Cameron Highlands and Beyond

---

We left Georgetown at 6am and spent the next 4 and half hours winding our way up into the Cameron Highlands. We were both feeling a little car sick by the time we arrived at Tanah Rata and were wandering whether we had chosen our destination wisely as it wasn't anything like we imagined it would be. The highlands were renowned as a vegetable, strawberry and tea growing area, as well as a popular tourist destination. We had passed dozens of vegetable farms which were really ugly as the plants were all covered with white plastic roofs so the 'green' hills were actually glowing white. The first town of any size we came to was full of tall apartment blocks, all of which appeared to be vacant. We found out later that they were holiday apartments and they are only occupied about 3 months each year. There must have been thousands of units! Amazingly they were virtually all booked out for the next two months over the Malaysian, then Singaporean school holiday season. Thankfully we were not going to be here then,
Tanah Rata was however much smaller, comprising of a main street lined with restaurants, tour company agencies and small general stores cum souvenier shops. Our bus driver took us to a guest house which was on a hill overlooking the town - Father's Guest House - and it proved to be a very friendly, clean and well run place. It was full of foreign backpackers and we enjoyed talking to them and hearing some of their stories. They comprised of many females of all ages traveling alone, some couples but only one solitary male. We've always noticed that women outnumber men traveling alone. The guest house had lovely landscaped gardens and a steep flight of stairs down to the main town On the hill opposite was a lovely old stone and brick convent, once also a British military hospital during the troubles of 1948 to 1960, now a primary school. We were surrounded by green misty hills and no plastic sheets!
Setting off to explore we discovered a lovely children's park, a hideous clock, an even more hideous, though very colourful, statue of vegetables and the usual assortment of plastic palm trees (they light up at night - very popular in China when we lived there) and floral lampposts. The streets were full of old landrovers and we found out later that this area has the second highest concentration of landrovers in the world. Next day we set out to do one of the walks but couldn't find the pathway anywhere. One of the young guys at the lodge did find it, but said that it was very rough and not easy to walk on. Probably lucky we didn't go as that afternoon it rained heavily for hours. The atmosphere at the lodge was great and the food fantastic so we felt no need to go anywhere anyway.
The following day we planned on going for a day trip to see the Raffelsia flower which was in bloom in one of the forests nearby but canceled it after people who had been on it that day told us how rough the 4 wheel drive to see it was. There was also a steep climb to see it which would have been very muddy and slippery after the rain that day. We did go out though on a half day tour to the summit of the highest peak in the Highlands (1576 meters), a very pretty mossy forest where we saw many more pitcher plants and the oldest tea plantation in the Highlands, the Sungai Palas tea estate under the BOH banner which was started by a Scottish man and is still run by his grand daughter.
We loved seeing the undulating forms of the tea plantings over the hills - it was very picturesque - if somewhat foggy. We certainly didn't see any views from the summit however because of the heavy fog. After the requisite cup of tea at the plantation and a tour to see how they actually processed the tea leaves - it is crushed and then exposed to air for different lengths of time (length of time exposed is what makes the difference between black and green tea leaves). On the way back we stopped at a strawberry farm where strawberries are grown year round in those nasty white plastic sheds. The strawberries went very well with that evenings banana pancakes and icecream!
We would have loved to have stayed in the area longer but whilst there received notification that our visa approvals had come through and the Indian embassy needed our passports to put the visas into so we decided that we had better go back to KL. Up early next morning and the 4 hour trip got us back to KL one hour before the visa office shut. We had planned to catch an afternoon bus south to Melaka to spend the weekend there before returning to KL 3 days later to collect our passports and head off to India. However it was too hot, too busy (school holidays started that day and Melaka is a top local holiday destination) so just headed back to our familiar hotel in Chinatown instead. Jerry and I went off on our separate ways over the next couple of days. He visited a big flea market in the suburbs and the National Museum which he said was really good, and I spent one day quietly at the hotel and the other day at the largest shopping centre in KL. It was absolutely enormous and I couldn't find my way out of it at the end. I spent a bit of time wandering the shops but most of it reading in a couple of cafes. A couple of very enjoyable hours were spent having a massage and some more relexology, plus half an hour with my feet being nibbled by fish. Three different tanks of fish - in each tank the fish got progressively bigger. Quite fun but preferred the reflexology. I wanted to see a French movie that was on at the cinemas there - all 25 of them - but took one look at the ticket queue and left quickly.
We collected our passports from the visa office (we were very happy to get them!) and next day left our hotel bound for the international airport. We were able to check in our bags at the railway station in central KL which gave us the rest of the day luggage free to explore Putra Jaya which is the purpose built city for the Malaysian government. Putra Jaya was halfway to the airport and easily reached by express light rail. A very interesting city full of amazing architecture, an enormous man made lake which was so large it had 8 bridges over it joining the various areas of the city together. Each bridge was of a totally different design and eventually there will be 14 bridges which will be definite overkill but hey, it's government money! No shopping centres though so where people shop I have no idea.
It was a great way to finish our time in Malaysia, though both will be happy if we never go back to KL again. The things we enjoyed most about Malaysia were the great mixture of religions, the monkeys, the friendliness of the people, the ease of communication, the cucumber and lemon juice drinks, Kuching, hearing the call to prayers from the Mosques and the Petronas Towers at night.
Our flight to Mumbai was due to leave at 8.30pm however was 3 hours late leaving due to a malfunction on the plane. We eventually arrived at Mumbia at 3am in the morning. It was 5am Malaysian time so we were very tired and feeling quite apprehensive about what the next few months were to bring.

---