least. He was actually falling asleep on the wheel! Crazy. We sat in the front and I had my eyes clawed onto his face and he must have had his eyes closed for about 20 seconds per minute! Not kidding. It was scary. And if you've been on a bus to the Highlands before, you'd knw that this was scary shit. The road was so narrow that one wrong turn could have been fatal... But as things seem to go by a different time here, people seem to be lucky all day... we made it to Tanah Rata alive and in one piece.

Admittedly, the food we found was awesome. Best banana roti I have had, made by a happy roti maker... But it was by far the smallest room (average height must have been around 110cm...), the coldest showers, and most freezing night we've had yet! No kidding. It was freezing. In the morning we had to literally beat ourselves out of bed and we had to wear jumpers! Crazy. But

BOH Tea Plantation

fun. Although the dude next door didn't seem to have that much fun as he was checking out last night's dinner again in the morning... poor bugger must have had something is tummy couldn't handle! We did feel sorry for him but we also had a great chuckle :-)

The day started out ok though, had some banana roti for breakfast and went on a tour to the 'BOH' tea plantations, also checked out some bee place, a strawberry farm (boring!!!) and a butterfly farm which was quite cute. But all in all the highlight of the day must have been the cup of hot Green Jasmine Tea I had from BOH... it's possibly the best cup of tea I have had! 2 sugars... yum!

We couldn't do another cold night, so we booked a bus to go to Penang. Silly us, cuz with Chinese New Year on the door step, trying to get a bus there that would leave on time and get there quickly.... wasn't likely going to happen. We left with an hour delay... but we were on the road... with about a million other cars, motorbikes, buses and trucks. The drive down the curvey

That's all green tea

and narrow hill made a poor fella puke in the back of the bus... not a good view and definitely not a good sound!
Hours and hours and a sweaty drive later we came to a stop to what we thought might have been Ipoh. I raced to the toilet thinking we'd be off again in no time... not likely. Funny enough the air con of the bus didn't seem to wanna work so someone tried to fix it and we had to wait for what seemed another 2 hours in the parking lot of this shabby bus terminal, sweat dripping of us... not much fun!

Well, we eventually left, and another few hours later we actually arrived in Penang. Good news... or not. We had to get a cab to Georgetown and the driver found us a hostel (of course he got commission for it but we had really no choice cuz the hostel we booked gave our room away...). Hutton Lodge was quite nice and I think it was the last hostel that actually had hot showers!!! And that was like more than 2 weeks ago...

Additional photos below

Photos: 25, Displayed: 24