Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

We had a couple days before we had to be in Kuala Lumpur so decided to go into the mountains for a bit of nature. The bus took about 5 & a half hours although most of that was spent in 1st gear getting up the mountain: CH is about 5000m above sea level, which is where we were coming from. Unlike the Thailand bus trips, the lunch stops here were really good, my personal favourite being 'cup of corn', a cup of sweetcorn with lots of butter for 50 pence, whilst Jacqui delved into the packets of fresh fruit at 20 pence a pop. 

We managed to find a cute guesthouse called the Hillview Inn just outside the 'main' strip in a tiny hilltop town called Tanah Rata. There really wasn't much there except for a few restaurants & travel agents. The whole area is famous for it strawberries, and scones with strawberry jam (scrumptious). 

For our first dinner, we ate at one of the many Indian restaurants, we shared a chicken claypot and a lamb tandoori with garlic & cheese naan. Even though we were full we pursued with hot choc's and pudding which was a mistake, but we will learn....although we have been saying that the whole trip!

It is a lot cooler up in the mountains & rains in the afternoon so we even managed to whip out our only pair of jeans & tracksuit tops for a rare outing. We proceeded to arrange a day trip for the next day but found out that the Boh tea factory is closed on Mondays- bugger. And that was the one thing Jacqui was looking forward to. The sight-seeing tours involve visiting all the local attractions. A very unintentionally honest tour organiser lady told us the bee farm has no more bees, the strawberry farm involves buying a strawberry milkshake, etc so we decided to get a map and do a 3 hour hike by ourselves through the mountains. 

The next day we set off for our hike after having hot oat porridge with honey and banana for breakfast- such a cute place this! Its such a good feeling as the mornings are very cool. The mountain is thick forest and the path doesn't get walked much! It was very enjoyable as it was a nice change to all the beach and city activities we have been doing. The peak was at about 6100m although there was not much of a view to speak of. On the way back down the mountain, we took the wrong path, well it ended up not being a path at all! After slipping, sliding and jumping through steep virgin rainforest and hanging on roots and branches for about 15 minutes we decided we were lost. I think it was the having to crawl on our hands & knees & make our own path which gave it away! So we turned back & now had to crawl vertically back up the mountain to where we went wrong which luckily we found. Part of the problem was the trails were so old & washed away it was very difficult to actually differentiate between path & bush. We were covered in mud and scratches by the time we finished! We finally found the beautiful waterfall and rewarded ourselves with delicious local Boh tea and scones with fresh strawberry jam (still covered in mud) which is the best we have ever had! I had to buy 2 jars to take back with me!

We spent the late afternoon drinking more tea in the beautiful hotel garden. We watched a movie in the common lounge area (very cute) before heading out for dinner. We had western food for dinner which wasn't the best.

We left early the next morning on a VIP bus to KL.Cameron Highlands was a really pretty and relaxing stop, and those scones with cream and strawberry jam will never be forgotten!