Smell the Mountain Air!

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Cameron Highlands.......oh how I love theeeeee! Many a times in a traveller's journey you wish you could have a personal mode of transport, or at least not a slow, old questional bus. This time we wouldn't trade it for nothing.......okay the Rider's taking the Cup would suffice, BUT not much else! By car the trip would take 2hrs to get from KL to Cameron HL.......by our snail pace bus 3.5hrs. As we left the city the sky started to open up and the busy streets left behind to be replaced by highway and lush rolling hills. As the ride continued on and up, the hills turned to lush limestone mnts, the roads turning into switch back after switch back. If not for the beautiful scenery and massive windows, the turtle pace and lull of the bus would have both of us asleep.

Cameron Highlands is home to Malaysia's tea plantations and strawberry farms! OMG are you kidding me!!! (and also has a Starbucks?!!??!?!!?!) So to say that the view here was fantastic is like saying a cold beer on a +30 SK summer day isn't too bad! HA! The plantations carpet the hills and seem to be at covering every inch of land that isn't covered in forest. Also there where endless amounts of trails to wonder/run through the trees and valleys. We made sure to head out on a tea plantation trip that explained everything you could ever image about tea. Including that the largest tea plantation is owned by a Scottish family, hahahahaaa random! To add this knowledge to someone who ALREADY LUUUUUUUUUVs tea was unreal! The old guy that was showing us around also took us to the highest peak in the area to climb the lookout tower with 360 degree view of the area, could have stayed there alllllllll day! THE COOLEST PART, we could hear so many monkeys talking and calling out to each other from one end of the forest to the other! We also took in some "trekking" and made our way through the trees learning about different plans in the area used for medicine, eating and building materials. The forests in the highlands from a far where unreal, they where really really incredible moss mazes of trees, flowers and vines once you got onto the trails. To finish off the excursion we went to the Bo Tea Plantation that has a tea processing plant, honestly the BEST smelling factory I have ever been to! The finishing touch: Enjoying a warm cuppa goodness overlooking the fields the same leaves had been growing in only wks before. xo

Koop and I also made sure to get in a run or WOD every morning as the temp was perfect AND where there are strawberries there are home made waffles with whip cream, one of Bryan's 5 hundred strawberry weaknesses, the others being chocolate dipped, fresh strawberry milkshakes, dried strawberries, strawberry ice cream, etc etc.....;0) We had a beautiful guesthouse to stay in that was in an old British style villa in a very sleepy quiet part of town. Once we had our fill of tea and strawberries, it was time to dash. From here, next heading to Thailand.......

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