OK so we arrived in the Cameron Highlands which is in central Malaysia, we took an extra bus and took an extra 3 hours to save some cash but felt pleased with ourselves as we'd navigated ourselves using public transport rather than hopping in a minibus!
The highlands are named after the British chap who 'discovered' them which probably came as news to the people already living there. It is a popular place for Malaysians to get away as due to the altitude it is a lot cooler than the rest of the country, the Brits built lodges up in the hills and built tea plantations that remain today.
The thing to do in the highlands is to
walk around and up and down the hills peering into tea plantations and stopping off in tea rooms for tea and scones, we spent the first couple of days pottering about on the lower slopes before attempting 'Devils Peak' (it's 6,666 ft above sea level). One of the saddest things was as you walked alongside a mountain stream the trees alongside were festooned with plastic, a trip up an observation tower was a little hairy as the first 3 or 4 steps were missing... well it was 4 by the time we left as one didn't survive our trip up... I was grateful for the tetanus shot as I managed to step on a rusty nail.
walk around and up and down the hills peering into tea plantations and stopping off in tea rooms for tea and scones, we spent the first couple of days pottering about on the lower slopes before attempting 'Devils Peak' (it's 6,666 ft above sea level). One of the saddest things was as you walked alongside a mountain stream the trees alongside were festooned with plastic, a trip up an observation tower was a little hairy as the first 3 or 4 steps were missing... well it was 4 by the time we left as one didn't survive our trip up... I was grateful for the tetanus shot as I managed to step on a rusty nail.The walk up Devil Peak was to be the high-light of our stay, it was bigger than any of the other walks we had tried but the chap at our guesthouse thought we would be OK and so off we went! Well the path was perhaps a little more jungle than we had anticipated. We were often clambering over tree roots trying to avoid spiders and imagined snakes at every turn... for those of you who have seen the film it reminded us of the fire swamp in the Princess Bride, we joked about ROUS's and tried to keep our spirits up as the skies darkened and it started to rain.
Our spirits took a bit of a dive when after an hour and half of clambering up tree roots we found that the path was missing up a head... in fact the path was still visible but it was 500 feet below together with the rest of the landslide. A glance between us was enough to decide that unless it was completely impassable we would be going on...we had come too far to give up now! We were not the first to pass that way and by following some scuffed footprints and broken twigs we found a way around but we were beginning to suspect that this had been an overambitious trip for us. We were wet, sweaty, dirty and tired and the path ahead was steep and overgrown. Oh, and our shoes were very wet again. We geed ourselves up and a tiring hour later we emerged blinking into the light to find a sign telling us we had arrived at the top... we turned to admire the view but were shrouded in mist, it had been that kind of day but we were elated to have made it to the top.
After a rest we searched in vain for a bus stop or a taxi rank but finding none we walked down the road in search of tea, it was a long walk but the countryside was beautiful and we were feeling good, the sandwiches and tea when we did find them were consumed sitting out on a deck watching the tea pickers moving along the tea plants picking the tips... we were exhausted but it might have been the best cuppa ever.
We'd been lucky so far on the journey avoiding major weather problems and making most of our connections... well the week after the highlands was supposed to have been spent on a tropical island supposed to be one of the nicest in the world before catching a flight to Borneo... well we won't go into details but we arrived in the departure town late, checked into a hostel to find bed bugs again (we spent the night huddled up on the concrete outside the room) and to find that the boat to the island hadn't sailed in 4 days due to weather and that if we got there we might not be able to get back... we binged on fast food to comfort ourselves and then swallowed the painful costs of changing our flight to go to Borneo early... as we had a day to kill, and had faced bed bugs twice in a week we booked ourselves into a 4* hotel whilst we waited for the flight... and we didn't even feel guilty... well maybe a little... and people did stare as we traipsed across the lobby... but this was Malaysia and everyone stares anyway so we hardly noticed.
2 comments:
Ah so Ben I take it you're still awaiting permission to work in Australia. The site is looking pretty though and you've got the pictures off your memory stick at last then. All the talk of tea in the Cameron Highlands reminds me of the start of my trip in Boston those years back. The hike sounded like a great adventure; the bed bugs less so.
Hey Benny I think you only have S'pore and the Phillipines to go, reckon that could be covered in one entry....sat on the beach....snorkled.....sat on the beach....snorkled....ate lots...and loved the zoo in S'pore! Go Ferrit!
Debs
xx
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